ReShaping Plastics report underlines urgent need to act

The European plastics system needs significant change within 5 years to meet long-term circularity and net zero emissions goals, warns a new report.

The report, entitled ReShaping Plastics and published 4 April, was a 12-month project commissioned by Plastics Europe and produced by the independent systems-change company, Systemiq. The study’s aim was to critically evaluate current progress and assess the potential of different levers to help Europe’s plastics manufacturers transition towards the EU’s net zero carbon emissions and circularity goals by 2050. It confirms that circularity is a key driver of system emissions reduction in the short to medium term.

According to this study, a fully circular, net zero carbon emissions plastics system in Europe is possible, but achieving it will require radical innovation, ambitious policies, and significant capital investment. The current rate of change is too slow to align with agreed climate goals, circularity policies and the European Green Deal.

In the report, a series of scenarios are set out based on current publicly-available market data on innovations, commitments and policies, together with projections as to how these different elements, including emerging technologies, may play out over a long time period. A central finding of the report is that faster systemic change and more intense and effective collaboration between all parts of the European plastics system and policymakers are essential.

This will require a substantial overhaul of the present system, and involve, among others, next to a more collective approach, the adoption of circular economy approaches across the plastics value chain – that is, applying upstream and downstream solutions together - to drive significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and waste disposal in the next decade and beyond.

While today’s industry and policy initiatives could more than double system circularity from 14% to 30% by 2030, leading to a reduction of 11 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2e emissions and 4.7 Mt less plastic waste disposed of in landfills or incinerators, these would still leave a highly resource inefficient system. Moreover, they are still not enough to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The report highlights the need for all up- and down-stream levers to be engaged, including mechanical and chemical recycling, the use of alternative raw materials such as bio feedstocks, and designing products for recycling and reuse. However, noted the authors, substituting plastics by other materials offers very limited scope for reaching net zero emissions.
In addition to proven circular economy approaches, the report points to various other, multiple less mature pathways– including shift to green hydrogen, the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to incinerators and steam crackers, shifting to bio-based polymers and electrifying steam crackers, that decrease GHG emissions and tend to decouple plastic from fossil fuel feedstocks. These are critical to achieve net zero carbon emissions in the European plastics system, write the authors: circular economy levers alone, while critically important, will not suffice.
Startlingly, the report also found data gaps in current plastic waste data that pose a challenge to understanding the environmental and climate impacts of plastic. For example, over 40% of the plastic put on the market in Europe may not be fully accounted for in waste statistics. And while plastic still in use in the economy may explain part of this data gap, it cannot explain it completely.

ReShaping Plastics focuses on four of the most important sectors serves by the plastics industry: packaging, household goods, automotive, and construction, and presents six scenarios, outlining which actions should be prioritised for different plastic applications in order to meet circularity and climate mitigation goals.
It emphasises that the next three to five years are a critical window for action. Long technology maturity cycles and capex lock-in for large infrastructure investments mean that the decisions taken in the early 2020s will determine whether the European plastics system will achieve a circular economy and net zero GHG emissions by 2050.

In its response to the report, Plastics Europe said in a statement that plastics manufacturers are under no illusions about the scale and complexity of the transition.  They have been investing and innovating to address the issues across the whole plastics system for a long time.
However, ‘it is encouraging that the report recognises the vital role plastics play in achieving the EU´s broader net zero emissions goals,’ noted Markus Steilemann, President of Plastics Europe
Yet accelerating the transition will require an enabling policy framework that better incentivises investment and innovation and that harnesses the power of the EU Single Market, said Virginia Janssens, managing director of Plastics Europe.
To be successful, this new framework must ensure the availability of high-quality feedstock, as well as sufficient access to affordable, abundant renewable and low-carbon energy.  Supporting the industry’s need to innovate in a rapidly-evolving world is essential. Chemical recycling, for example, should be incentivised and supported to accelerate scale and technological advancement.

In addition, Plastics Europe is proposing a package of measures to help implement the report’s recommendations. These include the development of a roadmap to spur the industry’s transition towards 2050, addressing the milestones, targets, levers and different pathways; exploring the potential of a step-change in collaboration with policymakers and the plastics value chain; and ensuring that policy positions are designed to accelerate the plastics’ system’s transition towards higher circularity and net-zero emissions by 2050.

“The wider European plastics system is extremely big and complex,” said the association.  “Plastics manufacturers do not control all of the levers and we do not have all answers, which is why we support the call for more intense and effective collaboration between our industry, value chain and policymakers.”
This report, while financed by Plastics Europe, was overseen by a fully independent Steering Committee and Expert Panel - comprised of experts across industry, public sector, civil society and academia – to ensure its impartiality. Jyrki Katainen, President of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, a former European Commission Vice President and former Prime Minister of Finland, acted as Chair of the Steering Committee.