A new report from the Ellen MacArthur, the 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business, has won the backing of companies including Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, L’Oréal, Nestlé, SC Johnson, PepsiCo and Unilever who are reaffirming their support to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Commitment 2030.

The 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business calls on businesses to work together, not just on their own, to drive market transformation. Reflecting on a decade of progress, it defines what’s needed to tackle plastic waste and build a circular economy, setting out the three key levers of collective advocacy by businesses to help shape ambitious, effective policy; collaborative action to share risks, costs, and innovation to tackle barriers; and aligned individual action to keep pushing boundaries within businesses today to inspire policy and market change.

The evidence-based report also highlights the progress that has been made by a pioneering group of companies, representing a fifth of the world’s plastic packaging market, through their backing of the Global Commitment initiative. Collectively, signatories have avoided 14 million tonnes of virgin plastics, the equivalent of 1.8 trillion plastic bags or saving one barrel of oil every second. They have also tripled their use of recycled content and eliminated billions of problematic packaging items.

The 2030 Agenda calls for mainstreaming proven solutions, addressing systemic barriers – from scaling reuse and tackling flexible packaging waste to building effective collection and recycling infrastructure – and creating enabling government policy that aligns incentives with circular outcomes.

The signatories represent 20 per cent of the global plastic packaging market and marks the first wave of sign-ups, with the Foundation calling on the rest of the market to get behind the effort over the next 12 months.

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