The Importance of Effective Action Against Plastic Pollution

The Importance of Effective Action Against Plastic Pollution The Business Plastic Initiative (İPG) platform marked 5 June World Environment Day and Turkey's Environment Week held under the theme "Clean Seas, Clean World," drawing attention to the need for more effective action against plastic pollution. The pressure created by linear production and consumption habits restricts the ecosystem's capacity for self-renewal. Environmental, social and economic risks linked to unlimited and inefficient use of natural resources are rising rapidly. It is possible to minimize these risks through business models and governance systems that place circular economy principles at their centre and have internalized green transformation. Action against plastic pollution is one of the most important solution paths for reducing these risks. The Business Plastic Initiative (İPG), established in November 2019 by UN Global Compact Turkey, SKD Turkey and TÜSİAD to support business efforts against plastic pollution, continues its work with the aim of providing more effective, sustainable and scalable solutions. The initiative today leads the creation of roadmaps in light of an international shared vision with the participation of 40 companies from 7 different sectors making commitments. The İPG platform marked 5 June World Environment Day, held this year with the theme of action against plastic pollution, and Turkey's Environment Week held under the theme "Clean Seas, Clean World," highlighting the importance of this struggle. Noting that plastic pollution is an issue requiring collaboration among many stakeholders, UN Global Compact Turkey Board Chair Ahmet Dördüncü pointed to the importance of the Business Plastic Initiative (İPG) in this context: "When establishing the Business Plastic Initiative, we aimed to provide companies with the expertise they needed to set concrete, measurable and time-bound plastic commitments and to create a platform through which we could establish collaborations with all relevant stakeholders. By adopting a target and data-based approach, İPG encourages companies not only to make commitments but also to achieve progress on these commitments. By reporting progress made on commitments, we have the opportunity to measure both the individual progress of companies included in the Initiative and the collective impact of the companies. There is no doubt that measuring the scale of these joint efforts and concrete progress will have a transformative impact across the entire ecosystem. We are pleased to see that the process we have launched with our stakeholders has inspired UN Global Compact's work in other countries and to be part of this transformation as UN Global Compact Turkey. On 5 June Environment Day, which we are celebrating with the plastic theme, we hope that business efforts against plastic pollution in Turkey will continue to strengthen further." SKD Turkey Board Chair Ebru Dildar Edin provided the following information in a statement made as part of World Environment Day and Turkey's Environment Week: "We can see the devastating effects of the climate crisis also in the rapid depletion of natural resources. Yet it is possible to recycle the resources we use through methods that will contribute to circularity and bring them back into the economy. Particularly, methods that we have effectively used for years exist in the recovery of plastic. İPG, Turkey's first and only plastic initiative, is an important platform where we have achieved effective results. 33 companies achieved 41.1 per cent progress in the first year alone on commitments they made to reduce plastic use by 2023. This reduction of approximately 18,000 tonnes is equivalent to the plastic consumption of a total of 40,000 families. It is clear that resources taken from nature cannot be sustained without giving back to nature. On the occasion of 5 June World Environment Day, which draws attention to this struggle and which we are marking this year with the theme of action against plastic pollution, and Turkey's Environment Week, we invite all companies wishing to become nature-positive and increase their impact with concrete outputs to join İPG," she said. In a statement made as part of World Environment Day and Turkey's Environment Week, TÜSİAD Board Chair Orhan Turan expressed the following views: "We need to address plastic, the most consumed raw material in the world, from a circularity perspective. Circularity also requires us to redesign the entire life cycle of plastic in a sustainable manner. This requires not only new materials, responsible policies and recycling technologies, but also a cultural transformation that will completely change production and consumption habits. Through the synergy we have created with our stakeholders through İPG, we are contributing to strengthening awareness on this issue and creating an important advocacy platform. This period, in which a policy framework on circularity is being established, is a valuable opportunity for our country to achieve strong advances in this area. At İPG we are scaling inspiring and innovative solutions aimed at "responsible plastic consumption" with all our stakeholders, and transferring field experiences to the policy-making process. With our belief that our stakeholders will increase further on this journey, we mark 5 June World Environment Day focused on plastic pollution, which is also the main goal of İPG, and Turkey's Environment Week held under the theme of 'Clean Seas, Clean World.'"