Major NGOs unite to strengthen global plastics pacts as World Economic Forum underway

17 Jan 2023 --- The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, has kicked off what is traditionally the biggest meeting of global wealth and power. This year’s conclave will see a new collaboration between the WEF’s Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP), the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Plastics Initiative and international climate action NGO WRAP.

The organizations conduct work on reducing the impacts of plastics and have joined forces to drive forward global action on plastics through “greater knowledge exchange.” The three groups have been individually running national-level initiatives to tackle plastic pollution since 2018, which today collectively span more than twenty countries. 

To help accelerate their shared vision for a plastics circular economy, the groups say they will collaborate more closely by sharing learnings and best practices across their entire network regularly.

“As policymakers work toward designing a global treaty to bring plastics into the circular economy, a collaboration of like-minded stakeholders is more important than ever,” Andrew Morlet, CEO, Ellen MacArthur Foundation. 

“The creation of this new platform allows the 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.” 

Key collaboration targets 
Richard Swannell, Interim CEO of WRAP, explains that WRAP created the world’s first Plastics pact jointly with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and is working with partners worldwide on a variety of similar pacts. 

The collaboration will seek to ensure all actors in the waste management chain are included.“Bringing our experience together means we can accelerate, expand, and enrich work underway in more than twenty countries. And bring even more countries on board. We know that nations often face the same challenges, so by sharing learnings, we can accelerate progress and strengthen the ambitions of the Global Treaty with real action on the ground in a significant and growing network of countries.”

The key targets of the collaboration include the following: 

• Inform decision-making based on robust evidence, harmonized metrics, and best practice.
• Ensure an inclusive approach that engages perspectives from the entire plastic value chain, including vulnerable communities such as women and informal sector workers.
• Boost innovation and enable financing solutions to scale plastic action.
• Transform behaviors that promote new consumption and production models.

Preparing for the “seismic shift” 
The collaboration is intended to allow those coordinating action on the ground to have access to best practices from different initiatives across the world, says the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. 

It is also intended to 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. 

NGOs have said the plastics industry should prepare for “a tide of litigation” against plastic following the UN’s historic agreement to establish a legally-binding treaty. 

Merging pacts The World Economic Forum is held every year in Davos, Switzerland.
There are currently thirteen Plastics Pacts globally – ANZPAC (Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Island), Canada, Chile, Europe, France, India, Kenya, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, 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 toward a circular economy for plastics tailored to their specific geography. Stakeholders include businesses, government institutions, civil society, NGOs, and citizens. 

Tools and methodologies for building and implementing a national action plan to tackle plastic pollution are being deployed across a range of pioneering countries today,” says Kristin Hughes, director of Global Plastic Action Partnership and member of the executive committee at the WEF. 

“Collaboration with our global partners will enable many countries to tap into the required insights and capabilities to meaningfully engage in the treaty process, promote an ambitious negotiation outcome, and prepare for subsequent implementation.”

Specific actions that national initiatives have been working on include, for example, private-sector action to meet reduction, reuse and recyclability targets and for national baseline assessment and scenario modeling tools – as well as support for the development of national action plans and financing roadmaps.

By Louis Gore-Langton