Toward a Paris for Plastics
By Heather McKenzie | July 14, 2021 | ESG Investor
Investors encouraged to support policy advocacy as well as engage with investee companies to reduce plastic use and transition to circular economy.
At the recent AGM of US grocery chain Kroger, 45% of shareholders – representing shares worth US$10.2 billion – supported a proposal challenging the company on plastics and strategies for reducing their use. A few weeks earlier, 35% of Amazon shareholders supported an identical proposal brought by shareholder advocacy group As You Sow.
Five other global consumer goods companies who received the As You Sow proposal agreed to reduce use of virgin, or single-use, plastic: Target and Keurig Dr Pepper will cut such plastic 20% by 2025; Mondelez committed to a 5% absolute reduction; and PepsiCo and Walmart agreed to cuts that are being finalised and will be disclosed later this year.
“The results at Kroger demonstrate yet another strong show of support by investors challenging companies to elevate the issue of single use plastic pollution and develop credible solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis now,” said Conrad MacKerron, Senior Vice-president of As You Sow.
“Kroger has not taken basic corporate accountability actions such as disclosing the amount of plastic it uses, or made recent commitments to cut plastic. It should act swiftly to disclose plastic usage and devise a plan to significantly reduce its reliance on single use plastics.”
Following in the wake of climate activism
The anti-plastics movement is taking a page out of climate change advocacy work, says Judith Enck, Founder of Beyond Plastics, a US-based policy and advocacy non-profit organisation.
“Plastics and climate change are intimately linked,” she says. “The anti-plastics movement is about ten years behind the climate movement and we have not yet seen a huge amount of shareholder action. Investors may not yet realise it, but the issue of plastics will be on their desks pretty soon.”