The 2024 Global Commitment progress report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) reveals that the majority of brand, retail, and packaging producer signatories are not on track to meet their virgin plastic reduction targets.
The signatories to the Global Commitment - a group that altogether accounts for more than 20% of the plastic packaging market - set ambitious 2025 targets towards achieving a circular economy for plastic. As the foundation predicted in 2022, some of those targets will not be met, 2023 data now shows.
Whilst 60% of signatories reduced their virgin plastic use between 2018 and 2023, only 32% have met or are on target to meet their virgin plastic reduction target. During the same period, the global market increased their virgin plastic use by 8% whereas signatories decreased it by 3%.
The use of recycled content has also grown amongst signatories but not sufficiently fast to achieve the aggregate target of 26% PCR content by 2025. Signatory brands reached 14% PCR content on average in 2023, up from 12% in 2022, and from 5% in 2018.
There are major sectoral differences between PCR use. Cosmetic sector signatories are leading with 31% PCR use on average in 2023, whilst food sector signatories’ use of PCR is much lower at 10% on average in 2023.
The target of 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging will almost certainly be missed by most organisations. In 2023, signatories increased their share of reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging by nearly 4 percentage points in 2023 to 70%.
The growth was driven by recyclability, which increased by 4 percentage points, with polypropylene (PP) and other rigid packaging being reclassified as recyclable in practice and at scale as the key lever.
The use of reusable (1.3% in 2022 and 2023) and compostable plastic packaging (0.1% in 2022 and 2023) remained relatively unchanged and niche.
Major brands increase virgin plastic use
Data shows that, amongst the top 10 signatory Fast-Moving Consumer Goods companies, none are on target to meet their 2025 virgin plastic reduction targets.
What’s more, PepsiCo, The Coca-Cola Company, and Mars Incorporated increased their use of virgin plastic between their baseline year and 2023, by 6%, 6%, and 5%, respectively.
Some brands have done better progress in their use of recycled content. Unilever, for example, increased PCR share by 22% since 2019 and is on track to meet its 25% target by 2025. The Coca-Cola Company increased PCR use by 17% since 2019 and may reach its 25% target in 2025. L’Oréal set up a more ambitious target of 50% and has, as of 2023, increased its PCR use by 32%.
The only large signatory FMCG company to have already met both its virgin use reduction targets and PCR content is SC Johnson. It has decreased virgin plastic use by 32% since 2018 (30% target) and has increased PCR content by 25% (25% target).
The report comes as many other companies pushed back their plastic sustainability goals. Shell, for example, said it would no longer purse its goal of turning 1 million tonnes of plastic waste into pyrolysis oil by 2025.
Binding global policy
The EMF said that global policy is necessary to improve plastic sustainability results.
“Global policy is necessary: with 80% of the global plastic packaging market not covered by the Global Commitment and performing, on average, much worse than the 20% who are participating, global policy is crucial to move 100% of the market towards solutions,” the report reads.
The foundation pointed to the Global Plastics Treaty as a key legislative opportunity. Negotiators have however failed to reach an agreement by their Dec. 1 deadline, with deep divisions remaining amongst the 175 countries at the end of a week long negotiation session. Faced with the possibility that the talks would collapse, negotiators decided to try to salvage them and schedule another, potentially last round, in 2025.