Global Commitment 2020 Progress Report

The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment unites businesses, governments, and other organisations behind a common vision and 2025 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. After a quantitative baseline was set by the first report in 2019, this 2020 report provides the first insight into the trajectory of progress against that baseline being made by leading businesses and governments towards creating a circular economy for plastics.

Significant advances have been made in two key areas: the incorporation of recycled content in plastic packaging, and the phasing out of the most commonly identified problematic categories of plastic packaging, such as PS, PVC, undetectable carbon black, single-use plastic bags and straws. However, there has been limited progress on increasing recyclability of plastic packaging and on reducing the need for single-use packaging altogether.

 Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation (ed.) (2020): Global Commitment 2020 Progress Report