When Wal Mart, Nestle And Mars Withdraw From The Plastic Convention, What Is The Next Step For Sustainable Packaging?

Recently, several well-known brands and retail giants have withdrawn from the United States Plastics Convention (USPP), which has attracted widespread attention in the industry. The convention aims to bring together various forces in the plastic value chain to jointly promote the achievement of the 2025 Sustainable Development Goals for packaging. As the largest retailer in the United States, Wal Mart has definitely stopped participating in this convention. According to archived information on the USPP website, companies such as Mondelez International, Mars, Nestle, and L'Oreal USA, which were once members of the convention, seem to have quietly withdrawn recently. So far, these companies have not made any official comments on this matter. In addition, several non-profit organizations such as the Marine Conservation Association and the National Management Action Committee have also withdrawn from the convention.
Background and Objectives of the United States Plastic Convention
The United States Plastic Convention was officially launched in 2020 and is an important component of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's global plastic convention network. The network has about 60 participants, including several companies that have recently withdrawn. In order to comply with the purpose of the US Plastic Convention, all participants have jointly committed to achieving four packaging goals by 2025.
As of 2023, the report shows that 50% of plastic packaging put on the market by convention participants has achieved reusability, recyclability, or compostability. In addition, the report from the US Plastic Convention also points out that an average of 11% of the materials in the packaging product portfolio of participating parties come from post consumer recycled materials or biobased materials.

As the 2025 target deadline approaches, the US Plastic Convention has released an updated roadmap that not only reaffirms the established goals for 2025, but also adds long-term targets linked to 2030. The United States Plastic Convention states that the specific development of 2030 targets will officially begin on January 1, 2026. The organization's Director of Marketing and Communications, Eric Downing, stated on May 20th that the official website of the US Plastic Convention has been updated to clearly list all existing 'participants' up to now. It is worth noting that the newly added participants include companies such as Clysar and Tipa.
Add the category of "facilitator" and analyze the reasons for withdrawal
This year, USPP has added a new membership category called "Promoters". At present, there are more than ten participants on the list, including well-known companies such as L'Oreal, Plastic Recyclers Association, Avery Dennison, Charter Next Generation, Church&Dwight, and Kraft Heinz. These 'facilitators' have pledged to continue supporting the convention until 2030, and Tang Ning explained that unless specifically committed, general' facilitators' typically renew their contracts annually. USPP has not yet commented on how it calculates the "facilitator" membership fee.
Heidi Sanborn, Executive Director of the National Plastic Recycling Association (NSAC) in the United States, explained the organization's participation as a "facilitator" in the convention. She stated that NSAC's participation includes attending meetings related to the development of its' problematic and unnecessary list of materials' under the convention. However, regarding the final decision to withdraw from the convention, Sanborn explained that NSAC believes that the benefits it receives are not proportional to the time and effort it invests. In addition, Sanborn also revealed that USPP hopes NSAC will pay the participation fee, which was not a condition for NSAC's participation in the convention before. This indicates that changes in costs and considerations of input-output ratios may be important reasons for some organizations to withdraw.

Challenges faced in achieving goals and responses from enterprises
The companies participating in the agreement generally acknowledge that achieving their own set 2025 sustainable development goals faces many challenges. For example, Mars stated in a report last year that although it has made "good progress" in achieving goals that align with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's global commitments, the company is "unlikely to fully achieve these goals by the end of 2025". Mars explained that part of the reason is that the required design and infrastructure changes took longer than we expected. This reflects that achieving large-scale sustainable transformation of packaging requires not only internal efforts within the enterprise, but also technological breakthroughs and infrastructure improvements throughout the entire industry chain.
Retail giant Wal Mart also expressed doubts about the feasibility of its 2025 goal. The company clearly pointed out in its updated report in February this year: "Although we have made significant progress in achieving the ambitious 2025 goals, which include increasing the proportion of recycled materials, reducing the use of raw plastics and improving packaging recyclability, we expect that we will still not be able to achieve these goals by 2025." Wal Mart's statement coincides with Mars', which once again confirms that in practice, the goal of sustainable packaging is not easy to achieve.
Nevertheless, Wal Mart is still actively seeking other cooperation ways to promote packaging transformation. Wal Mart is the co-founder of the EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) Leadership Forum. The members of the forum also include Yizi International, Mars, Nestle, L'Oreal America and other companies that have quit USPP, as well as Amko, Coca Cola, IKEA Keurig Dr Pepper, Industry giants such as Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo, SC Johnson, and Target. In addition, Wal Mart is also a founding member of the Recycling Action Alliance, a producer responsibility organization co founded by industry enterprises, which is committed to leading the implementation of EPR in multiple states in the United States. This indicates that even if these companies withdraw from USPP, they are still actively promoting the sustainable development of plastic packaging through other channels and alliances.
It is worth mentioning that Wal Mart has recently become one of the goals of a campaign on corporate plastic packaging policies launched by the National Law and Policy Center (NLPC). NLPC is a conservative non-profit organization focused on research and legal action. The organization launched a shareholder proposal against Wal Mart, calling on the company to re-examine its plastic packaging policy. Wal Mart's annual shareholders' meeting will be held on June 5, when this issue may attract more attention. This reflects that in the process of promoting sustainable development, enterprises not only face challenges from within the industry, but may also face supervision and pressure from external organizations and shareholders.

Progress and Future Prospects of Global Plastic Agreements
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) stated in its 2024 report that the implementation of dozens of plastic agreements worldwide over the past six years has achieved significant results. The report emphasizes that the content of recycled materials in packaging has increased by 44% and successfully reduced the use of 360000 tons of harmful and unnecessary plastics. This indicates that despite individual conventions facing challenges and member withdrawals, positive progress has been made globally in promoting sustainable development of plastics.
However, the withdrawal of some large brands and retailers from the US Plastic Convention undoubtedly brings uncertainty to the future of the convention. This may mean that the industry needs more flexible and diversified cooperation models in achieving sustainable development goals. At the same time, it also reminds us that sustainable development is not just about setting goals, but also requires a deep understanding and resolution of complex issues encountered in practical operations, including technological bottlenecks, cost pressures, regulatory differences, and the balance of interests among all parties.
In the future, how to effectively integrate resources from all parties, promote technological innovation, improve recycling infrastructure, and establish more resilient and inclusive cooperation mechanisms will be the key to achieving the sustainable development goals of plastic packaging. This requires not only the joint efforts of multiple stakeholders such as enterprises, governments, and non-profit organizations, but also the active participation of consumers to jointly build a greener and more sustainable future.