Surfrider Foundation report highlights industry “avoidance strategies” in plastic reduction efforts

06 Jul 2023 --- The Surfrider Foundation has released a report detailing what it sees as the top five “avoidance strategies” used by packaging and textile companies to justify continued plastic production. These include shifting responsibility, ineffective investments, marketing strategies, unclear reporting, accounting and political lobbying. 

The report, released this week, urges material suppliers and packaging corporations to “deplastify” by reducing the plastics used in their products. Surfrider’s research presents other tactics, like the movement toward bioplastics or increased and advanced recycling, as inadequate strategies to avoid making needed changes. 

“Over the last decades, the use of plastic worldwide has grown exponentially, with 368 million tons of plastics produced in 2020. In comparison, the total global adult population weighs 342 million tons. Every year, we produce more plastic than we weigh,” reads the report. 

“Despite evidence that most plastics cannot have a zero-impact end of life, many companies persist in maintaining a status quo on their use of plastic to secure their existing business models at the expense of our planet and our health.” 

Of the avoidance strategies highlighted in the report, Surfrider urges the industry to “get the right diagnosis” and then act accordingly to reduce plastic production and use. 

Shifting the burden 
Top of the report’s avoidance strategies is “shifting the burden,” whereby producers move the responsibility for waste disposal and reduction onto consumers and local governments. 

Surfrider highlights Nestlé as a prime example of a corporation that emphasizes its stakeholders’ role in managing waste and “encouraging and stimulating consumer behavior.” 

Surfrider says many companies place the burden of waste onto consumers and other stakeholders rather than taking responsibility themselves.Education through brand engagement, a core part of Nestlé’s environmental strategy, is also directed at boosting recycling rates. 

Surfrider says this strategy “legitimates the idea that a company is doing its fair share of efforts when turning its packaging into recyclable or recycled plastic. It reinforces the idea that a ‘recyclable’ plastic which is not recycled is mostly a consumers’ and local authorities’ failure.” 

“It attenuates the responsibility of the company that generated these plastics and its duty to act for a reduction of its plastic use.” 

A Nestlé spokesperson tells Packaging Insights that the report does not reflect the entire spectrum of the company’s initiatives or latest figures. 

“We have reduced our use of virgin plastic in packaging by 10.5% since 2018 and are on track to reduce virgin plastic usage by one-third by 2025,” says the spokesperson. “We phased out the use of 4.5 billion plastic straws per year and replaced them with paper straws globally.” 

“In 2022, we cut the weight of our total product packaging by 200,000 tons while reducing the number of pieces by 14 billion. This reduction in total packaging weight and redesign led to GHG reductions of 280,000 tons in 2022.”

“Smoke and mirrors”
Sustainability indicators reported through companies’ annual financial reporting and communication methods are used to create the illusion of environmental sustainability progress. 

“A whole set of calculation methodologies and reference frameworks, and a network of independent third-party organizations, non-financial reporting consulting firms and rating agencies have emerged,” notes the report. 

“Keeping the methodology confidential or opaque, reducing the reporting scope, remaining vague and putting the spotlight on one-shot initiatives are only a few of the many tactics companies can use to appear more beautiful than they are.”

Misleading reporting and accounting can make products appear more sustainable than they are, shows the report.A key example of such tactics is through plastics credits, which are used to track and trace production and collection. CleanHub, a start-up that recently received €6.4 million (US$~7 million) for its plastic waste recovery technology, is highlighted in the report as an example of how FMCGs can claim “plastic neutrality.” 

Once collection partners have recovered more plastic from the ocean than the amount of plastic used by the business paying them, the latter can claim plastic neutrality.

A CleanHub spokesperson tells us that the report is misleading in a number of ways. “We advocate for a circular economy, not a deplastified one, understanding the critical roles plastic plays in some cases due to its lower overall environmental impact,” they said. 

“We never suggested that plastic waste’s end-of-life is environmentally neutral. Our choice to issue plastic credits mainly for material lacking economic value to be collected is based on a detailed LCA. We have customers who collect twice or more of the amount of what they produce, and we have customers who don’t use plastic and still support us. We do not view all plastics as the same.”

“It’s clear that both CleanHub and Surfrider Foundation share a common goal: ensuring industries account for the external costs of their plastic use,” the spokesperson says. 

Investing in the wrong direction? 
Surfrider highlights that petrochemical corporations like TotalEnergies are continuing to invest in plastic production as a way to diversify and maintain profits while fossil fuels are coming under increasing pressure to ramp down. 

Environmentalists often refer to plastics production as “Big Oil’s Plan B.” Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies, said in 2018 that “thanks to plastic, the oil industry still has fine days ahead.” 

In recent years, Surfrider says the corporation has focussed its plastics production on recycling and bioplastics. 

“The problem is that the production capacities that TotalEnergies is building through its investments and R&D programs far exceed what would be reasonable to produce in a deplastification scenario,’” reads the report. 

“TotalEnergies’ new capacities in plastics may be tomorrow’s stranded assets for the company. Through these massive investments, TotalEnergies may lock itself – and the whole of society with it – in a scenario that requires more and more plastic within the next decades.” 

Surfrider reiterates that recycling, recycled plastic and bioplastics will only successfully solve the plastic crisis if accompanied by a strong deplastification strategy. 

Packaging Insights reached out to TotalEnergies for a response. 

By Louis Gore-Langton