2Return celebrates 15-year anniversary: a sustainable milestone in packaging reuse

In 2025, 2Return proudly celebrates its 15-year anniversary - a milestone that stands for innovation, collaboration and above all: sustainability. In 2010, Managing Director Toine Domensino decided to found 2Return after a career in various logistics roles. ‘The challenges of packaging management that I saw during my various roles motivated me to start a specialising logistics company’, Toine says. With Arjan Kuiper, the former CEO of Rotom, a partner was found who acknowledged the business plan as a good complementary service to the existing business activities. On 13 April 2010, with the signing of the founding act, the existence of 2Return became a reality.

What started in 2010 as an ambitious greenfield operation has now grown into a leading company in the world of reverse logistics and pallet management. As a proud subsidiary of Rotom Europe, 2Return has proven to be a pioneer in reuse and efficient material flows in a relatively short time.

Sustainability at the heart of strategy

From the very beginning, 2Return has set sustainability not as a trend but as a starting point. Through smart return logistics and streamlined processes, the company is fully committed to reducing waste and extending the life of logistics assets. One of the biggest successes is the reduction of wood consumption for pallets, a key focus in a world that is increasingly critical of the logistics sector's impact on forests and nature.

Already in its first year, 2Return introduced ‘pallet banking’ based on  which, taking advantage of Rotom's many locations in Europe, it collects europallets for customers in one country and redelivers them in another country.

Reuse as foundation

The core of the 2Return model revolves around reusing pallets and other logistics carriers. Instead of producing over and over again, the company focuses on the efficient collection, inspection and redistribution of existing resources. Especially parties with their own packaging flows, which cannot use a standard (pool) model or packaging type, are served with the management of return flows by 2Return. Meanwhile, 2Return has become a valued partner of its customers with a complete return service for pallets, crates and other packaging. This circular approach not only reduces the environmental footprint, but also offers customers an economically attractive alternative to traditional supply chain methods.

The wooden pallet in particular causes unnecessary felling of trees while it has a short lifespan, which 2Return has summarised in the term ‘WOOD-OVERSHOOT’. Pallets made from fresh wood are recycled after only 2-3 years on average, while the wood for 20 pallets comes from 40-year-old trees.

A proud greenfield start-up

The growth of 2Return did not happen by itself, but is the result of vision, guts and perseverance. The fact that it started as a greenfield initiative - without any existing structures or systems - makes its success all the more impressive. With support from Rotom Europe, a solid foundation was laid that today not only endures, but grows in abundance.

Thank you to shareholders and employees

With the 15-year anniversary it’s time to reflect on who made it all possible. Our sincere thanks go to our shareholders, who have shown confidence and support in our model from day one. But above all: a big thank you to all current and former employees. Your efforts, knowledge and commitment have shaped 2Return into the company it is today. This milestone is therefore a joint achievement - one to be proud of.

Looking ahead: ‘What's 2Come’

The future of 2Return looks promising. With the growing demand for circular solutions, a healthy continued growth lies ahead. To promote this reuse of packaging and packaging materials, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) will become active from next year. This new European regulation requires all transport packaging, such as pallets used by suppliers to deliver products, to be reused.

Using a chain-wide approach, 2Return ensures a PROFIT-effective reuse of pallets for service users. With the PROFIT campaign, we will further explain our definition of PROFIT in the coming period: Planet Reuse Organic Future Invest Together

We continue to invest in innovation, digitalisation and partnerships, always with reuse as our guiding principle. Because in an increasingly fast-changing world, one principle remains true: waste is history, reuse is the future!

On to the next 15 years!

During the anniversary year, we will use our specially designed logo: