Barclays | Sustainable & Thematic Investing
19 June 2019 15
CONSUMER COMPANIES HAVE LED THE WAY
So far, the plastic revolution has been predominantly consumer led, after
documentaries such as ‘Blue Planet’ (BBC), highlighted the extent of environmental
damage caused by plastic waste. These consumer concerns over plastic have
encouraged companies to set ambitious targets in respect of plastic recycling. In this
section we discuss these commitments, which generally exceed the minimum levels
stipulated by governments at the policy level.
Setting ambitious rPET targets
Some of the key company commitments to date
Coca-Cola: Goal to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle or can it sells globally
by 2030. Set an ambition to use 40% renewable or recycled materials in their packaging by
2020 and 50% recycled plastic by 2025. To put this into perspective, last year Coca-Cola
used around 10,000 tonnes of recycled PET in its plastic packaging, equivalent to around
400 million bottles being recycled
18
.
PepsiCo: 25% recycled content in its plastic packaging by 2025 and PET bottles to be made
from 33% recycled material by 2025. PepsiCo has also entered into a multi-year supply
agreement to incorporate Loop Industries’ 100% recycled PET into its product packaging by
mid-2020
19
.
Walmart: will work with its U.S. private brand suppliers to achieve 100% recyclable,
reusable or industrially compostable packaging for its private brand packaging by 2025 and
targets at least 20% post-consumer recycled content in private brand packaging by 2025
20
.
Nestlé: Nestlé Waters will increase the recycled PET content in its bottles to 35% by 2025
globally and 50% in the U.S., with a specific focus on its Poland Spring Brand. The business
will raise recycled PET content for European brands Acqua Panna,
Buxton, Henniez, Levissima to 50% by 2025. For reference, their current global use of
recycled plastic is 5%
21
.
Our European Beverages team assessed the commitments made by soft-drink producers in
their report, ‘Identifying global premium growth’ (1 April 2019). For the sake of
convenience, their findings can also be found in Appendix 3 to this report.
Cross-industry collaboration via the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
The consumer campaigns have also been successful because they have led to the formation
of coalitions of companies across the value chain that are all committed to tackling waste.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has led the primary initiative to date, via the New Plastic
Economy Global Commitment, with signatories committing to, inter alia, increasing
recycled content in their packaging to 25% by 2025.
Signatories represent 20% of all plastic packaging produced globally and include (from a
PET bottles perspective) Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, Danone, Walmart and Unilever. The
commitment has been strengthened by the Plastics Pact project, which the Ellen MacArthur
foundation is concurrently running. The Plastics Pact is a platform which aims to bring
together stakeholders across the value chain (companies, governments and think tanks) to
drive an effective plastic system.
18
Business Green, Coca-Cola ramps up recycled content in drinks bottles, 2018
19
Pepsico, Packaging- Our approach, 2018
20
Walmart, Walmart Announces New Plastic Packaging Waste Reduction Commitments, 2019
21
Nestlé, Nestlé accelerates action to tackle plastic waste, 2019
我的内容管理
展开
