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The Risks to Brands of Not Doing Enough

A new scorecard from As You Sow details where brands are with their 2025 commitments around reducing plastic packaging and the risks associated with not meeting their goals.

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In a recent article in The Financial, Gartner, Inc. estimated that 90% of those companies that have made commitments to sustainable packaging—in particular, 100% of their packaging being reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025—will not meet their goals. That begs the question, what happens then? Is it merely about consumer perception? Are consumers even aware of these commitments? Who’s keeping track?

One organization that’s keeping very close track is As You Sow. As You Sow is a non-profit foundation chartered to promote corporate social responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and legal strategies. Last year, the foundation released a comprehensive report, the “2021 Corporate Plastic Pollution Scorecard,” that evaluated 50 of the largest consumer-facing companies in North America against 44 metrics divided among six pillars of corporate responsibility on plastic packaging: Packaging Design, Reusable Packaging, Recycled Content, Public Data Transparency, Supporting Recycling, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).


Read article   Read related article, "Packaging Policy Update & 2022 Outlook"


To compile the scorecard, As You Sow gathered metrics information for each company from sources such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Commitment 2021 Progress Report and from companies’ sustainability reporting. From that information, it gave each company a grade in each pillar and an overall grade, from A to F. Spoiler alert: None of the companies in the report received an A, and only one company received a B. The rest of the 49 companies received a C, D, or F.

Who got the B, you ask? The Coca-Cola Company. The next tier, C+, is occupied by Keurig Dr Pepper, Nestlé, Walmart, Colgate-Palmolive, and Target.

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