FMCG majors back Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s 2030 plastics agenda

Global consumer goods companies including Nestle, Pepsico, Unilever and Tomra have endorsed the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s (EMF) 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business, a five-year action plan to accelerate progress towards a circular economy for plastics.

The plan outlines how businesses can move beyond individual targets and collaborate through shared advocacy, collective investment, and coordinated action. It builds on more than a decade of work by the Foundation to align the packaging value chain around measurable outcomes for waste prevention, reuse, and recycling.

By acting early and together, the Foundation argues, companies can shape regulation, cut transition costs, and strengthen resilience in the face of tightening global policy.

“Many business leaders ask me what comes next. My answer is simple: don’t wait,” said Rob Opsomer, executive lead for plastics and finance at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. “The companies that act now can help shape effective policies and make circular solutions the new normal. By working together, they’ll cut transition costs and build resilience in a fast-changing world. They can make what once seemed impossible not only possible but ultimately inevitable.”

Industry progress and persistent challenges

The Foundation’s report highlights tangible progress under the Global Commitment initiative, co-launched with the UN Environment Programme in 2018. Companies representing about 20% of the world’s plastic packaging market—including Amcor, Borealis, Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, L’Oreal, Nestle, SC Johnson, Pepsico, and Unilever—have avoided 14-million tonnes of virgin plastics, equivalent to 1.8-trillion plastic bags or one barrel of oil every second; tripled recycled content in packaging; and eliminated billions of problematic or unnecessary items.

Despite this, 80% of the market remains largely disengaged, and even leading signatories face structural barriers such as scaling reuse models, managing flexible packaging waste, and establishing robust collection and recycling systems at scale.

Calls for policy alignment and collaboration
“Ending plastic pollution and keeping plastic in circulation requires innovation, infrastructure and enabling policy, combined with focused, collective action and advocacy right across the plastics value chain as identified in this 2030 Plastics Agenda,” said Pablo Costa, global head of packaging, digital and transformation at Unilever.

Antonia Wanner, chief sustainability officer at Nestle, added, “Building on years of effort to evolve our packaging, we look forward to collective action on the 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business, working with the Foundation and value-chain partners. Together we aim to overcome systemic barriers by building broader systems and a policy landscape for the circular economy.”

The Foundation’s framework urges governments to adopt harmonised, enforceable rules supporting waste prevention, reuse, extended producer responsibility (EPR), and deposit return schemes (DRS) at scale, seen as essential to reducing single-use plastics and improving high-quality recycling worldwide.

Beyond the Global Commitment, more than 700 businesses are advancing regional Plastics Pacts, and over 300 organisations are supporting a legally binding global treaty to end plastic pollution.

However, progress at recent UN negotiations has been slow, with countries yet to agree on the treaty’s scope and enforcement mechanisms. The Foundation said the next 12 months will be pivotal, urging companies to join collective efforts to curb plastic waste and drive circular infrastructure development. Research cited by EMF estimates 225-million tonnes of plastic waste will be generated this year, with only 68% managed through formal systems, leaving more than 70-million tonnes likely to become pollution through burning, dumping, or mismanaged disposal.

Implications
For converters, brands, and retailers, the agenda signals a sharper policy focus on design-for-circularity, recycled-content procurement, and reuse pilots. For waste management and recycling operators, it points to rising demand for quality secondary materials and deposit-return logistics.