Supply Chain Sustainability dominates The World Economic Forum in Davos
The World Economic Forum 2020 brought world and business leaders together in Davos, Switzerland, where the conversations and discussions were dominated by sustainability. While world leaders discussed the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals, the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Secretary-general, Kitack Lim, called for renewed cooperation from all stakeholders to tackle the urgent issues of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. He told world leaders that “there can be little doubt that addressing climate change must be mankind’s major priority”.
This comes as the IMO strategy is to reduce sector-wide emissions by at least 50% by 2050 but Lim suggested that in order to achieve these changes, zero-carbon ships would need to be introduced as early as the 2030s. While this deadline seems quite close, Lim remains optimistic stating that ambitious targets will act as a catalyst for innovation.
However, he continued to stress that tackling climate change and implementing a more sustainable approach cannot be achieved alone and called specifically for “the need for a collective approach throughout the entire global supply chain”.
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Supply Chain Shock: Coca-Cola won’t be ditching plastic bottles
A comment from Coca-Cola’s head of sustainability, Bea Perez, has come as a shock to many, after she said in an interview with the BBC that Coca-Cola would not ditch single use plastic bottles.
The global drinks company currently produces about 3 million tons of plastic packaging a year, which is the equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute, and has faced calls from some environmentalist campaigners to ditch plastic bottles completely. However, Perez has confirmed that the company will still use the bottles as there still is consumer demand for them. She said that consumers still “like [plastic bottles] because they reseal and are lightweight”.
However, Coca-Cola has pledged to use at least 50% recycled materials in its packaging by 2030. The company has also pledged that it will recycle as many plastic bottles as it uses by the same deadline. However, with environmental campaigners arguing that many bottles will still go uncollected and end up in landfills, it remains to be seen if this interview will have a lasting effect on the company.
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Nestlé to invest in sustainable packaging
Nestlé is to make a major investment into sustainable packaging as consumers push for industries to go green.
Nestlé plans to spend up to as much as a total of 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.1 billion) in order to make a shift away from using virgin plastics to using food-grade recycled plastics. The money will also be used to help increase its development of more sustainable solutions with the company launching a sustainable packaging venture fund to help invest in startup firms in this area.
According to the company website, Nestlé’s global plastic packaging use was 1.7 million metric tons in 2018 with only 2% of that being recycled plastic. The new investment aims to tackle this and is part of Nestlé’s commitment, which it made 2 years ago, that they will “make all of its packaging recyclable or reusable and aims to reduce use of virgin plastic by a third” by 2025.
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Have a great weekend!
