Godrej & Boyce, CII, WWF India in the Launch of ‘India Plastics Pact'

In a bid to strengthen its commitment to corporate India towards combating the growing environmental concern about plastic pollution, Godrej & Boyce, the flagship company of the Godrej Group, today, announced its association with the India Plastics Pact, as a founding member. A first of its kind in Asia, the pact is a joint initiative between CII’s Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development (CII-CESD) and WWF India and has been established with the goal of envisioning 'a world where plastic is valued and does not pollute the environment.'  It aims to achieve this by promoting a circular economy for plastics through a public-private collaboration that enables innovative ways to eliminate, reuse, or recycle plastic packaging across the plastics value chain and collectively achieve the long-term targets.

Commenting on the pact, Jamshyd N Godrej, Chairman and Managing Director of Godrej & Boyce and CII Past President, said, “Innovation, collaboration and voluntary commitments contextualized for India and led by Indian companies will help the transition to a circular economy for plastics. The Plastics Pact model offers this solution. While this pact is already active in a number of other countries, I commend CII and WWF India for bringing this initiative to India". The launch witnessed over 30 businesses and supporting organizations, including major consumer brands, manufacturers, retailers, and recyclers committing to the Pact as founding members, committing to transform the current linear plastics system into a circular plastics economy by 2030.

India generates 9.46 MT of plastic waste annually, of which 40% is not collected. About half of all plastics produced in the country are used in packaging and most of this is single-use in nature. The vision, targets and ambition of the India Plastics Pact are aligned with the circular economy principles of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy. The four targets under the India Plastics Pact are:

• Define a list of unnecessary or problematic plastic packaging and items and take measures to address them through redesign and innovation
• 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable or recyclable
• 50% of plastic packaging to be effectively recycled
• 25% average recycled content across all plastic packaging

As part of Godrej & Boyce’s ongoing sustainability efforts, the company has been recycling plastic equivalent to the packaging quantity due to sale of its products since 2018 and today, recycles more than 100% equivalent of the packaging plastic. Moving forward, the company plans to offset the equivalent amount in the types of packaging plastics put in the market, through its various partners. Until last year, the company’s recycling plan already covered 27 States and UTs of India, where its business interests lie, and over the course of this FY, will increase its coverage to 34 States and UTs. By 2030 the company also plans on systematically phasing out the use of thermocol and introducing recycled content up to 25% in its plastic product packaging and is investing in R&D toward the same.

The India Plastics Pact aims to bring together businesses, governments, researchers, NGOs, and other stakeholders across the whole value chain to set time-bound target-based commitments to transform the current linear plastics system into a circular plastics economy. The Pact was launched at CII’s 16th Sustainability Summit, organized by the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development. It is supported by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and WRAP, a global NGO based in the UK that provides operational and technical support to Plastics Pacts in Europe, the Americas, Australia and Africa and is fully supporting the Pact in India.