National Reuse Measurement Guidelines

The intention of this manual is to provide a framework for measuring the impact of reuse organisations. The primary target audience is members of Charitable Reuse Australia (formerly Charitable Recycling Australia), who have participated in the codesign and testing of this approach to date. These guidelines may also be adopted by other reuse organisations, including commercial enterprises, where measurable social, environmental and economic impact is being created. They are not intended to replace existing impact measurement systems, but to provide an overarching reporting framework that drives sector-level growth through demonstrating the collective impact of reuse organisations in Australia.
Organisational-level data on environmental, social and economic impacts is to be collected from individual reuse organisations and reported annually to Charitable Reuse Australia, who will be responsible for collating, harmonising, interpreting and reporting of the data. Charitable Reuse Australia may also recover and report on specific datasets. For each type of data, options at a number of ‘Tiers’ are provided, with the assumption that many organisations will report data at a lower level of detail unless there is an appropriate incentive structure (e.g. government funding) to support data collection and reporting at higher levels of detail and accuracy. This document is based on research and fieldwork conducted by Monash University and Charitable Reuse Australia between 2019 and 2022, and updated based on (Heinrich et al. 2024) and Bontinck and Grant (2024).