Asos is said to be the first online retailer to join the Allen MacArthur Foundation’s plastic initiative
Image: Online retailer Asos has joined Allen MacArthur’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. Photo: courtesy of Ranjat M from Pixabay.
Online fashion retailer Asos has joined the Allen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, as part of its sustainable efforts.
Claimed to be the first online retailer to sign the initiative, Asos intends to avoid the problematic and redundant plastic by 2020.
Asos plans to trial reusable packaging in 2020
The London-based retailer is also planning to trial reusable packaging in 2020 to replace single-use plastic mailing bags.
Asos intends to make 100% of its packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025, helping to reduce the impact on the environment.
The online retailer also aims to use 100% recycled or renewable content in plastic packaging by 2025, with around 30% is being produced from post-consumer waste.
Asos’s responsible sourcing director Simon Platts said: “We’ve been working hard to reduce our use of plastic across Asos, including investing in developing our Asos mailing bags, which will contain 65% recycled material in the new year and are already 100% recyclable.
“However, there’s always more we can do, which is why we’ve become a signatory of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastic Economy Global Commitment.”
The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment includes around 250 organisations, including packaging producers, brands, retailers and recyclers, as well as governments and NGOs.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with the UN Environment, is leading the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment and its vision for a circular economy.
Earlier this year, UK supermarket giant Tesco pledged to remove one billion pieces of plastic from its packaging products by the end of 2020.
Based on its 4Rs strategy of remove, reduce, reuse and recycle, the company will ditch non-recyclable and excess packaging – with the retailer saying if packaging can’t be recycled, it will have no place at Tesco.
In 2018, UPM Raflatac joined the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment to demonstrate its commitment to labelling a smarter future beyond fossils.