Consumer-facing companies are failing to address the global plastics pollution problem and are not showing enough corporate leadership, according to a newly released report by US environmental pressure group As You Sow (Berkeley, California; www.asyousow.org). The damning 68-page report, entitled “Waste & Opportunity 2020: Searching for Corporate Leadership”, looked at 50 companies in the beverage, quick-service restaurant, consumer packaged goods and retail sectors, analysing their efforts on six pillars: packaging design, reusable packaging, recycled content, data disclosure, voluntary support for improving recycling systems and mandated financial responsibility to improve those systems.

Unilever (Rotterdam / The Netherlands; www.unilever.com) was ranked the highest with a “B-”, but 12 companies received C grades, 22 received a D and 15 were graded F. As You Sow said the high number of poor and failing grades reflects the enormous amount of basic goal setting, strategy and planning that still needs to be developed by medium- to large-sized companies to effectively address plastics pollution.

The worst performers by size of revenue that were either graded D or F were US retailer giant Walmart (Bentonville, Arkansas; www.walmart.com), supermarket chain Kroger (Columbus, Ohio / USA; www.kroger.com), drinks company PepsiCo (Harrison, New York / USA; www.pepsico.com), food processing group Tyson Foods (Springdale, Arizona / USA; www.tysonfoods.com), food and beverage conglomerate Kraft Heinz (Northfield, Illinois / USA; www.kraftheinzcompany.com) and food and confectionary group Mondelēz International (Deerfield, Illinois; www.mondelezinternational.com).

“There’s a massive amount of work to be done,” said the report’s lead author and As You Sow senior VP Conrad MacKerron. “This report shows that the consumer goods industry is failing to address single-use plastics and take financial responsibility to improve recycling. We were unable to identify leadership companies, but rather found scattered leadership actions.”

The NGO found that most progress was evident in pledges to redesign packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable. This was followed by commitments to increase recycled content and actions to support recycling. As You Sow noted that companies demonstrated more leadership in these categories, receiving either A or B grades. However, there was noticeably less leadership in the areas of reusable packaging innovation, data transparency and producer responsibility.

While As You Sow said the work of the “New Plastics Economy Global Commitment”, launched in 2018 by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF, Cowes / UK; www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, Nairobi / Kenya; www.unep.org – see Plasteurope.com of 31.10.2019), is an “encouraging start”, it emphasised that the solution to plastics waste “is not at hand or anywhere close to it.”

The pressure group pointed out that companies often sign up for bold commitments only to fail to achieve them. For instance, it said, PepsiCo and Nestlé Waters North America (Stamford, Connecticut / USA; www.nestle-watersna.com) both made bold commitments to As You Sow to double container recycling over an 8-10-year period, and neither company came close to achieving those goals.

The report makes five key recommendations to address the plastics waste crisis. These include prioritising the setting of goals for reducing plastics waste and using high levels of recycled content, matching packaging design to available recycling streams, refraining from using flexible plastics until they can be recycled, contributing up to 1% of annual revenue to fund an infrastructure upgrade and develop the recycling market and, finally, prioritising long-term contracts with recycling processors.

According to As You Sow, polymer production is set to quadruple by 2050, yet only 14% of plastic packaging is recycled globally and just 13% in the US. It added that by 2050, greenhouse gas emissions from plastics could reach 56 gigatonnes, or up to 13% of the world’s entire remaining carbon budget.

Earlier this year, another NGO published a report that linked climate change with plastics pollution from major consumer brands. According to Tearfund (Teddington / UK; www.tearfund.org), four of the leading consumer companies are responsible for about 500,000 t of plastics pollution that is burnt or dumped each year in six developing countries (see Plasteurope.com of 09.04.2020). In California, environmental advocacy group Earth Island Institute (Berkeley, California; www.earthisland.org) in March 2020 filed a lawsuit against 10 companies, including Coca-Cola and Danone in addition to PepsiCo and Nestlé, over plastics pollution (see Plasteurope.com of 12.03.2020).