Ellen McArthur Foundation moves to create circular economy

While others see reasons to withdraw from the foundation's work, even as they continue their efforts to create a circular economy. From 2016 to 2018, Sealed Air Corporation was a member of the EMF-led New Plastics Economy initiative. According to Ron Cotterman, vice president of sustainability innovation and strategy at Sealed Air, the company then shifted its focus to strengthening the recycling system for flexible plastics.

“Bringing together like-minded companies to collaborate on circularity initiatives for flexible plastic packaging created a better opportunity for us and our industry,” said Cotterman.

“As a result, we created some pretty remarkable circular plastic loops for flexible packaging.”
According to Cotterman, Sealed Air focused on total system design, where it is better to find ways to recycle materials that have significant societal value rather than aiming to eliminate materials that are difficult to recycle today.

Sealed Air's commitment to design 100% of its packaging solutions to be recyclable or reusable by 2025, with an average of 50% recycled or renewable content across all material solutions, was inspired in part by EMF. However, Sealed Air went beyond the EMF's work by leading supply chain collaborations with partners worldwide to solve problems with recycling systems, according to Cotterman.