After engagement with As You Sow on reducing single-use plastic packaging, snack and confectionery company, Mondelez International, and food and beverage giant PepsiCo, have agreed to eliminate and replace their use of virgin plastic for packaging.
As You Sow is a non-profit organisation that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies.
Mondelez set a virgin plastic reduction target for 2025, which will result in a five per cent absolute reduction in virgin plastic use in overall plastic packaging, including a 25 per cent cut in virgin plastic in its rigid plastic packaging. These actions are expected to result in a 10,000 tonne reduction of virgin plastic packaging.
“The targets will be achieved through elimination of plastic material, packaging redesign, increased use of recycled content in flexible and rigid plastics, and exploration of reuse models,” explains Mondelez.
The company goals will reduce plastic over 2020 baseline usage amounts and will account for projects business growth.
PepsiCo also committed to a time-bound goal for absolute reduction of virgin plastic across its business units, but is still assessing the size of the cuts and will announce the goal later in 2021.
In 2019, PepsiCo agreed to reduce virgin plastic content by 35 per cent in its beverage portfolio by 2025. The new reduction target will build on this goal and apply to the other company sectors, such as snack and foods divisions Frito Lay and Quakers Oats.
The cuts will be achieved through a number of levers related to packaging design to eliminate plastic, reuse business models, product innovation, and increased use of recycled content.
Improved recycling, the focus of much of As You Sow’s earlier work with companies, is not sufficient to stem the tide of plastic pollution engulfing oceans and must be coupled with reductions in plastic use, materials redesign and substitution.
Citing urgent new data on the growing plastic pollution problem, As You Sow switched its focus for 2021 and filed shareholder proposals with 10 leading consumer goods companies and retailers, calling for commitments to absolute cuts in use of plastic packaging.
“We are pleased to announce agreement by two of the companies we filed proposals with to cut their use of virgin plastic used for packaging,” says Conrad MacKerron, senior vice-president of As You Sow.
“We look forward to other companies stepping forward to make similar commitments, and making bolder, larger absolute cuts in overall plastic packaging.”
Eventually, thousands of companies will need to make far larger cuts in plastic use to be able to reduce 80 per cent of plastic pollution flowing into oceans by 2040, as explained in the definitive Pew Charitable Trusts report, Breaking the Plastic Wave.
In recognition of these steps, As You Sow withdrew shareholder proposals filed with Mondelez and PepsiCo.
“Cuts in virgin plastic, while beneficial in several ways, may or may not lead to use of less plastic overall, as virgin plastic can simply be substituted for recycled plastic without significant efforts to prioritise packaging redesign and transition into reusable packaging,” said MacKerron.
“As You Sow is encouraged that both companies have pledged to explore reuse models and redesign of packaging in a way that may eliminate some plastic use.”
The largest cut in overall plastic use to date by a major consumer goods company was a 2019 commitment by Unilever to totally eliminate 100,000 tonnes of plastic packaging by 2025.
To learn more about As You Sow’s work on plastics, click here.
