Corporations struggling to meet their plastic reduction goals should shift their focus from downstream efforts like recycling to those that stop the problem from the source. Clémence Fournier-Talmant, Senior Manager for Business Development at SecondMuse shares how the Upstream Lab is designed to support such efforts.
Every year, about 400 million tonnes of plastic is discarded. Most of it ends up in landfills, incinerators or floating down waterways that empty into oceans.
To curb their contributions to this global problem, most major corporations have set goals to reduce their plastic footprint. These goals often focus on ramping up the percentage of both recycled plastic they use and plastics that consumers can recycle.
While these efforts are important in the fight against plastic pollution, a growing body of evidence makes clear that they are both difficult for corporations to achieve and much more limited in their impact than upstream efforts focused on stopping plastic pollution at the source.
A recent report by As You Sow, a corporate responsibility nonprofit, found that just 22 of 147 major companies analyzed were on track to meet their recyclability goals. A similar analysis by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation found last year that 250 companies collectively responsible for 20% of global plastic packaging had decreased their use of virgin plastic by just 0.1% since 2018.
The Trouble with Downstream Solutions
A key reason corporations are struggling to meet these goals is because they have such limited control over recycling. The complex process puts the onus on consumers to correctly sort their trash, and on municipalities to have the costly infrastructure in place to correctly process it. Once processed, the market for recycled plastics must ensure a steady supply of the material to corporations interested in putting it to use again.
In practice, recycling doesn’t function so smoothly. As the As You Sow report explains, a common roadblock preventing companies from hitting their recyclability goals is that their “recyclable” packaging doesn’t actually align with what communities can actually recycle “in practice and at scale.” It also notes that an insufficient supply of recycled plastics was preventing companies from making more progress toward their recycled content goals.
Even when supply is available, the report found that companies using recycled plastic to meet virgin plastic reduction goals ended up using more single-use plastic overall, perpetuating the risk of plastic pollution.
While corporations do have an important role to play in collaborating across the plastic value chain to scale practical recycling solutions, they should also embrace upstream solutions, such as eliminating single-use plastics from their supply chains. Replacing them with alternatives, such as nature-based packaging and containers designed for consumers to reuse and refill, is the single most effective step they can take to meet their plastic reduction goals and meaningfully address the global plastic pollution crisis.
What Businesses and the World Can Gain by Cutting Plastic Upstream
Collectively, upstream efforts to “reduce and substitute” single-use plastics with alternatives could mitigate up to 50% of global plastic leakage into waterways by 2040, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts analysis, and halt biodiversity loss already affecting marine ecosystems and tourist economies. Scaling returnable and reusable packaging could also curb global greenhouse gas emissions and water use by 35 to 70% according to a separate 2023 study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
An earlier study by the same foundation found that, beyond environmental benefits, businesses stand to unlock USD 10 billion by substituting 20% of single-use plastic packaging with reusables. The savings stem, in part, from averted packaging costs and the attraction and retention of customers drawn to new products, like biodegradable containers, or schemes that reward them for returning reusables.
In South and Southeast Asia, a global hotspot for plastic pollution, my colleagues and I have seen the interest both consumers and retailers have in these innovative models. Alner (formerly Koinpack), a startup pioneering packaging reuse systems in Indonesia that we supported in 2022, is now partnered with consumer packaged goods giant Unilever and others on a pilot initiative that has established 675 refill stations in just the last year that consumers have used, averting 4,412 kg of new plastic packaging.
Despite these benefits, most corporations invest downstream because they need more validation that upstream changes won’t destabilize their businesses. Indeed just 8% of the 225 corporations As You Sow analyzed had reuse goals compared to more than 65% with recyclability targets.
But as consumers demand less plastic and plastic bans and regulations proliferate, it’s actually riskier for businesses to continue business as usual. The Pew report estimates that by 2040, businesses could face a USD 100 billion annual bill tied to legislation shifting the cost of processing plastic waste to corporations.
Meanwhile, the many businesses striving but struggling to implement upstream changes need more support and opportunities to collaborate with innovators, investors and other ecosystem players whose collective efforts are required for large-scale change.
A Resource for Businesses in South and Southeast Asia
In South and Southeast Asia, the Upstream Lab is filling this gap by teaming up with companies to help them meet their plastic targets and implement large-scale reuse and refill models in the hospitality, food and beverage and consumer goods sectors.
The lab taps the expertise of InOff Plastic, a consulting firm supporting retailers and consumer goods producers to reduce their usage of single-use plastic packaging by adopting reusable packaging, and SecondMuse, an impact and innovation company that has successfully piloted 91 projects across India, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand. SecondMuse’s program provided early support for reuse pioneer Alner (formerly Koinpack), and has helped 75 other early-stage startups fine-tune and test their products and models across the region. They include DropRefill, a company that sells household cleaning products as individual water-soluble tablets. With support from SecondMuse, the company shifted its positioning from a consumer solution to a more scalable business solution, which it recently tested at six hospitality and service businesses in Thailand. Over its 5-month pilot, the company’s tablets avoided the use of 12kg of single-used packaging.
Of course pilots won’t move the plastic pollution dial on their own. But they offer proof that businesses can eliminate single-use plastics, and offer an encouraging glimpse at how much plastic waste could be avoided if more businesses in more cities adopted more of the proven upstream solutions that could meaningfully address a crisis affecting us all.
To work with us on the Upstream Lab, get in touch at asiapacific@secondmuse.com.
