Beauty, fashion brands promise to fight plastic pollution with new global commitment

L'Oréal, Johnson & Johnson and Burberry are amongst some of the biggest fashion and beauty brands in the world pledging to combat plastic pollution at the source.

Over 290 organizations signed 'The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment,' led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with UN Environment, on Monday.

The document aims to reduce plastic waste through a variety of targets, such as eliminating single-use plastic from supply chains and ensuring that 100 percent of plastic packaging can be easily and safely reused, recycled, or composted by 2025.

L'Oréal, Johnson & Johnson and Unilever are three of the beauty giants to have signed the commitment, while big-name signatories from the fashion world include H&M, Burberry and Stella McCartney. Others range from the WWF to Nestle and Coca-Cola Femsa, with the total list of signatories representing 20 percent of all packaging produced globally.

"We know that cleaning up plastics from our beaches and oceans is vital, but this does not stop the tide of plastic entering the oceans each year," said Dame Ellen MacArthur, who announced the commitment at the 'Our Ocean Conference' in Bali this week. "We need to move upstream to the source of the flow. The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment draws a line in the sand, with businesses, governments and others around the world uniting behind a clear vision for what we need to create a circular economy for plastic."

Brands that have signed the commitment will report their progress every year, as targets become more ambitious.

"We are embracing the issue of packaging reform as both a challenge to do better and an opportunity to do good," said Alison Lewis, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Johnson & Johnson Consumer. "We believe this initiative can be a powerful catalyst for driving meaningful changes in our behavior as a company-as well as the behavior of consumers themselves."