Plastic Pollution: UN treaty talks and corporate action

A major UN conference to negotiate a global treaty on plastic pollution just ended without an agreement. But efforts may resume in 2025 to get a treaty over the finish line. In this two-part episode, you’ll hear first from Erin Simon, WWF’s vice president for plastic waste and business, about what happened at that conference in Korea (known as INC-5) and what comes next for the global fight against plastic pollution. 

Then, in Part 2, you’ll hear from Sheila Bonini, WWF’s senior vice president for private-sector engagement; and Kevin Keane, president and CEO of American Beverage (ABA) – the trade association representing the nation’s non-alcoholic beverage industry. Sheila and Kevin’s teams have been working together for the last five years to find different ways to achieve material circularity – which means that all the plastic, as well as other materials like aluminum, that get used are collected and remade into new products. Sheila and Kevin will tell us about what’s working, what hurdles still remain, and how they plan to advance their mission regardless of whether a global plastics treaty gets adopted.

Links for More Info:

• Erin Simon Bio
• Sheila Bonini Bio
• Kevin Keane Bio
• WWF Plastics Page
• WWF-ABA Partnership
• Sustainability Works Blog: “Five Years of Progress: WWF and ABA’s Partnership for Practical Solutions”
• WWF Statement on INC-5 Outcome

TRANSCRIPT:

Seth Larson: Welcome to Nature Breaking, a World Wildlife Fund podcast focused on the news and trends affecting our natural world and the people and species who call it home.

I'm Seth Larson, and today I'm excited to bring you a special two-part episode covering one of the most important issues facing the global environment: plastic pollution. We all see this problem every day. When not disposed of properly, plastic bottles, lids, straws, and other products litter our sidewalks, public parks, beaches, and rivers. And then there's our oceans, where a dump truck's worth of plastic is deposited every single minute.

But there have been some important efforts recently to turn things around. Some listeners will remember that we covered this issue back in April of this year when I interviewed Erin Simon, WWF's vice president for plastic waste and business, about the ongoing negotiations around a new global treaty to end plastic pollution.

Those negotiations were supposed to culminate at a big meeting in Korea at the end of November, but the talks ended without an agreement. Erin is going to join me at the top of today's show to explain what happened and what comes next for the global fight against plastic pollution. Then, after my conversation with Erin, I'll be joined by Sheila Bonini, WWF's senior vice president for private sector engagement, and Kevin Keane, the President and CEO of American Beverage, the trade association representing the nation's non-alcoholic beverage industry.

Sheila and Kevin will talk about the partnership that WWF and ABA have staked out over the last five years and the solutions they're pursuing across both the policy and corporate sectors to limit the amount of plastic that winds up in nature. Let's get started with that update on the plastics treaty from Erin. Alright, I'm joined once again by Erin Simon, WWF's vice president for plastic waste and business. Erin's just returning from a long trip to and from Korea for INC-5. Erin, welcome back to Nature Breaking.

Erin Simon: Thank you so much for having me again.

Seth Larson: Yeah, my pleasure as always. So when we last spoke back in April, you were preparing for the fourth of five planned negotiation sessions for this new UN Global Treaty to End Plastic Pollution. You've just returned from that fifth and final session. As I just said, before we talk about the outcome there, though, can you just briefly remind our listeners about the history behind this process and what took place over the last two years?

Erin Simon: Yeah, of course. Most of us are not, I would say neck deep in the treaty process. And so, it's a little bit of a, a totally different world. But then, the need for a treaty comes about when we've exhausted all the rest of our options. So, when countries and businesses have been trying to solve a general crisis in the world on their own, that's just never enough. And so, they come together against this sort of shared threat and say, okay, let's figure out how we can collectively work together to solve this. And so, a few years ago, we came to that point with plastic pollution, where we had seen some bans and policies coming out in countries all over the world. We had seen companies doubling their commitments to address plastic pollution, but we were still amassing so much plastic pollution in nature. And so, in March of '22 at UNEA 5.2, the

Seth Larson: UNEA?

Erin Simon: UN Environment Assembly. Thank you.

Yes, sorry. Got to watch out for all my acronyms. I could just speak in letters if you wanted.

Seth Larson: No, please don't.

Erin Simon: I don't think that's a, you know, a bar for my intelligence either. It just sounds like gibberish. So, at UNEA, UN Environment Assembly in 2022, in Nairobi, the, the countries looked at the member states.

So that's what they call countries in the UN process came together, and they agreed unanimously that they needed to adopt this resolution. And what that means is they agreed to negotiate a treaty for a legally binding treaty in, to end plastic pollution. They agreed to do it in two years, which is quite quick, and for it to be inclusive of the whole life cycle.

For "quite quick" sort of reference point, usually takes like 10 years, and we decided to do that in 2, which means we had to have the required 5 intergovernmental negotiating committee meetings. So, I will refer to those as INCs from here on out...

Seth Larson: Okay.

Erin Simon: ...in that period. And that is those 5 are the minimum required to negotiate text that they could agree to take forward as a treaty.

So, what we've been doing over the past few years is going all over the world to complete these INCs. And the fifth and final one, "final one," was supposed to be in Busan, Korea over the last weeks. And so, it was a roller coaster because we did not, we were not able to maintain the necessary progress at every one of those meetings that would have set us up for success last week.

And that was when we started to talk about what happened, starting at INC-2 in Paris, we began to see the cracks in the spirit of the process, which were, which in the UN it's all about consensus. It's saying we are a global community agreeing on how we're going to solve this, and so let's all agree. So, we should make every decision by consensus.

Seth Larson: I learned this recently when I was, doing some research about the CBD biodiversity process in the, it goes through the UN and, yeah, the all the agreements that happen there and, and also in the climate change side of things, they all have to be by consensus. That doesn't necessarily mean that every country is there and votes yes at the end of whatever the agreement is, right? But there can't be any country objecting to the final agreement.

Erin Simon: Yeah, and so in, in theory you understand the importance of that. However, what we discovered in this process and what I would say we're probably seeing in other multilateral agreements like Paris or, you know, CBD for Biodiversity is that some countries use consensus as a weapon, right? What they do is allow that to give themselves a veto card.

So, previously in the law of treaties, which is the, which is the agreement for how to make agreements, there was, you know, you should do everything you can to get to consensus. And then if not, you can vote. And we call, we refer to that as the threat of the vote or Rule 38, which is typically what it is, in the treaty text. And, and that's important because it forces that compromise at the end, right?

If not, it can be an excuse for inaction, right? Like, oh, unfortunately we negotiated all week, and we are not in agreement. So therefore, we did not decide and therefore we do not have to do anything.

And that is just not acceptable for the issues that they have come together to solve. And so, there's this delayed process that we've seen in other, negotiations around and other sort of Conference of Parties that we've seen COPs for these other agreements. And in this process, it is, it has been that that has really been, problematic. Because we cannot use our inability to agree on what to do to be a good enough reason to not do anything at all.

And, so we were not set up really well for success going into INC-5 and what we needed to see in INC-5 was the majority, which was the progressive majority, really pushing back on this and no longer tolerating this lack of good faith of negotiating towards consensus when it wasn't actually being utilized in its original intention. So,

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Erin Simon: That's where we are or were a few weeks ago.

Seth Larson: Yeah. So, that’s, that's great background and also just great process background in terms of how these things work, um, and how the rules are set up.

So, what happened in Korea? What happened at INC-5? I mentioned in my intro that the conference did end without a treaty being adopted. So, what happened and how did the talks end?

Erin Simon: Yeah. So, we started out strong. For WWF, we had two things that needed to happen for success in INC-5. The first one was what we're calling the adoption of the chair's, non-paper.

Seth Larson: Okay. Please explain that.

Erin Simon: So, over the summer, the chair, who is, Luis Valdivieso from Ecuador. He is running the process, and he agreed that things were not moving, and he needed to take control of that a bit. And so, he started this process over the summer where he took this 70-page text that had over 3000 disagreements in it or brackets and was like, we cannot start and try to negotiate that in a week, right? We won't seven days, we will not get there. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to break it down and go through with every country and start agreement on sort of like a table of contents.

And so that was non-paper version one, and they were like, "yes, we agree with this table of contents." And then he started adding texts.

And so, before INC-5 started, we had non-version text, nonunion-non-paper text three. And the reason it's called a non-paper is that it is not an official paper. An official paper has been adopted.

So, we did not want to oversell what this was, it's really important because that means that the chair is not going behind these countries back and developing something without all of their agreement. But so, the first step in INC-5 was they had to adopt it as the mechanism for negotiating moving forward.

And we knew that that that small minority of what we've been calling spoiler countries because of their behavior in these negotiations as blatant stall tactics and spoiling, would push back on this.

And so, we knew that if on that first Monday of negotiations, the majority did not stand up and say no, this is the best bet we've got, we committed to negotiating this treaty by the end of this year. Like, there's no way we can go back to the, you know, the, the draft text that we have right now. And on day 1, it took hours because, of course, the spoilers tried, but in the end, they did agree to move forward. And for all of us observers, that was the first time we saw this majority say "enough. It is time to do the right thing. It's time to deliver on what we committed." And so, I think.

Seth Larson: So, it started off on the right foot.

Erin Simon: Yes, I think we're all like, yeah, we got something here. Like there's possibility. But then we go into Tuesday and Wednesday and there they break into what are called contact groups. And in contact groups, they divide and conquer over the text to negotiate different elements.

And for us, we had four major must haves. The first one was we needed to have 'binding', which means that everybody agrees to do it, or everybody is committed to and must do it. Binding obligations to phase down and out of products and chemicals of concern. This is important because we know you need to start with reductions.

You must get rid of it, stuff and to target together, what you're going to get rid of first are those things that are problematic to the system, so recycling or reuse or problematic to human health and the environment.

Seth Larson: And these are chemicals that are present in some plastic products that are the most...

Erin Simon: Yeah.

Seth Larson: ...problematic that we're trying to get out of...

Erin Simon: Get out of them. Because they are causing so many human health problems right now. So, like PFAS, for example, but also problematic products, like really small things that can't be recycled or, colored things like black plastic or, you know, colored plastic that degrades the quality. So, the second one was for everything we're going to continue using, let's all design it the same.

So, we want binding obligations for design guidelines. This is just smart. This is just good business, right? You don't, you don't, if you're looking, if you're a supply chain manager somewhere in the world, you don't say, hey, I've got a manufacturing line. Feel free to put into it whatever you want. And I'll be able to make good business out of the back end of that. Right? So, this is everywhere. Everything is designed the same.

The third thing was all of this requires a huge economic transition. We're talking over $17 trillion of public and private funding. And that you need to have a financial instrument within the mechanism that can help deliver that transition.

And then the fourth piece was about how we continue to make decisions once this becomes a treaty and we're moving to the conference of the parties. So come back to the beginning of this podcast, where I said the reason, we've had problems is because we decided we had to, you know, have consensus for everything. Well,

Seth Larson: Yep.

Erin Simon: Right now, in that non-draft, that was it was consensus would be the decision-making tool moving forward. It didn't have the threat of a vote included. And that, of course, means that they will not get much done in those COPs because they will do the same thing they always do, which is just talk to each other and not get anything done because there's no forcing function.

So for us, we were looking in like that Tuesday and Wednesday timeframe for them to make progress on those things and get us towards those must haves.by the end of Wednesday night, at in a plenary, which is when they come back together and they talk about how they've been doing, it wasn't great. And a lot of these progressive majority, these countries that totally agreed, over a hundred of them agree with our must haves, were like

Seth Larson: A hundred out of...

Erin Simon: A hundred out of 186. And in many cases, we're talking about really intense things, like getting rid of things and reduction. We're talking over 135, right? A clear majority. They were like, this is not working because those same delay tactics were happening in these contact groups.

You had, you know, countries that did not want to make progress making 30-minute, 30-minute interventions where they were just not doing anything, but just, like meandering thoughts. It was like their own version of a filibuster.

And so, there was a lot of frustration and just a lot of likes, we have four days left and there's other processes that must conclude all of that.

So, we don't really have four days. And so, what the chair did overnight was meet with the bureau, which represents like the regional leads of all, all of that, and they decided that they would take Thursday to create the first draft. And this is a bit out of process, and this is where you start to see people saying the process that we have is not working.

We're going to try different ways. That is risky. I mean, with big risks can come great rewards. But for a lot of these countries, including progressives, they felt like, "Whew, this is not the norm."

Right? And sometimes they feel like the norm, even though it is unproductive, is better than the non-norm, you know? Because that's where they're comfortable.

And so, he put out a letter early that morning, which was like, okay, contact groups you have until 9:00pm tonight to negotiate whatever you can and then I'm going to give you a first draft on Friday. And that was, that was chaotic. So, they did their best. And then he, he like had to take Friday to do more, like more internal, informal meetings to get it.

But by Saturday morning, we saw this first version of the chair's draft text. And so, it was not Saturday morning. It was more like Saturday afternoon. I have never, as an individual who reviews a lot of technical papers, been as excited to get a technical paper to review in my life, but we got it. And it was like, meh.

Seth Larson: Oh no.

Erin Simon: You know, our must haves were, they were in there, but they were all voluntary, which is what we've already been doing so it wasn't going to work. The financial instrument was a hot mess in there and there was of course, still just a consensus base. And you know, a lot of countries saw this as a problem. And so, what was exciting though, is we mobilized, we mobilized press events for these majority. We mobilized, with the other CSO coalitions, very quickly over 24 hours, these press moments outside that were like, we need courage, not compromise right now.

You know, we are the, the world is collapsing under the weight of plastic pollution. Do not leave an empty treaty. Do not let a treaty that is just a piece of paper be a success tomorrow. Like we need to get to something that's going to work. And it was really, I'm getting chills actually, as I talk about it, because these are moments in this press room where you would have, you had a hundred countries in there demanding, demanding that we started with agreed upon reduction of these problematic materials. Demanding that we stop messing around in negotiations and deliver on what we need. And you just were like, okay, okay, we can do something here. And by the time we got to Sunday and saw the next updated draft, which is the final day.it was improved, not good enough. But there was also this reality that began to set in around the negotiations, which was, we're still too far apart. There's no way we're going to finish this in less than 24 hours, even with the expectation that we all had that these negotiations would go well into the morning of Monday. And so, I think that was when we all began to realize like, okay, what is our best bet? What do we need to happen here to set us up for success?

And so, what we needed to happen was this latest version of the draft, which was stronger. We needed them to adopt that as the basis for negotiations moving forward into a 5.2, which is an extension, not a new meeting. They don't close the meeting, they just sort of extend.

Seth Larson: INC-5.2.

Erin Simon: yeah, even as I say it, I'm like, Oh, I'm still sad about that.

But, you know, so it was in, you know, and that at 3:00am is what we finalized after a lot of shenanigans from, the, the minded, the spoilers. But then you have these impassioned speeches from Rwanda and Mexico talking about, you know, these almost 100 countries that agreed with such ambition. Yeah, so it was like they did not go quietly into the night if you will.

Um, but it just, you can't ignore, right, you can't ignore the progress that majority showed in those statements, and, and that was, you know, you started to see folks say stuff like, if we can't figure it out in this process, we will take it forward with a treaty of the willing. And that is, that is.

Seth Larson: What would that mean?

Erin Simon: Yeah, that means there, it's fully legal for all the countries who actually want this legally binding, really, progressive and ambitious mechanism. They can just go off and do it on their own. It's totally legal, right?

So if you imagine, if you have 135 countries doing something on their own and taking the people who are not, who are degrading the quality of the talks out of the, out of consideration, then you really have the ability to sort of mobilize market scale with those countries.

Um, and I think that's really threatening to the minority. They don't want to be left out.

Um, and so that treaty of the willing came up a lot. You heard the gentleman from, Juan from Panama, he would say like, step up or step out. Like, it's time for us to get this done. So that as I look forward to 2025, and as we navigate into what INC-5.2 could look like, I think that these countries are going to have to really be willing to continue that fight for the future.

Um, the current draft, as I said, has some of those ingredients for success, but we cannot back down. We cannot let it fall backwards, right? In delivering the legally binding text that finally puts us on that course for ending plastic pollution. So

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Erin Simon: It was a rollercoaster, but I don't think, we’re not, we're not down and out yet right? It was a, it was a setback, but I think I kind of, I took a minute to mourn and then I like, kind of, I was like, all right, let's get going. Like, what do we have to do to make sure we're successful in 2025?

Seth Larson: Yep. Well, and going back to one thing you said earlier, the, this was already, an attempt to do this on a, on an accelerated basis on a two-year time frame instead of a typical something like 10-year time frame. And then, the five meetings that needed to happen, that was the minimum required to happen. Right? But it would be arbitrary to say like, there's no chance to carry this forward, we, we have to cut this process off right now. So yeah, it's disappointing. Everyone had planned for this to be the last meeting. But better to carry this process forward, take the progress that was made, and try to live to fight another day and, and, and finalize something strong next year than to just give up right now, right?

Erin Simon: Yeah, because that's, that's what the spoilers would want us to do, right? They would want us to feel so disappointed by this, that we stopped pushing the pressure on. And so, and I think at the end of the day, what we saw last week and what, you know, that, that feeling of energy that we had even at 3:00am as we were finishing this up was that, was like, we're not going to stop fighting. And so that is what we will do.

Seth Larson: So, is there any plan in place right now for what INC 5.2 looks like, when it might happen, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what does the next few months look like here?

Erin Simon: So, the hope is that INC-5 will happen around May within, you know, May, June, it'll happen in the first six months. We just need to get it going. Right? A lot of countries volunteered to have it, so it hasn't been decided. The bureau will come together and choose that. I don't know when that will happen, but I'm hoping quite soon.

I'm guessing by January, we should know. The assumptions based on all these volunteered rumors will be, it'll either be in Nairobi, which is where UNEP, UN Environment Program, is headquartered or in Switzerland. Those are the two countries right now who want to host the treaty once it is a treaty. And so, I'm guessing they will... because you have to pay, you have to pay to host this large meeting where thousands of people come.

So I think those two countries are the most likely.so between now and then, once that gets finalized, we will begin to prep and host sort of convenings where we can pull these countries together and talk about what we know are those further apart points and try to help mobilize that those good, bridged plans for moving forward.

We are finally in a place where we are negotiating text, and so there's a lot more opportunity to have really fruitful conversations. Following INC 5.2, if we finish and lock the text, there will be a diplomatic conference. Right now, there are 2 proposals for who will host this. And I think if people track the treaty process where you get where it hosts for the diplomatic conference is the name of the treaty.

So, for example, Paris was the diplomatic conference was in Paris, Stockholm, Stockholm. And so right now, Ecuador would like Galapagos, which is logistically very difficult because all those people will not fit on the Galapagos Islands, nor should they be because we are trying to protect those ecosystems.

And then what is being called Kigalima, which is a dual hosting from Kigali, Rwanda and Lima, Peru. It'll be hosted in one of those countries, not both. So, we'll see again where that diplomatic conference ends up. But that, if we, if all things go well, which as you can see from our history, we're not successful at that all the time. And I say we, the global community, are working on this. Then we will be done in 2025 and that that could still be that could still be great. So, that is that's what we'll work towards.

Seth Larson: Yeah. You know, I haven't had a chance to talk to you obviously since you got back from the conference. Just reading the news about what happened, I honestly expected you to be a little bit more pessimistic, coming into this conversation. And I'm glad to hear that you've really got some optimism and that this is not a loss.

It's a delay, and there's still a real prospect that we could come away from this process with a strong global treaty to end plastic pollution that could really set us on a path to solving or at least mostly solving this problem. So, thanks for updating us on all this.

I have one, I have one question for you before I let you go. Um, because after I speak with you, I'm going to be interviewing your colleague, Sheila Bonini, her counterpart Kevin Keane at the American Beverage Association, ABA, about the work they're doing together to shift corporate practices and to advocate for policies at the US federal and state level to curb plastic waste. You know, in this moment of delay on this treaty, it feels like the work that is happening sort of on that parallel track outside of the UN process is more important than ever, and I wanted to just ask you to talk a little bit about the difference that corporate efforts can make in the absence of a binding global treaty or, you know, just in the interim while we're still working through that process.

Erin Simon: So, time and time again, we've seen that when, when the when corporates sort of mobilize against these outcomes that they are demanding that policymakers create policies to level that playing field for it, that pressure stays on. Right?

Um, and so I think it's going to be super important that, for example, the 200... over 250 companies who are were negotiating, well, sorry, Okay, were advocating in the treaty process through the business coalition for a global plastic treaty, for the same must haves that WWF was, that they continue to maintain that pressure and drive those actions that they can at the national level. Right? So, in the US, we've been mobilizing EPR in five states. We will be...

Seth Larson: Extended Producer Responsibility

Erin Simon: Yes, thank you.

Seth Larson: Mm

Erin Simon: We will continue to do that. We will also be talking about what kind of framework could be needed at the federal level. Even with these five policies, they're all a little different and that is hard for companies, right? They are asking for states to partner with them. The governments to partner with the companies to build a supply chain for recycling. And the companies are saying we are going to pay for it. But when it's so different in every state, that's really complicated and really more high risk for them from an investment perspective. And so, they don't just want it at the state level. They want consistency at a federal level. so over the last year or so, and we'll continue into this next year, we've been, doing a lot of briefings to Congress, with the companies standing next to WWF saying we need this Extended Producer Responsibility.

We need to do it as a partnership, a public private partnership between companies and, and states or federal legislators so that this system can provide this economically viable source of new materials to use that are not virgin, not coming from the planet again, right? They are being reused, recycled, and removing that burden from the general public.

It is not really an, an environmental argument at all. It is, how do we make, how do we make America a leader in in these, these resilient supply chains that are local and that provide jobs and obviously provide economic value that previously we were just, you know, paying to throw in landfills. So,

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Erin Simon: I think that will keep going. And that is going to be important because governments will be in, you know, around the world are going to be in and out of this treaty. As I said, some of them will be a part of the negotiations but won't ratify. And so, in every country, you need to make sure that those companies are still partnering with local governments to transition to a circular economy, because that's what they want. And that's actually what these local communities want and need, so they can get out from underneath these piles of trash.so we'll keep going.

Seth Larson: Yeah, definitely seems like that work with companies can really lay the groundwork that we need to make this a successful outcome and to get the results that we want out of a treaty if it comes to pass or just, you know, domestically doing what we can do at the policy level, to, to keep plastic out of nature and to keep our oceans and rivers and, and public spaces clean and, and to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that go along with plastic production on and on.

Erin Simon: Yeah. So many wins

Seth Larson: So many

Erin Simon: from getting rid of trash.

Seth Larson: On that note, Erin, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. I hope you get some rest after this very long intensive process and that you can come back in the new year refreshed to do it all over again. And we can have you back next year to update us on the next phases of this process once they get sorted out.

Erin Simon: Sounds good. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure.

Seth Larson: Thanks again to Erin for that important update about the Global Plastics Treaty. Now for part two of this episode, we're going to turn our attention to a partnership that now feels more important than ever given the setback in those treaty negotiations. Because the work of stopping plastic pollution, whether that gets mandated by a treaty or not, will fall to governments, companies, and individuals taking action.

Joining me next to talk about some important work that's already happened on that front are Sheila Bonini, WWF's senior vice president for private sector engagement, and Kevin Keane, president and CEO of American Beverage. Both WWF and ABA had teams in Korea advocating for that plastics treaty. But more broadly, Sheila and Kevin's teams have been working together for the last five years to find different ways to achieve material circularity, which just means that all the plastic, as well as other materials like aluminum that get used are collected and remade into new products.

That's the Holy Grail when it comes to plastic and other packaging materials and Sheila and Kevin will tell us about what's working, what hurdles still remain and how they plan to advance their mission, regardless of whether a global plastics treaty gets adopted.

Okay, Kevin and Sheila, welcome to Nature Breaking. I'm so glad to have you here today.

Kevin Keane: Well, thank you, Seth, for having us on Nature Breaking and Sheila, it's always great to see you.

Seth Larson: Thank you. Thank you, Kevin, and Seth. Great to see you and looking forward to the Nature Breaking session. Yeah, I think it's a great moment in time to have this conversation and Kevin, I want to start with you because our audience may not know very much about American Beverage. I mentioned in my intro that you're the trade association for non-alcoholic US beverage companies, but I'd love for you to tell us a little bit more about what exactly that means.

Kevin Keane: Yeah, thanks, Seth that's a, that's a great question. A trade association is, um, a forum where companies in a similar industry can come together and work on common issues and address common goals and common challenges. It’s a way that they can put aside their competitive differences and come together in a pretty competitive, way to address big issues. We’re proud of how we approach issues at the American Beverage Association because our companies really are into solution-oriented activities. We’re not just out there trying to kill things or be against things. Our companies make a priority one to always find how we can be part of the solution, when, when dealing with a challenge before us, regardless of the issue. And then if we come up with solutions, we work incredibly hard to make sure we deliver on those solutions. So, this is a place where, you know, my big members, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Keurig Dr. Pepper, Niagara, Red Bull and so many others come together to really try to make a difference in the public policy arena.

Seth Larson: Yeah. And I, as a follow up to that, I wanted to ask why you all are specifically getting involved in this issue of plastic pollution, because I mean, to put it bluntly, I think a lot of listeners probably have the perception that the beverage industry is a driver of plastic pollution, and your group represents the interests of that industry. Right? So, what's the business case for reducing plastic pollution?

Kevin Keane: Well, I, the environment and, and making sure that we are delivering for our consumers in a way that they expect us to deliver. And that is to be good stewards of the environment and good businesses. That's good business is good, should be good for the environment and the consumer. And that's something our companies take very seriously. Now stating the obvious, we make liquid beverages. We must put them in a container. And we use an array of containers. Our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our three main ones are plastic and aluminum and glass. But we want to make sure that we're working to get all of those materials back, make sure they don't end up in the environment where they don't belong. All those materials are very recyclable. So, they should be coming back so we can turn them into new bottles and cans. And you know, that's one of our themes is our, our, our plastic bottles are made to be remade. And we're literally proving that out.as we're getting those bottles back, we are now turning them into 100 percent recycled content bottles.

So, 100 percent recycled PET bottles. You've seen that of all of our major companies right now, and they want to do more. And to be able to do more, we need to get more of our material back. But the business imperative if I can go back to that question…

Seth Larson: Yeah, please.

Kevin Keane: specifically, Seth is, is a great one because we often talk about our work on plastics as, um, rooted in several imperatives. The first is the business imperative, and it is our job to make sure that we are providing good safe products for our consumers, refreshment products for consumers, and do so in a way that is sustainable for the environment and for the communities that we serve. But we also have an imperative to serve the environment. And to serve our consumers on that front. And so, we always look at it as three imperatives, the business, the consumer, the environment, all working hand in hand and serving each other. And, and, and that's the approach that drives some of the policies we'll probably be getting into later today, like Every Bottle Back. Our work on Extended Producer Responsibility and other collection systems, and just reducing the amount of virgin plastic that we use overall. And that, that is the goal is to reduce the amount of virgin plastic, um, that we use.

Seth Larson: Right. Yeah. So, in other words, using the plastic that's already out there instead of producing new plastic from raw materials and putting that into a system that already has a lot of plastic in it that could be reused.

Kevin Keane: Correct.

Seth Larson: So, and I will be diving into some of those policies you just mentioned. We'll get to that in a few minutes. Sheila, I want to bring you in here now and just ask you about this partnership between WWF and American Beverage. Yeah.it began back in 2019. So, we're five years into working together now. What have we been working on in that time and, and what progress have you observed on your end?

Sheila Bonini: Well, I'll just start that, you know, when we started the partnership in 2019, I think a lot of folks were surprised. This was unlikely partnership between an industry association and a conservation organization. Because I think the thinking was that an industry association, as you said in the beginning, Kevin, you said you weren't just for saying no, but that is often, often the stance that you might encounter with other industry associations is that they're not interested in, the environment.

And I think what is different here, um, is that ABA really is. And I think that commitment, because it is important to the businesses, because it's important to the consumer, as Kevin said, that there's a real alignment behind what we care about in the environment. You asked what the business case is, you know, for us, it's what's the environmental case for addressing plastic waste? And that's very clear.

We don't want plastic waste choking our rivers or ending up in the ocean, and actually those materials, we want to get them back and recirculate them. I like to say that, you know, when we take something from the planet, we want to use it as much as possible before we go back and ask the planet for more, whether that's plastic or glass or aluminum.

And that's where we're very aligned with ABA and our partnership with them. When we first started, they had an initiative called Every Bottle Back, and, the idea was, as Kevin said, to try to, a system to get the PET bottles in the back in the US because PET bottles are made out of high-quality plastic that can easily be turned back into PET bottles.

And I think…

Seth Larson: Can you just, quickly, I don't think we've defined what, what does PET stand for? I know Kevin mentioned it.

Sheila Bonini: I was going to say, Kevin, you want to, go ahead.

Kevin Keane: I am not going to come close to pronouncing that name correctly, Seth, but it is the type of plastic that we use. It's a specific type of plastic. It's actually the highest quality plastic. And so that's what allows it to be used multiple times. And importantly, because we produce a consumable product, our plastic must meet FDA standards and PET allows us to do that. Correct.

Seth Larson: Understood. So, when, when you say PET plastic, that's the plastic that all of us are familiar with...

Sheila Bonini: a bottle of, of

Seth Larson: a bottle of water or something.

Kevin Keane: Correct.

Sheila Bonini: Dr. Pepper. One of those. Yeah. I think that our goals were to both mitigate waste. But also, I think what's really important as Kevin was saying, they want to get the bottles back, but it's to get that recycled material back into PET bottles. I, you know, you almost think about that hierarchy of you, you want to make sure that that high quality plastic goes back to making high quality plastic. And I think that's been a challenge for a lot of companies. They want to have 100 percent recycled bottles to be able to put the beverages in, but there isn't a source of that recycled plastic unless we can fix what is today a broken recycling system. Which brings us to the other, the big area where we have worked together for the past five years.

I think Kevin mentioned it, maybe mentioned EPR, but EPR is Extended Producer Responsibility, but it's policy, essentially to help create, a more circular system.so it's a policy mechanism that changes the way that recycling is financed and operated.so it shifts the financial responsibility. Today a lot of the recycling systems might be financed by the local municipality, but to shift that financial responsibility away from, the, the municipalities or the others who are financing on to the companies that actually produce the plastics. And I think the idea also is for it to modernize our recycling infrastructure and collection systems, which are very much in need of that modernization.

So, I think people worry that they put something in a recycling bin, it might not get recycled. Well, we need to make sure that we've updated and invested correctly in the recycling infrastructure so that the bottles that we put into the recycling will get turned into new bottles, and we'll be able to get them back as the initiative says.

But the other area that's really important that we've also worked with American Beverage Association over the past 5 years, we started out actually looking also at transparency and reporting. I think for a lot of companies, they didn't know how much plastic they're using and where it was going.

We would talk about like the fate. So, you know, you, you have a plastic bottle and it ends up in an ocean across, you know, the world because you’ve sold the drink there, and there may not be a, a, uh, recycling infrastructure in that place. And so, I think those are some of the things that, you know, you need if you're going to start fixing the plastic problem, you need to understand, well, what is the footprint?

Um, so we work together with ABA on transparency, we, WWF, had put together a footprint tracker, a resource footprint tracker that provided some credible metrics for tracking the plastics use and recovery of ABA's Every Bottle Back, program. So, these shared metrics really allow you to monitor and year to year to move forward. And I think that was also an important piece for ABA to be very transparent and open about the plastic footprint. Because as you said, there's a perception, and it's important to have, you know, real, facts and real credible metrics in place. So, I think that was another piece of, of the partnership that has been really important.

And then I'd say beyond kind of the policy work we've done together moving forward, on EPR, which has been, I will say, sort of gradual working at a state level here in the US moving forward, from a few states like Colorado, New Jersey, most recently Minnesota really successful kind of state by state action that we've done moving policy forward that has been, really terrific.

But in, in addition, we kind of look to spark more innovation in the beverage sector, and I know, some of the members of, ABA have been looking at things like reuse and refill, and also, I think, the industry has made a big investment, in terms of system infrastructure, have, committed $100 million to modernizing recycling, which is a really significant commitment.

Seth Larson: So, there's a lot, you know, a lot of, great momentum and sort of these unlikely partners, conservation organization and industry association. We’ve really come together and have a shared mission, in this area of plastic waste. Yeah, that's great. Kevin, I want to ask you to talk a little bit more about that, the Extended Producer Responsibility, policy framework in a second, but before we dive further into that, are there any other broader thoughts about this partnership you'd like to share?

Kevin Keane: Yeah, well, I, first of all, I think Sheila said it great, and I have to give credit to my predecessor, Katherine Luger. It was Sheila and Katherine who broke through that natural mutual skepticism of, okay, we're, we're companies, you're an NGO. How do we work together? And, you know, it starts with having trust and they were able to create that trust and then it's up to all of us to deliver on it. And so, we take that very seriously. And are working hard to make sure we deliver. It was part of, it led to the introduction of Every Bottle Back. And for us with Every Bottle Back, obviously that, that, theme is aspirational, but it really is something you're ultimately shooting for.

Um, and that is creating that circularity. And one of the first things we had to do with Every Bottle Back is help make people understand that our bottles, our plastic bottles were valuable. It's easy when you hold up an aluminum can and its metal to get the value of that metal. We need to convince the public and help make them aware and educate them that, hey, that plastic bottle is just as valuable as that aluminum can. Give it back to us. And so, we've done a, a strong job in creating that awareness. Well people now see the value as much greater than they did when we started. And so, they're, they're helping to get, give it back, putting it into recycling bins. And so, the next step we took was, okay, let's put our money where our mouth is.

So, our companies came together, and we put in a hundred million dollars into a, a community recycling investment fund with the closed loop partners. And, the recycling partnership, and that's actually leveraging $400 million worth of investments, whether it's putting carts on the streets or modernizing a material recovery facility known as an MRF.

That's where the recycling actually takes place. And, and then, that allows us to get more material into the system, recycled material that we can then buy and use to make into a hundred percent recycled bottles. And the goal of Every Bottle Back is to reduce that plastic footprint that Sheila mentioned.

And that's what the transparency and measurement come in, that WWF does for us. So, in working on Every Bottle Back, we also wanted to pursue some policies that created scale where possible, more, I mean, a more volume of material coming in, and that's where Extended Producer Responsibility, came along. It’s a European concept, Canada uses it, but we had never had EPR here in America. Our board came together and created a set of principles, for good Extended Producer Responsibility. And, those principles are, first, it must meet the environmental goals of getting material back and keeping it out of the environment.

Secondly, it needs to be convenient for the consumer. And that's where the curbside collection comes in. EPR takes advantage of curbside collection systems. Third, you must have a financially sustainable system, and that requires a, a mutual partnership between government and the private sector, the producers. So, government must have a clear role.

First, the government needs to create the EPR system. They need to create standards by which the producers of the materials need to meet. And then they need to hold the producers accountable. Now in EPR, producers are far more than just my companies, and my material. It not just gets back your plastic, but also our aluminum and glassware that's accepted locally, but it also gets other recyclable materials back, including other industries' materials, paper and paper packaging.

So, it really is a comprehensive recycling system. Now, in exchange for that government oversight and responsibility, the producers of the material should be given the authority to, run the system, working with our waste management partners. So having that trade-off, okay: the producers will pay for the system, but let the private sector do what it does best and that's run systems. And, and that's what we're doing. And then the payoff of that is hopefully we're going to get a more efficient system for recycling, but also those producers are going to have first access to the material collected.

So, we would have first access to our plastic, and aluminum, you know, the paper folks would have first access to the paper. And, and that helps create the circularity rather than our, plastic ending up downstream into something like carpet or clothing. Not that that's the worst thing, but as Sheila said, if you take something out of the planet, we want to use it as many times possible before taking more off the planet. This allows us to create that circularity and do that, use our bottles over and repeatedly.

Seth Larson: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And my next question was going to, going to be about that. You know that Sheila mentioned that the, this EPR, Extended Producer Responsibility, system works by shifting the cost of recycling back onto companies. And my question was going to be, why would the companies that you work with want that? Because it just, you know, as much as you are dedicated to environmental outcomes, you also must be responsible to shareholders and generating a profit. Right? So not you, but the companies that you represent. But that actually makes a lot of sense that, the, the, the incentive for the companies is that they get a little bit more hands on control of that back-end recycling so that then they can get first dibs on the material that comes back and make more products out of it. Makes a lot of sense. And I appreciate you breaking that down. Is there anything else? Is there anything I mischaracterized there? Is there anything else either of you want to chime in?

Kevin Keane: I think it just takes advantage of what the private sector does best, and that is run systems, and do so collectively, across multiple industries. And that's what's going to help modernize the system too.as Sheila mentioned before, you know, recycling is very much real. It's very much needed, but it needs to be modernized, and it needs to, um, be available, to more citizens and residents, and we think where the opportunity exists in the states, this is a good system to pursue. And ABA, you know, we're proud to say, you know, we were behind with some local NGOs getting the Colorado EPR system created, which was the first in the country. Very proud of that. They're working on standing it up now. And then just this past year, we got what we consider a second strong EPR system created, and that was in Minnesota. So, like we say, we have big goals and big ideals, but we try to work to make them happen.

Sheila Bonini: I would just add, I think a lot of the, you know, you say, why would the companies want to do this? Why would they want to pay for it? I do think the control is one piece, but a lot of these companies also have commitments around climate, and as you move to recycling system, you're going to reduce the impact on climate. But it's also what the consumers want. You see in survey after survey that consumers are very concerned about plastic waste. And this is an area where they really want to see movement. They want to see recycled bottles. That's something that they'll look for. So, I think it makes, it's one of these things that just makes sense all the way around.

Seth Larson: There's clear business sense, and there's clear environmental sense here, for this. The consumers really want it. Yeah. And my sense is these EPR systems in the states that they’re, adopted in will also create some more uniformity in the recycling practices in those states. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. But I mean, I know one of the biggest things that frustrates consumers is that depending on where you live or, you know, where you're traveling to and from, there are wildly different policies about what can be recycled or what can't be recycled.

I live in a city where glass can't be recycled. And, but the city right next to me does recycle glass. And different types of plastic are accepted in some systems, but not others. And getting some more uniformity, at least within some state boundaries to know that any town or city I'm in in the state of Minnesota is going to abide by some basic principles of what can and can't be recycled and how and when I think will give people more confidence to use those systems, right?

Kevin Keane: That's exactly right, Seth. And, and we need to build that confidence in the system. As you said that's one of the elements that undermines confidence is literally two towns next to each other have two different rules. And so, the consumer doesn't know what will ultimately happen. We need to build up that confidence.

We need to build up the modernization of our recycling system and make it more accessible. And EPR is one way to do that. And, and, and so that's why we're, we're stepping in on it and, and going where we think we can work with a state to get it built. And, and, and then we've got to do the hard work of making sure that it works.

Seth Larson: and, and that's going to be part of the confidence element too. Sheila, in addition to the work we're doing with ABA, I want to acknowledge that the beverage industry is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to plastic pollution and, and circularity in general. What actions would you like to see from other companies or other sectors? I'd love to just hear your thoughts about what the rest of the private sector could learn from the work that you've been doing with American Beverage?

Sheila Bonini: It's a great question. I think we’ve been partnering with, well, you know, WWF partners with companies across the spectrum and up and down value chains. We work with some of the largest companies, some of the leaders in the world. I’d say, some of the other sectors that are very interested and involved in the plastic waste issue, retailers, are definitely engaged.

Um, and food service and restaurants are another sector that I can say are engaged. I think in food service and restaurants, we've seen some innovation around kind of like in, in a restaurant using reuse and increased, sort of, you know, innovation, if you will, and trying to think about how to how to how to make that work.

Um, and retailers and brands are also thinking about how do they roll out different packaging formats? Or different, you know, reuse or refill options within a retailer.so there's lots of different challenges for, you know, different companies in this space, but we're seeing a lot of innovation, a lot of, um, a lot of work going on to both reduce the unnecessary plastic that, is there and then to think about the design piece of it. These are really important elements that we're seeing also at the global level with a global treaty that I know you, you touched on earlier. And I think that many of the different sectors were, you know, going through those steps with them as well.

And I think many are also, we have a policy advocacy group. We call it One Source and many of the companies that we're working with, in addition to the beverage industry, are members of that and also looking towards the EPR and what good EPR could look like and how that could benefit the whole system.

Seth Larson: So, I think this is definitely not a solution that's only for the beverage industry. I think this is a much broader solution for fixing a broken recycling system. Yeah, that's really exciting. And it's great to see the progress that's been happening at the state level. I want to pivot from that, to talk, a little bit more broadly. So, you know, Kevin, I'll, I'll bring you in here. We talked about these state level policies that WWF and ABA are advocating for. I covered the disappointing end to the negotiations for a new global plastics treaty at the top of this episode. But what about US federal policy? Kevin, I was reading in your bio before this interview that you served in the Bush Administration, and you worked for a Republican governor of Wisconsin before that. And as much as plastic pollution has been a rare bipartisan area of agreement in recent years, it will be Republicans in control of both the White House and Congress come January. So, I got to ask what's your pitch to them about why they should use their political capital to tackle plastic pollution?

Kevin Keane: Well, I don't think our position, our message changes. This is a bipartisan issue.

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Kevin Keane: I often talk to my Republican friends and colleagues and just spoke to a, a conservative group about the benefits of, recycling and, you know, creating, multiple uses out of materials. And in fact, I tell them that EPR, if you look at EPR and how it works. A lot of the core components of EPR are based on Republican principles. That the private sector should do things that maybe government doesn't do as well.so maybe that's where the, the partnership comes in with government, you know, they have a role of setting the standards, creating a program and holding everybody account, but then let the private sector working with the waste management companies, make the system work.so there's something for everyone in the work that needs to be done here. And it's not a partisan issue. You know, Republican governors, my, my, my governor, Tommy Thompson, was a huge environmentalist.

I used to joke with my friend at the Sierra Club there, ran the Sierra Club, that if, if Tommy was a Democrat, you'd be hailing him as a second coming of Gaylord Nelson. He did so much work on the environment. But Republican governors are like that.

Um, they, they have lakes and rivers in, in their states too. And they don't want pollution in those, in those, waterways. And they're huge for recreation. They're huge for tourism. They're huge for, just the health of a vibrant community and a vibrant state. So that would, that's the message we're going to continue to take to the, to the hill, and, and to the administration, and I think there'll be some openness to that. I do, I'm, I'm always an optimist, but, you know, there’s, I think this, there's folks in this administration who are going to want to make sure that, is, we're taking smart, pragmatic steps to keep our environment, um, healthy and clean.

Seth Larson: Yeah, that's great to hear. And I, you know, I was talking to one of our lead government affairs staffers here at WWF a week or two ago about, you know, what are, are, some prospects for bipartisan, environmental legislation in the next Congress. And, and, and one of the first things they brought up was plastic pollution and finding ways to work together on that.

So hopefully we'll see some good stuff happen next year. And I’m mindful of time. I want to ask just one last question to you both. What have you learned from each other in the time you've been working together?

Sheila Bonini: One thing is, I think, I learned that unlikely partners can be an incredible strength. I think, when, I think what we've seen is when the environmentalists and industry association can come together, when you know something's good for business and something's good for the environment, that will make policymakers more comfortable, whether on either side of the, of the, the spectrum and I think that's been a really important learning that, when we can really align and put our voices together, how important that is.I think the other thing is, you know, our organizations play kind of, I would say sort of parallel roles in our sectors.

We're sort of, I sort of think of us as trusted partners and brokers across the players in our respective spheres.so ABA has tremendous leverage, of course, across the beverage industry, but also with the, you know, system that they work with. And then similarly, we in the environmental scene, we're, WWF is the largest conservation organization globally, and we bring that together, and I think it's been really, really strong. So, this, I also think that when you have, Kevin mentioned trust, I think that we have real trust between our organizations working really well together for the past five years, and that partly comes from a deep alignment on goals andit’senabled, a real creativity in our partnership.

I think when you have alignment, you can trust each other and then you can go beyond. And I really look back over the past five years and it's pretty incredible, you know, we kind of sketched out some joint principles of EPR in the early days. And you look where, you know, Kevin was just talking about the success in Minnesota.

Kevin Keane: but I, I'm just really excited about the impact that we've had to date and excited to continue to drive the change and work together. And, you know, hopefully we'll see more states adopting good EPR policies. And we will see real progress in the years to come. Yeah, and just to build on everything Sheila said, I mean, first of all, look at it this way. We're 7 percent of all plastic waste in the environment right now. So, we could say, hey, we're a small piece of the problem and walk away. But 7 percent is too high for us. We, we don't want our materials in the environment. They don't belong there. They belong coming back into the system so we can turn them into new bottles. And what this partnership has done is, is Sheila used the word creativity. I'll add in the word challenge too. It challenges our perspective, how to look at the problem, in a way we might not have looked at it in the past.

And then that helps come up with creative solutions. When you get out of your comfort zone and you're not afraid to push yourself. And this is an industry that's not afraid to push itself. Which makes me so proud to work for it is they, they do work on solutions and, and WWF has been a great partner, not just in, you know, the solutions we've accomplished to date, but continuing to look beyond the horizon and see what more we can do and what more may be coming at us that we need to get ready for. You know, Sheila mentioned reuse, you know, continue to talk with them on what, what modern reuse looks like in today's age.

Seth Larson: Great. Well, Kevin and Sheila, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate this conversation. I'm really excited to see what additional progress the two organizations can generate in the next year or two. You know, particularly with the news most recently about the UN plastic treaty, stalling out and we hope it'll advance next year at some point.

But the progress that we can make between our organizations and working with all the partners we bring in feels even more important than ever right now. So, thank you both for your commitment to this and thank you for your time today.

Sheila Bonini: Thank you.

Kevin Keane: Thank you, Seth.

Seth Larson: Thanks again to Erin, as well as Sheila and Kevin for joining the show today. As disappointing as the recent INC-5 outcome was, it was great to hear the inside explanation from Erin about what went wrong and what could happen next to salvage a global treaty. It was also great to hear from Sheila and Kevin about the work their teams have been doing outside that treaty process to drive progress and build momentum for bigger wins to come.

I'm hopeful that 2025 will be the biggest year yet in the fight against plastic pollution. And I hope today's episode gave you the same optimism. Together let's keep building a more sustainable future.