Over the past decade, leading businesses have shown that progress on plastic pollution is possible. And while individual company action has been successful, even the most ambitious businesses are running up against the same obstacles.
As a result, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation has rallied leading businesses behind an evidence-based, ‘2030 Plastics Agenda for Business.’
In this episode of the Circular Economy Show, taken from a Foundation’s webinar, we explore that Agenda, and evaluate the plan and priority actions for business and policy to drive implementation at scale.
If you enjoyed this episode, then please share with your colleagues, or leave us a review or comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.
Learn more about the 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business and how your organisation can play a role.
[00:00:00.000] - Rob Opsomer
We need to focus. If you want to implement, you need to focus.
[00:00:03.430] - David Allen
One company can't move the mark by themselves.
[00:00:08.000] - Luisa Santiago
This is why it is a system solution to deal with that.
[00:00:12.760] - David Allen
We need to, again, work differently and be able to leverage one another's strengths.
[00:00:19.210] - Rob Opsomer
That makes me really optimistic about what we can achieve in the next five years.
[00:00:23.840] - Fin
Welcome to The Circular Economy Show. I'm your host, Fin, and in today's episode, we'll be discussing the Ella MacArthur Foundation's bold new action plan to tackle the plastics crisis over the next five years.
[00:00:39.440] - Fin
I was lucky enough to visit one of the foundation's plastics workshops last year in Barcelona, where leading businesses in the plastics and packaging value chain joined us to dive into the 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business. They discussed how to bring it to life in the lead up to 2030, and the energy and enthusiasm from businesses in the room was clear.
[00:00:59.500] - Fin
Later, we'll hear how business innovation can help unlock progress now and how collaborative action can bring local solutions to scale. First, let's dive into what the foundation and its partners have learned from efforts to date. Here's our executive lead for plastics, Rob, in conversation with our editorial lead, Nora.
[00:01:18.240] - Rob Opsomer
First, we've learned that progress is totally possible on this issue, on tackling plastic waste, on building a circular economy for plastics. If you look, indeed, 20% of the markets, plastic packaging market, came together, set these goals, has been reporting. We have seen that this group has been able to make very significant progress.
[00:01:40.580] - Rob Opsomer
Now, the second thing we learned is that, unfortunately, that's not enough, and that's not enough for two reasons. One, having 20% of the market stepping forward, making that progress, that is amazing. The flip side of that is that there's another 80% that has not stepped up, has not set its goal, has not been reporting transparently.
[00:02:03.040] - Rob Opsomer
What we suggest and what we outline in this agenda that when businesses think about how can they play a role, a leading role in overcoming these barriers, they should be doing three things in parallel.
[00:02:16.160] - Rob Opsomer
One is collective advocacy. Can business play a role rather than, again, simply waiting for policy to arrive or doing the historical business lobbying of traditionally, mostly lobbying against ambitious policy? That is the first and absolutely critical part we see for businesses to do.
[00:02:35.610] - Rob Opsomer
We have seen it already in action, for example, in the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, where more than 300 businesses have come together calling for ambitious and effective regulation, harmonised regulation in the context of the plastics treaty.
[00:02:50.900] - Rob Opsomer
The second one is collaborative action, so where can businesses collaborate with their value chain and with their peers to look at things that are really hard to do as an individual business?
[00:03:03.480] - Rob Opsomer
Then the third area we're looking at is continued individual action. Despite the fact that we know, and we talked about this, individual action alone is not enough, we also know that, at this point, even within the current landscape, with current technologies, with current policy, for most businesses, there is still a lot more that can be done as individual businesses. That should continue.
[00:03:27.800] - Nora Pelizzari
If we then put that on this foundation of learning from the last 10 years and the three systemic barriers of scaling reuse, tackling flexible plastic packaging, and developing collection and recycling infrastructure, that seems like it puts us down a pretty clear path of where we need to prioritise efforts to unlock the scale that we identify as being needed now. Is that right?
[00:03:56.880] - Rob Opsomer
That's right. That's, I think, what this moment is about. We need to really shift to implementation at scale. To do implementation at scale, we need to focus. If you want to implement, you need to focus. That's what we're trying to provide with this business agenda, this 2030 Agenda for Business, is to have that focus of indeed the three interventions on the three systemic barriers, scaling reuse, tackling flexible packaging waste, and developing collection recycling infrastructure, and really get the whole industry to focus on tackling these issues through these three mechanisms.
[00:04:36.040] - Nora Pelizzari
What are you hearing from businesses about their motivations to recommit and show leadership?
[00:04:42.000] - Rob Opsomer
Plastics, plastic waste, plastic pollution, it remains a business-critical risk. People around the world care about this topic. Governments around the world, as a result, care about this topic. No single brand wants to have packaging with their brand name on it, lying around in the streets, in the environment. It remains a fundamental risk to the business's ability to operate and not to be disrupted by regulation that is misinformed and actually pushes the system in the wrong direction.
[00:05:20.750] - Rob Opsomer
What we also see is a real, I would say, awareness of how hard it is to achieve some of the systems changes we have been talking about. We have seen many companies trying things individually, seeing how hard it is to make it work, to make it work economically. As a result of that, I would say a much more increased willingness to collaborate in new ways and in ways that business typically wouldn't have done even a couple of years ago.
[00:05:56.040] - Rob Opsomer
If you think about, again, the collective advocacy part in the treaty, we've seen this with EPR as well. Businesses, after decades of being very sceptical and often in many markets lobbying against EPR, suddenly turning around a couple of years ago. That makes me really optimistic about what we can achieve in the next five years.
[00:06:17.600] - Fin
Rob's message is clear. What this moment demands is focus and implementation at scale. In order to achieve that, it's crucial that the enabling conditions are in place for the rest of the market, the 80% that Rob mentioned, to step up.
[00:06:32.300] - Fin
What does it look like to be a leading business in this space? Let's hear from Seb, who spoke to David of PepsiCo on the importance of collaborative action between businesses and why they remain so committed.
[00:06:44.660] - David Allen
One company can't move the mark by themselves. It requires extensive collaboration, comprehensive solutions, especially in the areas of infrastructure, policy, and innovative material technologies. That's where we've seen some of the headwinds and some of the barriers, and we're continuing to work with peers and industry through EMF to address.
[00:07:09.000] - Seb
Obviously, one of the things that's clear is that policy is essential in that at some stage to level the playing field. What are the benefits for a business like PepsiCo to still try to be a leader, to still try and take that leadership role and keep moving forward, not to step back and just invite policy to take care of everything?
[00:07:28.250] - David Allen
It's really, really important for us to continue to partner with like-minded businesses to help try and overhaul the existing systems, the infrastructure, and as you alluded, the regulatory frameworks to enable more progress. We've got to make system-wide changes, and that will enable PepsiCo and others in the industry to succeed.
[00:07:56.240] - Seb
I guess what I heard you say there is, in part, there's a business case for this. This is done because you are thinking about the future of your business, not just because, and of course, it's very important that we tackle the plastic pollution challenge, but it's also a business drive for PepsiCo.
[00:08:13.320] - David Allen
It absolutely is. PepsiCo positive, so our sustainable packaging ambition, but our entire sustainability and resilience framework is central to how we think about business, how we create value, how we lessen our impact on the environment while addressing consumers' needs across foods and beverages.
[00:08:37.620] - Seb
You've hinted this in a couple of your answers, but I guess collaborating on those policy initiatives also implies a different relationship between yourself and some of the industry... Classically, some of your competitors, potentially, and indeed, the value of showing that being part of the global commitment, there's a group of businesses that are doing better on certain measures in this space.
[00:09:02.720] - Seb
I wonder if you can say a little bit more about that and the importance of collaborative action as part of unlocking some of these systemic barriers?
[00:09:11.140] - David Allen
The collaborative action is so important because we all have a different place within the circular economy and the plastics value chain. We need each part of that value chain to be able to bring their expertise, their investment, their knowledge, and their influence in order to create change.
[00:09:36.660] - David Allen
We need pooled capital investments and innovation, and that takes working differently. Being transparent, working pre-competitive competitively, and collaboratively to scale upgrades to recycling and waste management. We need new ways of working together to increase the availability of more recycled material materials. We need to, again, work differently and be able to leverage one another's strengths.
[00:10:10.060] - Fin
Implementing a circular economy means bringing together everyone in the plastics value chain to share expertise, investment, and influence. Now we're going to hear from Ambro, our plastics policy lead, and Go from the Japanese government's Plastics Treating Negotiating team on what policymakers and governments need to accelerate the implementation of effective policy?
[00:10:30.420] - Go
Main challenges that policymakers face, there's quite a lot of challenges. One thing I would like to start with is that the concept is quite clear when you say we need to tackle plastic pollution and that we need to transition from a linear to a circular economy. The concept is clear, but execution, how to get there, the pathway and timeline are sometimes unclear.
[00:11:00.160] - Go
A lot of the businesses, some of the policies, there are very easy first steps that we can make, like moving away... tackling single-use plastics, introducing more recycling, but how to get to the end is quite unclear. That complexity and the sheer vastness of plastic in our society, that is a main challenge that I would like to raise.
[00:11:34.780] - Ambrogio Miserocchi
Thanks, Go. The question here is really moving on to the business engagement, what role can businesses play to enable and accelerate these ambitious policies that we've been talking about that go beyond a very simple one but really help us accelerate the transition? The question is for you, what role do you see for businesses to play?
[00:11:57.200] - Go
I think businesses play a critical role in clarifying transition pathways and timelines. Also, they communicate with consumers in ways that policies cannot. They can provide actual products or services that really spell out what it means to make society free from plastic pollution. I think we increasingly see them as partners in creating solutions, not just entities to be regulated.
[00:12:32.470] - Ambrogio Miserocchi
Building on this, there are some sticking points that will need to be resolved in the coming years to start making progress. Where do you think businesses can start unlocking solutions? Mindful of this potential difference in the timeline between the moment we have, as you said, overcome from under regulation, but in this lag, in this field of time, what can businesses do to unlock these solutions?
[00:12:58.760] - Go
I think it's never too late to start from what you can do. Whether it be stakeholder dialogues, voluntary initiatives, there are a lot of examples showing by leading that businesses can do to demonstrate that this change can really start to happen.
[00:13:29.200] - Go
Businesses can create new models, new ways of providing services through, for example, redesigning packaging and also providing new reuse models instead of providing single-use products. These innovations, both in products, both in technology, and in service as well, they can create new horizons where policymakers can also gain new insights on what regulatory support we can provide so that businesses would feel more comfortable to commit to such change.
[00:14:12.960] - Fin
As Go highlights, businesses play a key role in bringing this transition to life, making it tangible by developing new products and services. By innovating now, they can inform smarter and more ambitious policies in the years ahead, but what's really needed to break down a systemic barrier?
[00:14:29.560] - Fin
Let's head over to Florianópolis in Brazil, where Luisa, our Latin America lead, introduces a new approach where collaborative action brings local solutions to scale.
[00:14:38.440] - Luisa Santiago
The cost of closing the waste infrastructure gap in the Global South, and same for Latin America, is of tens of billions of dollars. Local governments don't have that budget. It's way beyond local authorities' budget. It's also way beyond voluntary investments, either from philanthropy or business.
[00:14:58.460] - Luisa Santiago
This is why it is a system solution to deal with that. If I were to highlight one aspect that is really crucial to all these advancements is the recognition of the role of waste pickers. They are a mass of 4 million people, the most vulnerable part of the societies in Latin America, and they are the true powerhouse of recycling in the region.
[00:15:24.600] - Luisa Santiago
Two-thirds of everything that is recycled in Latin America comes from the hands of a waste picker. This is really representative of the installed capacity that they have. They are everywhere, but most of them are working in informality.
[00:15:41.850] - Luisa Santiago
90% of them are individuals in the beaches, in the streets, in the riverside communities collecting and selling to intermediaries to then sell to the recycling industry with very poor conditions, health and safety conditions, living conditions, low wages. Only 10% of them are in formal cooperatives.
[00:16:01.880] - Luisa Santiago
The advancements that both businesses and policymakers have made in the last few years, they all recognise the role of waste pickers as a central part of an effective waste management system. This is really crucial because they are the ones who know the context, who will implement the solutions, who will design the solutions that are applicable to them.
[00:16:24.300] - Luisa Santiago
Starting with one country, as we are doing with Brazil, will bring us a lot of knowledge, learnings, and experiences that can be replicable, that can be adapted to other local contexts. This is really important because it makes the case for scaling successful solutions, and it brings learnings so we don't start from scratch.
[00:16:44.360] - Fin
Solving this challenge requires bold, coordinated action across sectors. As we've heard throughout the episode, progress is possible, and our 2030 agenda lays out the priority actions to make it inevitable.
[00:16:56.980] - Fin
Head over to our website to find out more about our 2030 agenda. As always, thanks for listening to this episode of The Circular Economy Show. If you enjoyed it, please do share it with a colleague or friend, and remember to subscribe. We'll see you next time.
