PA Consulting is working with The Ellen MacArthur Foundation to address plastics waste and pollution

The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment is led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with UN Environment. It aims to create a new normal for plastic packaging, whereby a circular economy ensures plastic packaging remains in the economy and never becomes waste.

PA sees the circular economy, which extracts more value from materials by recovering, refurbishing and re-using them, as a growing opportunity for businesses. Assessing the circular opportunities, creating circular business models and strategies and using latest cutting edge technologies to create circular products and manufacturing is some of the work PA is doing with its clients.

PA’s ingenious work in the circular economy

United Nations Global Compact

Disruptive technologies have the potential to drive significant improvements in the quality of life for the world’s population. PA has been advising the UN Global Compact on identifying and assessing the implications of these technologies to help organisations achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – and in turn, make the world a better place.

Notpla

London start-up Notpla has come up with an alternative to plastic water bottles. It’s a flexible container called Ooho, made from seaweed extract, that’s 100 percent naturally biodegradable. When someone has finished drinking the water they can even eat the container.

As part of PA's mission bringing ingenuity to life, PA is helping the business develop the machine to manufacture the containers. Notpla will lease the machine to businesses to use on their premises. The retailers will then be able to produce water or juice filled Oohos daily on-site, rather than taking up storage space with stock.

EcoBooth

It’s estimated the events industry alone will create 100,000 tonnes of waste in 2018 – equivalent to 1.4 billion plastic bottles. Ecobooth develop ways to use waste plastic as a core material and then build on this further using 100 per cent sustainable materials. We’ve helped Ecobooth develop their ideas and design their business model. And our technology experts worked with Ecobooth to assess and identify potential materials and manufacturing technologies.

Mark Lancelott, business transformation expert, circular and sustainability co-lead, PA Consulting, says: “We believe that working side-by-side and by embracing a circular economy, businesses and governments can tackle plastic pollution at the source, which is why are endorsing The New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. We believe there is now a unique opportunity for organisations to find ingenious ways to implement circular economy programmes that really make the difference both to their organisation’s future prosperity but also to the world we all live in.”

David Rakowski, technology expert, circular economy and sustainability co-lead, PA Consulting says: “We have seen a rapid increase in the number of start-ups as well as big companies coming to us for help with the design and development of circular, sustainable products or reinvention of materials, packaging or manufacturing. We are very pleased to endorse the Global Commitment and as an organisation are committed to promoting sustainability and circular economy.”