Making the business case for a circular plastics industry

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Introduction: The annual Ellen MacArthur Foundation Global Commitment Progress Report serves as a barometer of how far the industry has come in key metrics such as virgin plastic reduction, recyclability and meeting reuse targets.

Key points:

• While the global market has increased virgin plastic use by 13% compared to 2018, brand & retail signatories have, on average, decreased their use by 6%. Meanwhile use of post-consumer recycled content (PCR) has tripled.
• Maintaining transparency and robust data, and prioritizing ‘low-hanging fruits’ like removing problematic materials and excess packaging, are two key elements to maintaining this progress.
• Bottlenecks and challenge still remain in the areas of virgin plastic reduction and increase of recycled content, most significantly the lack of collection and recycling infrastructure to cope with the growing demand for recyclate.
• While there have been many successful industry pilots, systemic barriers are hindering the scalability of reuse. Scaling individual models and advocating for policy changes are practical steps stakeholders can take.
• Through the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business, signatories can bring about real change through collective advocacy, collaborative action and individual action.

Conclusion: To take the global circular plastics agenda to the next level, the focus should be on the business case for sustainable development. Stakeholders can take part by joining the Global Commitment 2030 and setting public, ambitious targets.

The annual Ellen MacArthur Foundation Global Commitment Progress Report is always a subject of widespread interest. The year 2025, however, also marks the year in which the first chapter of this paradigm shifting initiative came to an end, and it set out its goals for the coming five years and beyond.

While this is of course a voluntary commitment on the part of signatories, it still serves as an excellent barometer of how far the industry has come in key metrics such as virgin plastic reduction, recyclability and meeting reuse targets. In brief:

• While the global market has increased virgin plastic use by 13% compared to 2018, brand & retail signatories have, on average, decreased their use by 6%.
• Use of post-consumer recycled content (PCR) has tripled
• Over 775,000 tonnes of problematic or unnecessary packaging has been eliminated
• Systemic barriers, particularly scaled reuse models, are holding back overall progress.

This being the case, the focus of this article will not, as in previous years, be on how far the top FMCGs have come and where they need to focus more efforts. Given that the Commitment is entering a new phase we are broadening the scope to the entire value chain (including government signatories), discussing where greater alignment can be built, what the systemic barriers are, and what the next steps will be for all signatories.

But more importantly, while the Global Commitment is the largest global voluntary effort on plastic waste with over 1200 members, it still represents only around 20% of the market. What is holding non-signatories back and how can they be brought into the fold? In short: do we need to think of sustainability in terms of what business gains it can bring, rather than pure idealism?

We spoke to a broad spectrum of the value chain to get their takes on these questions.

Key learnings from progress

As we noted above, the good news from the recent Global Commitment report is that brand & retail signatories have, on average, decreased their use of virgin plastics by 6%, while use of post-consumer recycled content (PCR) has tripled – this despite widespread concerns in recent years that major brands have been missing or revising their targets. And yet the global market as a whole has increased virgin plastic use by 13%, which suggests that non-signatories are lagging behind. Rather than merely celebrating the achievements of signatories, we ask what the rest of the market can learn from this.

Maintaining transparency and robust data, wherever you are in the supply chain, is vital to progress (including collaborating with competitors, which to some may still be anathema to traditional business practices). According to Constance Granier, Programme Manager for the Global Commitment. “By having better visibility over their packaging footprint, businesses can set a plastic packaging reduction and recycled content strategy and reach tangible results.”

A second key reason behind the progress made by signatories, she says, is “Prioritizing ‘low-hanging fruits’ like removing problematic materials and excess packaging, substituting plastic with other materials when applicable, and moving from multi-material to mono-material. Significant progress can be made in this area – 85% of signatories’ packaging is now designed for recycling, which is up by 8 percentage points since 2020.”

What are the benefits of this voluntary commitment from the point-of-view of a packaging producer, and what learnings can non-signatories take?

“For Amcor, it created a platform to collaborate, learn, and advocate for enabling conditions such as eco-modulated EPR fees and recycled content mandates,” says Amcor Corporate Sustainability Director Larissa Sakamoto. “This early voluntary effort allowed us to anticipate future regulation, adapt our innovation agenda, and invest in processes that are now becoming regulatory requirements. Companies that haven’t yet begun this journey will need to accelerate – regulations like Europe’s PPWR will soon require all packaging to be recyclable by 2030, and redesigning packaging takes years.

“As a signatory, Amcor has also contributed our materials science expertise to the development of design guidelines that continue to guide our innovation pipeline.”

Of course, bottlenecks and challenges remain in the areas of virgin plastic reduction and increase of recycled content, most significantly the lack of collection and recycling infrastructure to cope with the growing demand for recyclate.

Tomra’s Valerio Sama, Business Development Manager, Packaging, at collection and sorting experts Tomra, pointed out: “Today we know that we need between 6-10 Mt of additional recycling capacities by 2030 to fullfill the expected demand for high quality recyclates.” Alongside this, he says, “there are very few recycling facilities with advanced mechanical recycling processes to produce high quality recyclates. Except for separately collected PET, recycled polymers cannot be used into contact sensitive applications like food.”

This has been exacerbated in the past year or two by news that recycling facilities have been closing in Europe and the US – in part driven by the development of new primary production capacities in Asia that have created a supply of lower-cost materials.

To counter this, says Constance Granier, requires “A multistakeholder strategy to attract investment and to bring about the enabling policy interventions to ensure dedicated, ongoing funding and demand for recycled materials, while ensuring a just transition for waste pickers and those in informal and cooperative settings.”

The increasing number of extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes is also significant here, says Amcor’s Larissa Sakomoto: “Several EPR systems set to launch in the coming years should help stabilize and strengthen the market. Effective EPR can provide recyclers with greater certainty, fairer economics compared to virgin materials, and stronger incentives for recycled content use.”

Why is reuse still challenging – and how can it be scaled?

Moving now to the topic of reuse, while it must be pointed out that despite initial appearances progress has been made – there has been momentum in areas such as definitions and metrics (see here, for example), many successful industry pilots (61% of signatories at least count) and policy developments (including the PPWR) – the Foundation’s recent Progress Report still shows that systemic barriers are hindering the wider growth needed to see real impact.

The reasons for the lack of scale are severalfold. Perhaps the most significant is a dearth of infrastructure and the huge amount of complexities this requires, including collection networks, traceability, washing and sanitization facilities, reverse logistics and return mechanisms. While the technologies for many of these are accessible in theory, we have not yet seen them expanded and connected across markets in order for reuse to operate at scale.

As Constance says, “Uncertainty about how this scale can be achieved, when it will become cost-competitive vs single-use packaging, and what policy mechanisms would enable this, are holding back the critical mass needed to move forward.”

Another challenge is inconsistent policy frameworks. “In many cases,” says David Allen, Vice President, Global Sustainable Packaging, PepsiCo, “legislation favours a single reuse model, even though multiple approaches – such as refill at home, refill on the go, and return on the go – are needed to meet varied consumption occasions and maximize consumer participation.”

Many also feel today’s reuse models are still not intuitive or convenient enough for consumers, for the majority of whom these things are still the priority over other considerations.

It is also true that the metrics the industry has been using to measure progress in reuse are not providing enough clarity on where advances are happening, what is working and what is not. For example, if we look at progress in the ‘Reusable, recyclable and compostable’ packaging target the trajectory is broadly upwards – but of course all these things present very different challenges and are at varying stages in their development. Therefore, for the reporting year 2026 the ‘reusable, recyclable and compostable’ commitment has been discarded in favour of separate metrics, including a reuse metric based on volume delivered through reuse models.

Breaking free from the reuse gridlock will involve, says Constance:

• Scaling ‘individual’ reuse models that can be commercially deployed effectively — this includes refill-at-home, B2B, and reuse in closed environments.
• Joining at-scale demonstrators that are multi-brand and multi-retailer, have shared reuse infrastructure and packaging, and are at a city/country scale. This would generate key learnings, inform policy, and unlock the financing required for broader scale up.
• Advocating and aligning on the policies that can improve the viability, feasibility, or desirability of at-scale reuse systems.

Existing supply chains and systems – particularly those that have remained largely the same for decades – are challenging to replace and business can also be concerned about the costs of being the ‘first mover’. All members of the supply chain will need to ‘jump together’ to share the costs fairly.

Where next? Strategies up to 2030 and beyond

In November 2025, the Foundation announced the next stage of the Global Commitment with the launch of the 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business which calls for ‘mainstreaming proven solutions, addressing systemic barriers – from scaling reuse and tackling flexible packaging waste to building effective collection and recycling infrastructure – and creating enabling government policy that aligns incentives with circular outcomes’.

The 2030 Plastics Agenda emphasizes that individual business action alone – while vital – is not enough. It therefore sets out three key levers for transformation: collective advocacy, collaborative action and individual action.

Collective advocacy: “The fastest way forward is through an ‘ambition loop’ in which government policy and business action mutually reinforce and build off each other,” says Constance Granier.

The most well-known focus of collective advocacy for plastics waste in recent years has been the negotiations towards the Global Plastics Treaty. The latest round took place in early February but there is still, as yet, no resolution. One of the main points of contention – although not the only one – is whether we accept a ‘watered-down’ treaty with more players involved, or a more ambitious treaty that excludes those whose interests (such as oil-rich countries) may not be aligned with the majority.

But the ostensible lack of progress does not mean there are no positives to take from the negotiations so far. As Constance explains, the conversations alone that have taken place are already shaping concrete actions, and the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty continues to put the pressure on.

“Countries are drawing on lessons from the treaty discussions to develop national policies, albeit in uncoordinated ways. From plastics once absent from the global policy agenda, the process has advanced significantly since the 5/14 UNEA resolution to concrete proposals and draft texts at recent International Negotiating Committees (INCs). We are now closer than ever to coordinated global action on plastic pollution.

And it’s by no means only about the Global Plastics Treaty: other significant regulatory developments serve as examples of what collective lobbying can achieve. A call from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, for example, has resulted in the rolling-out of EPR schemes throughout Europe. The PPWR itself can be seen as the result of ongoing advocacy by organizations such as Zero Waste Europe and the Rethink Plastic alliance, among many others. The European Commission’s blanket ban on all plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries is also partly the result of more than 180,000 people signing a joint petition from the Rethink Plastic alliance, the Environmental Investigation Agency, the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement, Eko and WeMove.

• Collaborative action: That said, it’s not either/or: legally binding measures need to be backed up by businesses taking voluntary steps to align on key issues. Most agree that we still need greater alignment among different stakeholders the value chain on key metrics.

“Here,” says Constance, “the call is not for small-scale pilots, but for larger-scale collaborations that involve a critical mass of businesses, are at a city/country scale, and have a clear route to further scaling.”

Suzanne Stafford, an official from the UK’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), one of the government signatories, told us how the collaborative principles laid down by the Global Commitment have helped shape the UK’s approach to circularity. “The Global Commitment helps to reinforce the importance of co-ordinated action and the sharing of information helps us, collectively, to think about areas for action in the future. It has contributed to the UK’s confidence in joining the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution.”

• Individual action: Finally, in addition to these kinds of collective actions, each company must also look to their own business strategy to push the boundaries of what the industry is capable of. This can range from targeted innovation in packaging design to eliminating problematic plastics, increasing recycled content and continuing to push for scalability of reuse.

To give a clearer illustration of how a company can address all the three levers laid out in the Plastic Agenda for Business, we asked PepsiCo’s Dave Allen what actions the brand has been taking in recent years towards plastics circularity.

“In the UK, we introduced paper packaging for outer bags of Walkers Baked and Snack a Jacks multipacks and introduced Sunbites packaging with 50% recycled plastic which has been sourced using a mass balance approach. In Brussels last December, we convened brand owners, policy makers and recyclers as part of our ongoing engagement with key stakeholders to discuss how better policy coherence can contribute to increased packaging circularity in Europe.

“In Romania and Poland, PepsiCo was among the companies who initiated and invested in the creation of each country’s first fully integrated Deposit Return Systems (DRS) for beverage packaging. In Romania, in the first year of operation, more than 3 billion packages were collected and 200,000+ metric tons of materials were sent to recyclers.”

But he also stresses that individual accountability works both ways in this commitment: the Ellen MacArthur Foundation must also continue to seek input from partners and stay mindful of pressure points as the system evolves so there is room for adaptation. An entirely rigid approach does not serve anybody’s interests.

The bottom line: Why should non-signatories join?

Many now feel that for all the above to succeed requires a dose of pragmatism, if not exactly cynicism. We need perhaps to recognize that conscience alone, a desire to do the ‘right thing’, will not necessarily bring a higher percentage of the plastics business community into the fold. For example most of us, we assume, will be distressed by images of sea turtles tangled in plastics but what of the theoretical moustache-twirling villain who is indifferent, if not downright hostile, to sea turtles?

What is needed moving forwards is a clear and compelling case for why circular plastics make strong business, as well as environmental, sense. We asked existing signatories how membership of this commitment has benefited their businesses.

According to PepsiCo’s Dave Allen: “Companies respond when they see that sustainable packaging strengthens supply chain resilience, reduces exposure to regulatory and operational risk, and supports long-term growth. Emphasizing practical, ‘all-of-the-above’ efforts, such as reducing virgin plastic use, improving recyclability and advancing circular systems, helps meet businesses where they are and makes engagement more feasible.”

Importantly, he adds: “Clear, credible examples of progress over perfection also encourage companies to act without feeling pressure to adopt one rigid pathway.”

Amcor’s Larissa Sakamoto tells us: “One of the strengths of EPR regulation is its ability to close the gap between what is environmentally responsible and what makes business sense. The Foundation can play a powerful role in helping more companies make that connection – by building awareness, offering tools, sharing best practices, and supporting capacity-building across business levels.

“The next step is to help companies move from voluntary commitments toward compliance-ready systems that align with global policy trends.”

In short, businesses should regard getting ‘ahead of the curve’ – with all the essential collaboration and collective advocacy this involves – as a clear opportunity to build long-term resilience and profitability against the economic and regulatory changes coming their way.

If businesses want to take the next step, we end with some clear calls to action on the part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation:

• Join the Global Commitment 2030 and set public, ambitious targets.
• Participate in regional Plastics Pacts.
• Support the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty and advocate for policy.
• Recognize that voluntary action alone is insufficient and join cross-industry initiatives. 

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