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About the author
Chief Executive Officer
Hein was appointed Chief Executive Officer in July 2023. As CEO of Unilever, Hein is responsible for leading one of the world’s largest and most geographically diverse consumer goods businesses, with presence in 190 countries, serving 3.4 billion people every day.
Pressing steps to finish plastic air pollution are required. The present plastic life cycle stays primarily linear – take, make, dispose – and the statistics from the OECD are telling: from 2000 to 2019, plastic manufacturing and plastic waste have greater than doubled, whereas solely 9% of plastic finally will get recycled.
OECD knowledge additionally exhibits that the quantity of plastic waste produced is on observe to virtually triple by 2060, with round half ending up in landfill and fewer than a fifth recycled. Greenhouse gasoline emissions from the plastic system might additional improve by 63% by 2040, a trajectory that’s incompatible with the targets of the Paris Local weather Settlement.
Packaging represents round one-third of world plastics use. Unilever recognises that it’s a part of the issue. An excessive amount of of our plastic packaging results in the setting.
We and others have leant into this problem by way of voluntary initiatives such because the Ellen MacArthur Basis (EMF) and United Nations Surroundings Programme (UNEP) World Dedication. This has not solved the issue – removed from it.
Enterprise signatories have significantly outperformed their friends in tackling plastic waste. It exhibits {that a} concerted effort can unlock change – however not on the scale wanted. With solely 20% of the business signed up, it’s clearly an inadequate response to the size of the problem.
Voluntary initiatives will not be sufficient – that’s clear. Extra interventions are wanted throughout your complete plastics worth chain, each upstream manufacturing and downstream waste administration. Voluntary initiatives additionally distort the market, too usually decreasing the competitiveness of these taking motion. We’d like stronger and harmonised rules to get everybody on observe to remove plastic waste and air pollution.
A legally binding treaty is a crucial alternative to attain this – serving to us to keep away from a patchwork of disconnected nationwide efforts and create a stage enjoying area within the international economic system. To help the treaty, Unilever helped create the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty to offer confidence to member state negotiators that companies and monetary establishments recognise the significance of regulation to finish plastic air pollution.
Voluntary corporate action alone is not enough; we are asking for stronger rules and harmonised regulations across the full plastic life cycle.
Hein Schumacher, CEO, Unilever
The Enterprise Coalition is asking for a treaty that focuses on the discount, circulation and prevention of plastic waste. A complete treaty that addresses the total life cycle of plastics and never simply downstream recycling or waste administration alone.
Companies reply to regulatory certainty. A coherent authorized framework will make clear what actions we have to take for corporations like ours, the place we have to give attention to the brief time period and put money into the long run. And we’ll achieve this realizing that everybody is enjoying by the identical guidelines.
We welcome companies and organisations who share this imaginative and prescient to hitch the Enterprise Coalition and unite behind our imaginative and prescient for the treaty. A shared voice is a powerful voice.
Accelerating plastics coverage
The final spherical of plastic treaty negotiations resulted in disappointment. Regardless of the very best efforts of most member states calling for an bold and efficient treaty, there was a proliferation of different textual content proposals that sought to slim the scope of the treaty to downstream waste administration measures solely. Nevertheless it’s a easy assertion of proven fact that we gained’t resolve the plastic air pollution problem with out addressing your complete life cycle of plastics.
Additionally disappointingly, there was no settlement on any intersessional work happening – risking delays within the negotiation course of, delays that we can’t afford. Member states ought to conduct additional (casual) consultations earlier than the subsequent spherical of negotiations on the UN Surroundings Programme’s fourth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meeting in April 2024.
The members of the Enterprise Coalition for a World Plastics Treaty are eager to assist in any method we are able to. We now have loads of expertise of what works – and what doesn’t – by way of our voluntary initiatives and experiences with varied nationwide legal guidelines and rules. These embrace crucial coverage areas similar to international product design guidelines, Prolonged Producer Accountability (EPR), and reusable and refillable packaging programs.
The Annual Assembly of the World Financial Discussion board gives a platform for these discussions. We now have a once-in-a-generation likelihood to resolve this drawback – so let’s take that likelihood.
This weblog was first printed on the World Financial Discussion board web site, 11 January 2024.
The views expressed on this weblog are these of the writer alone and never the World Financial Discussion board.
Picture is of a 30-foot sculpture titled ‘Flip off the plastic faucet’ by Canadian artist Benjamin von Wong, made with plastic waste from Nairobi’s Kibera slum.
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