Unilever CEO looking for first-ever global plastics treaty with “teeth”

By Jessica DiNapoli

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher hopes to see a global plastics treaty that “has some teeth,” he said in an interview with Reuters on Monday, as negotiations for countries to agree to the first-ever pact near a crucial deadline.

United Nations negotiators agreed to strike a deal on controlling plastics by the end of this year but talks have been snagged on issues including production caps.

“What we would like is a treaty that has some teeth,” Schumacher said. “From the very beginning we have said we prefer binding rules because we feel that it leads to a level playing field for business.”

Schumacher said a stronger treaty will allow companies to make longer-term investments in new packaging and products that do not rely on plastic. The London-based maker of Dove body wash and Sunlight soap is a member of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, which is pushing for reducing the manufacturing of plastic as part of the U.N. deal.

He added that a U.N. treaty would “probably eliminate quite a bit of complexity” for companies like Unilever that operate in many different countries.

That’s probably the most important thing for us,” he said.

Unilever has faced sharp criticism for selling single-use sachets of shampoo, toothpaste and laundry detergent, which are very difficult to recycle. The company introduced more sustainable laundry sheets in a paper-based box last year.

One U.N. negotiating session, planned in November in Busan, South Korea, remains before the end-of-year deadline to ink an agreement. In Bangkok in August, member countries heard from specialists on plastics pollution, said Inger Andersen, the executive director of the U.N.’s Environmental Programme.

It’s entirely within member states’ ability to do it by the end of the year,” Andersen said. The ball is in their court.” (This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Andersen, in paragraphs 8 and 9, and to clarify that member countries heard from plastics experts in Bangkok in August, not at the UN General Assembly this week, in paragraph 8)

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)