Launched in October 2018, the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment unites businesses, governments and other organisations behind a common vision and ambitious targets to address plastic waste and pollution at its source, starting with packaging. It is led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme and the Global Commitment now unites more than 400 organisations behind a common vision of a circular economy for plastics.
The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment 2019 Progress Report is the first in a series of annual Global Commitment progress reports and sets a clear baseline for measuring progress by leading businesses and governments towards creating a circular economy for plastics. In this report, for the first time 176 businesses across the global plastics value chain (93% of the business signatories eligible to report) and 14 governments across five continents (out of 16 government signatories eligible to report) have reported progress against public targets to help build a circular economy for plastics. They all share a common set of commitments and use common definitions. This report therefore creates unprecedented transparency and consistency in data sharing on plastics across a significant group of businesses and governments.
This first progress report sets a quantitative baseline against which to measure progress over the period to 2025 and lays out initial actions signatories have taken to realise their commitments. Due to the timing of reporting cycles, most quantitative data provided by business signatories is for 2018.
The report is divided into two parts - the first part provides a summary of progress across the signatory group and is divided into three sub-sections:
- Section 1 provides a high-level summary of progress to date and the perspective of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the UNEP on where we are on the journey towards a circular economy for plastics.
- Section 2 provides an update on the signatory group.
- Section 3 provides insights into the collective progress of the signatory group to date and highlights examples that can serve as inspiration for others.
Part 2 of the report contains the individual progress reports of business and government signatories.