60 innovators against plastic pollution call for a pragmatic & inclusive global plastics treaty

The Ocean Cleanup project © Avery Thompson

Convened by rePurpose Global and The Ocean Cleanup, over 60 of the most consequential global solutions against plastic pollution came together today to form the Innovation Alliance for a Global Plastics Treaty (IAGPT). Recognizing that the ongoing United Nations-led negotiations process represents humanity's single most important opportunity to alter the trajectory of the global plastic pollution crisis for decades to come, the Innovation Alliance aims to elevate crucial perspectives from those closest to tackling plastic waste worldwide, and in doing so, help ensure that the Global Plastics Treaty lives up to its promised potential.

Plastic pollution has reached a tipping point, with millions of tons of plastic waste entering the ocean each year. Furthermore, 91% of plastic waste is not recycled, and up to 1 million people die from mismanaged waste every year. In response to this crisis, thousands of solutions and technologies have emerged and rapidly scaled their impact in recent years, demonstrating a clear case that indigenous innovations and entrepreneurship-led systems change lie at the heart of tackling global plastic pollution.

However, this plastic action ecosystem has largely developed in a vacuum separated from the institutional world, and so far, its voices have been acutely underrepresented in global policymaking. "The first round of treaty negotiations saw plenty of demands being lobbed in every direction, but not a whole lot of solutions. Out of the 1000+ delegates at INC-1, there were hundreds of advocacy groups present, ranging from the World Wildlife Fund to the petrochemical lobby, but barely a handful of delegates representing actual solutions against plastic waste." said Svanika Balasubramanian, Co-Founder & CEO at rePurpose Global, a leading platform that helps hundreds of companies and governments take action against plastic waste across the entire value chain.

"It was precisely this glaring lack of representation of solutionists at INC-1 that inspired our two organizations to come together and convene the Innovation Alliance," said Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO at The Ocean Cleanup, the international non-profit organization developing and scaling technologies to rid the oceans of plastic. "We realized that a plastics treaty negotiation that does not actively involve innovators will risk producing a piece of text that sounds promising on paper but doesn't empower those who are actually doing the work on the ground."

To date, the Innovation Alliance has attracted dozens of influential organizations active in tackling plastic pollution across its entire lifecycle, including reuse & refill, alternative materials, philanthropies, recycling AI & technology firms, startup incubators, pollution cleanup, academic institutions, and waste worker organizations. Together, this cohort of 60+ organizations have raised over $500M to support their endeavors to date, are active in more than 120 countries, employ tens of thousands of people, and form the backbone of waste prevention and remediation infrastructure globally. Some of the founding members include AMP Robotics, Ocean Bottle, Sway, SecondMuse, Recykal, Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Fondation de la Mer, Delterra (previously McKinsey.org), SALT, Mananalu, Saahas, Enviu, Greyparrot, and CruzFoam.

The Innovation Alliance will kickstart its activities in the lead-up to INC-2, the second out of five UN negotiating summits for the Global Plastics Treaty to be held in Paris later this month. Ahead of the summit, the IAGPT's endorsing organizations are calling out the need for a pragmatic and inclusive treaty that specifically 1) leverages valuable data & insights from the plastic action innovation ecosystem towards informed policymaking and effective regulation enforcement 2) recognizes, safeguards, and promotes the inclusion of existing innovations, from source to sea, in global regulatory frameworks 3) eases the complexity around traditional government financing and improves access to flexible financing for solution-oriented organizations.

For more details on the Alliance's activities and priorities, please visit the IAGPT website and the Vision Statement.