Unilever has announced the launch of a new public-private partnership aimed at scaling up circular packaging and reducing plastic waste.
The CIRCLE Alliance initiative, co-founded by Unilever, USAID and EY, was launched in June this year. The initiative has committed $21 million to support small businesses and entrepreneurs in the plastics value chain.
The alliance aims to promote solutions to reduce plastic use, manage waste and promote circular economies, with a specific focus on empowering women in the informal waste sector in the Global South.
Rebecca Marmot, Chief Sustainability Officer at Unilever, said: “CIRCLE’s collaborative business acceleration model – delivered through a combination of grant funding and tailored business support – will help scale both new and existing circular packaging solutions, whether incentivising collection and recycling, or reuse/refill models.
“Crucially, it will support many small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs who provide impactful, market-based solutions but are currently too small to operate at the scale we need.”
CIRCLE is initially focusing on India, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, but aims to expand its reach by attracting new partners and additional investment.
The initiative builds on the successful strategies of the TRANSFORM enterprise accelerator, led by Unilever, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and EY.
Unilever’s contribution to CIRCLE includes a financial commitment from the Climate & Nature Fund, part of a €1 billion investment through 2030 aimed at driving systemic change and business benefits.
Additionally, the company is investing in Circulate Capital’s Ocean Fund to enhance investments and infrastructure in regions hard hit by ocean plastic pollution, such as South and Southeast Asia and Latin America.
Unilever has already reduced its use of virgin plastic by 18% compared to the 2019 baseline.
The company also claimed that the use of recycled plastic has increased to 22% of our global portfolio.
“Unilever announces new initiative to boost circularity of packaging” was originally created and published by Packaging Gatewaya brand of GlobalData.
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