The Foundation’s Plastics Initiative is joining forces with the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) and international climate action NGO WRAP, to ensure more efficient knowledge sharing across their combined network.
The three organisations have been individually running national level initiatives to tackle plastic pollution since 2018, which today collectively span more than twenty countries. Now, to help accelerate their shared vision for a circular economycircular economyA systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. It is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature. for plastics, the organisations are looking to collaborate more closely, by sharingsharingThe use of a product by multiple users. It is a practice that retains the highest value of a product by extending its use period. learnings and best practices across their entire network on a regular basis.
This pre-competitive mindset will allow those coordinating action on the ground to have access to best practices from different initiatives across the world.
It will also help nations prepare the groundwork for the seismic shift in the way plastic is produced and used, which is expected to occur with the ratification of the International legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution by mid-2025.
Negotiations for the Global Plastics Treaty started last November, and are expected to create unprecedented pressure on country level public and private stakeholders to assess their plastic use and design pathways for addressing pollution.
There are currently thirteen Plastics Pacts around the world – ANZPAC (Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Island), Canada, Chile, France, India, Kenya, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, India and Colombia, the UK and the US - and a new Pact in development in Colombia. In addition, there are National Plastic Action Partnerships, (developed by the World Economic Forum under the GPAP project) in Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Maharashtra (India), Nigeria, Ghana, Ecuador, South Africa and Mexico City (Mexico).
Each of these initiatives convenes key stakeholders across sectors to implement solutions towards a circular economy for plastics, tailored to their specific geography. Stakeholders include businesses, government institutions and civil society, NGOs, and citizens.
Specific actions that national initiatives have been working on include, for example, private-sector action to meet reduction, reusereuseThe repeated use of a product or component for its intended purpose without significant modification. and recyclabilityrecyclabilityThe ease with which a material can be recycled in practice and at scale. targets and for national baseline assessment and scenario modelling tools - as well as support for the development of national action plans and financing roadmaps.
“These three organisations are leading global efforts to create plastics systems that work, and which eliminate plastics pollution. As policymakers work towards designing a global treaty to bring plastics into the circular economy, collaboration of like-minded stakeholders is more important than ever. The creation of this new platform allows further exchange of best practices at a local level and the demonstration of real change on the ground, which can be critical to support an ambitious treaty development."
- Andrew Morlet, CEO, Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
