Aarhus Convention: States demand removal of corporate players from plastic pollution policy making

03 Jul 2023 --- With virgin plastic production intrinsically linked to the fossil fuel industry, States at the Annual Meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention – an agreement on access to information and environmental decision-making – flagged the need to control corporate influence in decision-making. Discussions surrounded the UN global plastics treaty to guarantee “environmental democracy.” 

“We need full transparency about who will be present in the negotiating room prior to the start of the negotiations. We want to see the implementation of a strong conflict of interest policy that excludes representatives from industries with a vested interest in participating in the negotiations,” David Azoulay, environmental health program director at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), tells Packaging Insights. 

“This is similar to what was done by the World Health Organization when it agreed to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – where a firewall was created between the tobacco lobby and public health officials and decision-makers.”

Groups like scientists, medical professionals, indigenous peoples, workers and waste pickers should be included in the plastics treaty developments, stresses Azoulay.Exclude the industry?
Ninety-nine percent of virgin plastics are made from oil and gas, and investing companies are building more production capacity and petrochemical facilities, with estimates showing that plastic production could triple by 2050, explains Azoulay.

“The presence of these producers in treaty negotiations is not compatible with advancing a treaty that prioritizes health, the environment, and human rights. Beyond oil and gas companies, there are chemical manufacturers, proponents of technologies like advanced chemical recycling and others that have vested political and financial interests in the negotiations,” he tells us. 

The industries responsible for harm should not be freely able to influence the drafting of policies designed to rectify the harm. 

Azoulay asks: “Many of these companies’ core business models and financial interests lie in their ability to continue production, so why would they work to advance policies that may disrupt that?”

Broadening representation 
CIEL’s environmental health program director stresses that rather than bringing measures to limit production and meaningfully address their products’ health and human rights impacts, producers tend to bring solutions that sound promising, but will not address the crisis.

“We need to have the communities who have intimate knowledge and experience with those harms present in negotiations. For the plastics treaty negotiations, this includes groups like independent scientists and medical professionals, frontline communities along the entire lifecycle, indigenous peoples, workers and waste pickers.”

There is growing recognition, beyond civil society, of the need to control the influence of companies with vested private interests in negotiations, stresses Azoulay.

“Just this week, the 46 Parties to the Aarhus Convention recognized the potential for ‘undue economic or political influence’ in international fora related to the environment and the need to ‘facilitate the participation of those constituencies that are most directly affected and might not have the means for participation in these processes.’” 

“They specifically call out the plastics treaty negotiations and the UN climate negotiations.”

By Natalie Schwertheim