UN World Oceans Day 2018
Sustainability
June 8, 2018Reading time: 2 minutes
The urgent problem of ocean pollution is a concern to people around the world, and Amcor is using scale and expertise to tackle the issue.
The urgent problem of ocean pollution is a concern to people around the world, and Amcor is using scale and expertise to tackle the issue.
1. Industry-leading expertise
Amcor’s world-leading sustainability experts are called on by industry associations, sustainability organisations, and governments to inform efforts to reduce marine pollution. One example is Amcor’s Vice President of Sustainability, David Clark, participating in G7 roundtables alongside brands including The CocaCola Company, Unilever, and Danone, plastics producers, NGOs, retailers, and government officials from Canada and the U.S. State Department.
2. Global Partnerships
Through a global programme of partnerships with leading sustainability organisations, we are collaborating to reduce marine pollution.
Ocean Conservancy is a non-profit organisation focused on marine health. Among other activities, OC runs the International Coastal Clean-up. In 2017, more than 1,000 Amcor colleagues collected 11,000kg of litter. As well as colleagues taking direct action, Amcor has committed technical and financial support to develop and propose solutions to governments and other organizations.
Amcor is the core packaging partner in Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy, an initiative to develop a circular economy for plastic packaging. We are on the NPE Advisory Board and colleagues are active in numerous collaborative projects. Dr. Gerald Rebitzer leading a project to develop a global standard for recycling of flexible packaging. Increases rates of recycling, worldwide, are fundamental to reducing marine debris.
For 18 years, Amcor has partnered with Earthwatch, a non-profit environmental organisation which connects colleagues with top scientists to participate in research expeditions. In 2017, 15 Amcor people travelled to South Africa to research marine debris and the flow of mismanaged plastic waste, increasing understanding of how to prevent debris from reaching the ocean. Read more about the 2017 expedition.
Amcor colleagues start research on the Earthwatch Expedition 2017 to Cape Town, South Africa
3. Innovations in Packaging
Every day, millions of people use Amcor products. Our packaging protects food, beverages, medicines, and other products that people need. Continuously improving the environmental attributes of our packaging has a sizeable impact. We do this through innovative material selection, lightweighting and downgauging, designing for recycling and recovery, and collaborating with customers, suppliers, and recyclers. Find out how we improve the sustainability profile of packaging.
4. Regional Initiatives to increase recycling
Flexible packaging is light and excels in terms of material efficiency and generally lower environmental footprint, compared, for example, to glass jars or metal cans. From an environmental perspective, it’s preferable in many ways. However, recycling of flexible packaging is still limited to a handful of countries and needs to be improved globally to better protect marine environments.
Amcor is a core member of two initiatives driving development of recycling options for flexibles: CEFLEX in Europe (building on the UK-focused REFLEX project) and Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF) in the US. Learn more about our regional initiatives.
5. Amcor’s 2025 Pledge
In January 2018, we announced our pledge to develop all Amcor packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025. We also said that we will significantly increase our use of recycled materials, and drive more recycling of packaging around the world. Our pledge will help to reduce the impact of plastic packaging on the marine environment, which will require continued global collaboration across the whole value chain.
On World Oceans Day and every day, we are using our global packaging expertise and scale, investing in innovation, and partnering with leading sustainability organisations to better protect the planet. Learn more about Amcor’s sustainability leadership here.
View our new infographic here.
