Reacting to the new Ellen MacArthur Report entitled 'The Global Commitment Five Years In:Perspective On Progress' and 2022/23 progress report for Global Commitment signatories, Louise Edge, Global Corporate Campaign Lead at Greenpeace UK said:
"The clear lesson from this review is that the current strategies companies are using to tackle the plastics crisis are failing. In the five years since the Global Commitment launched it's become more and more obvious how harmful plastic is to our health, to our wildlife, to our communities and to our climate. And yet in parallel signatory companies' collective plastic use has continued to rise and its production is set to skyrocket.
"Big companies such as Unilever, Nestle and Coke must now finally admit that recycling is failing to address the dire impacts of their dependence on plastic. And that matching the scale of this crisis means phasing out single use plastics and transitioning to reuse and refill systems. That has to start with companies ending the sale of the highly-polluting plastic sachets which are flooding the Global South, contaminating local neighbourhoods and waterways.
The Global Plastics Treaty negotiations provide a once in a generation opportunity to make these essential shifts happen. Companies must grasp this opportunity, support measures to eliminate single use plastics and mainstream reuse and back calls for a global target to cut plastic production by at least 75% by 2040."
