Major FMCG companies support 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business

Grocery store credit Joanna Malinowska freestocks org
Sustainability

Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever are among the first major companies to support the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new 2030 Plastics Agenda, a five-year global initiative aimed at reducing plastic packaging waste and advancing a circular economy for plastics.

Launched on 4 November 2025, the 2030 Plastics Agenda outlines a coordinated business plan to accelerate progress towards plastic reduction. It calls on organisations to collaborate beyond individual initiatives, encouraging collective action across the value chain to achieve large-scale market transformation.

Grocery store © Joanna Malinowska / freestocks.org

The Foundation’s new roadmap builds on a decade of progress in the fight against plastic waste, with signatories so far having prevented an estimated 14 million tonnes of virgin plastic from entering the market — equivalent to roughly 1.8 trillion plastic bags. They have also tripled their use of recycled materials and phased out billions of problematic packaging items.

Despite this progress, the Foundation notes that 80% of the global plastics market has yet to engage at the same level, with significant challenges remaining. These include scaling reuse models, improving the management of flexible packaging, and expanding infrastructure for collection and recycling.

The 2030 Plastics Agenda calls for a three-pronged approach — uniting policy advocacy, shared innovation, and individual company action — to tackle systemic barriers and align industry and government incentives with circular outcomes.

Rob Opsomer, Executive Lead for Plastics and Finance at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, said: Many business leaders ask me what comes next. My answer is simple: don’t wait. 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.

A number of multinational businesses, including Amcor, Borealis, Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, L’Oréal, Nestlé, SC Johnson, PepsiCo, TOMRA, and Unilever, have reaffirmed their participation in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Commitment 2030, one of three key pillars of the new agenda.

Commenting on the Foundation’s 2030 Agenda, Antonia Wanner, Chief Sustainability Officer at Nestlé, said: Nestlé will continue to contribute towards the common vision of a circular economy for packaging. 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.

This represents the first wave of industry signatories, with the Foundation inviting further companies to join the initiative over the next year in support of global plastic reduction goals.

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