Plastic caps./ PHOTO ; Pexel
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has unveiled a bold new global action plan calling on companies worldwide to step up the fight against plastic pollution.
Released on 4 November 2025, the 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business outlines how global businesses can work together to eliminate plastic waste and accelerate the shift to a circular global economy over the next five years.
Building on more than a decade of global progress, the Agenda identifies three core levers for change:
- Global collective advocacy to help shape ambitious and effective public policy;
- Collaborative global action to share risks, costs, and innovation across markets; and
- Aligned individual action to push company-level transformation and inspire market-wide impact.
By acting early and together, global businesses can influence regulation, reduce transition costs, and accelerate systemic progress toward a waste-free world.
The report highlights major advances by pioneering global companies representing one-fifth of the world’s plastic packaging market, all of whom have supported the Foundation’s Global Commitment initiative.
Collectively, these companies have avoided 14 million tonnes of virgin plastic, the equivalent of 1.8 trillion plastic bags, or saving one barrel of oil every second.
They have also tripled their use of recycled materials and eliminated billions of unnecessary plastic packaging items.
Yet the Foundation warns that 80% of the global market has yet to act, and even the most ambitious firms face challenges they cannot overcome alone, from scaling reuse systems to managing flexible packaging waste and building global recycling infrastructure.
The 2030 Plastics Agenda calls on governments, investors, and global businesses to align incentives with circular outcomes, mainstream proven solutions, and invest in systems that enable reuse and recycling at scale.
“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,” said Rob Opsomer, Executive Lead for Plastics and Finance at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
“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.”
As the global sustainability landscape grows increasingly complex, leading multinational corporations — including Amcor, Borealis, Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, L’Oréal, Nestlé, SC Johnson, PepsiCo, TOMRA, and Unilever are reaffirming their commitment to the Global Commitment 2030, one of the three pillars of the new agenda.
This marks the first wave of renewed signatories, with the Foundation inviting more global businesses to join within the next 12 months.
Launched in 2018 by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Global Commitment has become the world’s largest voluntary initiative dedicated to ending plastic waste and pollution.
Alongside it, more than 700 organizations are advancing circularity through national and regional Plastics Pacts, while over 300 businesses and institutions are championing a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty through the Business Coalition, convened by the Foundation.
Commenting on the new global roadmap, 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.”
The Foundation’s work has a truly global reach, spanning Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas through its partnerships, Plastics Pacts, and its active role in the UN global plastics treaty process.
By connecting local innovation to global policy, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation continues to shape how businesses, governments, and civil society collaborate for a world where plastic never becomes waste.
Pablo Costa, Global Head of Packaging, Digital and Transformation at Unilever, added:
“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.”
For more information or to join the Global Commitment, visit www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.
Help us tell more untold stories of African Changemakers!
To DONATE or Pledge: CLICK HERE
