Ellen MacArthur and Christiana Figueres call on global governments to secure a legally-binding global treaty addressing the full plastics lifecycle
In just five weeks, governments from across the world will meet in Busan, South Korea, for INC-5, the final stage of negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty. This is a pivotal moment. A legally binding UN treaty that addresses the full plastics lifecycle offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle the root causes of plastic pollution.
Ahead of this historic moment, Ellen MacArthur, Founder of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Christiana Figueres, Costa Rican diplomat and former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, have come together to urge governments to unite in ambition to get the job done.
In an op-ed published in Fortune Magazine, they highlight that many solutions are already known. Voluntary commitments such as the Global Commitment have identified key barriers to scaling those solutions, which the treaty would help overcome. There is extensive business support for global rules, as demonstrated by the Business Coalition, and global rules would unlock economic opportunities worth billions of US dollars across both the private and public sectors, by stimulating investment and innovation and streamlining waste management.
The op-ed calls on governments to seize this opportunity to accelerate global change towards a system in which plastic never becomes waste or pollution. This is a chance to show that the world can meet a global crisis with a global solution.
