World Environment Day takes place each year on 5th June. This may have passed you by. It certainly didnât get much attention in the media.
The focus this year was âBeat Plastic Pollution.â
Each year around 430 million tonnes of plastic is produced, two-thirds of which are short-lived products which soon become waste. Plastic pollution can have devastating impacts on our ecosystems and wildlife, our health and well-being and the global economy. The social and economic costs of plastic pollution are estimated to be US$600 billion per year.
Despite repeated promises, current commitments made by governments and industry will only reduce the annual volume of plastic flowing into the oceans by 8 per cent by 2040.
Indeed, we are producing more and more plastic â it is embedded into every aspect of modern life.
It is in our cars, homes, medical devices, clothes, and shampoos.
To stop this we need major commitment, backed by financial resources, from governments around the world. Sadly, this has too often been lacking.
As individuals it is easy to feel we cannot make any difference, but we can vote everyday with our wallets – for example, by not buying products with single-use plastic. Ultimately, companies will respond if enough people demand change, and it is affecting their profits.
As investors we can also make a difference. One of the ways you can do this is through our Positive Impact portfolios which:Â
- Invest in alternative materials to plastic, so that we can avoid production in the first place. Lenzing makes bio-based fibres that can create sustainable textile alternatives to synthetic fabrics (one of the main source of microplastic pollution), with much lower environmental and water footprint than cotton.
- Invest in products that use recycled or upcycled plastic waste as a source of material. Advanced Drainage Systems is a water overflow management company that produces pipes made almost entirely of recycled plastics.
- Invest in efficient waste collection and waste treatment so that plastic waste does not get into water sources, rivers, coastlines. Waste management Incis an integrated waste management company in the US.
- Invest in plastic recycling technology companies, which can derive secondary value from waste streams. PureCycle Technologies diverts waste from landfill sites and converts around 54,000 tonnes of plastic waste into new plastic pellets for re-use.
- Invest in circular economy business models, which help create a flow of plastic material, maximising its lifetime use. Tomra operates machines used in the bottle deposit/return systems operating in many EU countries.
There are many scary statistics which illustrate the magnitude of the problem, but for its sheer mindblowingness itâs hard to beat research by Ellen MacArthur Foundation which estimated that by 2050 there would be more plastic than fish in the oceans.
Source – World Environment Day. Beat Plastic Pollution practical guide.
United Nations Environment Programme.
