Brands and retailers in the Global Commitment have now collectively reduced their virgin plastic consumption for the second year in a row, with a reduction of 1.2%between 2020 and 2019, following a 0.6%reduction between 2018 and 2019.

This follows decades of exponential growth in the industry’s consumption of virgin plastics, during which the global plastics market grew from around 2 million metric tonnes in 1950 to more than 300 million metric tonnes in 2015.

This downward trajectory is reinforced by new commitments to reduce total plastic or virgin plastic use in absolute terms by 2025, which has this year become a mandatory requirement to be a Global Commitment brand or retail signatory.

These targets are expected to lead to a total reduction in virgin plastic used by brand and retail signatories of around 19% between 2018 and 2025.

This sustained and significant fall would mark, for the first time, a decoupling of business growth from the consumption of virgin plastic among leading brand and retail companies.

By 2025, combined with the recycled content targets of plastic and packaging manufacturer signatories, this would avoid an estimated 8 million tonnes of virgin plastics from being produced each year – keeping 40 million barrels of oil in the ground annually.2