rePurpose Global, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing plastic waste, launched the Plastic Reality Project to educate corporate leaders and environmental practitioners on the best ways to fight plastic pollution and accelerate plastic-reduction efforts.
Launched with support from the Sustainable Ocean Alliance and the GreenBiz Group, the Plastic Reality Project aims to upskill 5,000 sustainability leaders in the next five years on addressing plastic pollution through educational expeditions, corporate training programs, peer mentoring networks and a competency-based certification program for individual professionals.
The inaugural project took place in September with a week-long expedition to two states in India: Tamil Nadu and Kerala. More than 20 organizations, including those from The World Economic Forum, Target, Emerson Collective, Riverside Natural Foods and Coca-Cola, took part in the expedition.
According to research from Gartner, 90% of sustainable packaging commitments set by global companies won’t be met by 2025, while the World Wildlife Fund predicts that global plastic production will more than double by the end of the decade.
rePurpose Global created the Plastic Reality Project to bridge this gap and fast-track the business community’s efforts to combat plastic pollution.
“As an environmental finance provider, we at rePurpose Global have evaluated hundreds of attempts to tackle plastic pollution across the globe in recent years, most of which have achieved limited success and scale,” said Peter Wang Hjemdahl, chief advocacy officer at rePurpose Global. “Through the Plastic Reality Project, we hope to turn this spotty track record around and empower sustainability decision-makers with the knowledge they need to reduce bias in evaluating solutions, make better impact investments and, ultimately, accelerate our fight against the plastic epidemic.”
