Australia’s leading supermarkets, leading packaging manufacturers, resource recovery leaders, government institutions and retailers across the plastic supply chain have united behind targets to eliminate plastic packaging waste by 2025.
Coles, Woolworths and Aldi are among the 60 founding members of the Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands Plastics Pact (ANZPAC), reaffirming their commitment to packaging sustainability.
The founding members also include many FMCG businesses, such as The Arnott’s Group, Asahi Beverages, Coca-Cola South Pacific, Colgate Palmolive, Ecostore Company, Mondelez Australia, Nestle Australia, PepsiCo Australia and New Zealand, and Unilever.
Coles Chief Executive Commercial and Express Greg Davis said the partnership will help fulfill Coles’ recently launched Together to Zero sustainability strategy, committing to deliver net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and long term aspiration towards zero waste and zero hunger.
“Following the launch of our new Together to Zero sustainability strategy, we have an ambition to be Australia’s most sustainable supermarket, working with our suppliers, customers and other stakeholders towards zero waste.
“As a founding member of the ANZPAC Plastics Pact, we now have an opportunity to build and shape meaningful change through plastic packaging and move towards a circular plastic economy as a global community.”
Led by the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), the new Pact commits Coles to four clear, actionable targets by 2025.
- Eliminate unnecessary and problematic plastic packaging through redesign, innovation and alternative (reuse) delivery models.
- 100 per cent of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025.
- Increase plastic packaging collected and effectively recycled by 25 per cent for each geography within the ANZPAC region.
- Average of 25 per cent recycled content in plastic packaging across the region.
Daniel Baker, Corporate Responsibility Director, ALDI Australia explained how Aldi would work towards the sustainability pledges by 2025.
“We try to do the right thing, not only when it comes to our employees and customers, but for society and the environment. We conduct business practices of the highest ethical standard with integrity and, when it comes to sustainability, we recognise the importance of acting now.
“To help achieve our goal to reduce plastics and packaging by 25 per cent by 2025, we have been working with our business partners to remove single-use plastics, reduce the volume of packaging and source recycled materials.
“We’re pleased to report that we are on track to achieving our goal. As a founding signatory of the Pact, we remain focussed on reducing our own environmental footprint but also hope to encourage the broader industry to make changes to significantly reduce plastics across the whole supply chain.”
Adrian Cullen, Head of Sustainability, Woolworths said: “In recent years we’ve removed thousands of tonnes of plastic from our packaging and stores, but we know there’s more to do, and we can’t do it alone. The Plastics Pact is a first of its kind opportunity for the entire industry and every level of the supply chain to rally around this challenge and collaborate on solutions that reduce plastic waste for the benefit of the environment and generations to come.”
APCO CEO Brooke Donnelly said: “The ambitious new cross-regional program will work to fundamentally transform our response to plastic by eliminating the plastics we don’t need, innovating to ensure that the plastics we do need are reusable, recyclable, or compostable, and circulating the plastic we use, keeping it in the economy and out of the environment.”
ANZPAC joins the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s global Plastics Pact Network, a globally aligned response to plastic waste and pollution that unites over 550 member organisations behind the shared vision of a circular economy for plastic, where it never becomes waste or pollution.