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Lindsey Hall: Hi. I'm Lindsey Hall, Head of Thought Leadership at S&P Global Sustainable1.

Esther Whieldon: And I'm Esther Whieldon, a Senior Writer on the Sustainable1 Thought Leadership team.

Lindsey Hall: Welcome to ESG Insider, an S&P Global podcast, where Esther and I take you inside the environmental, social and governance issues that are shaping the rapidly evolving sustainability landscape.

Esther Whieldon: In today's episode, we're returning to the topic of plastic with a look at the latest developments in international efforts to reach a global treaty on plastic pollution. In late April, more than 170 countries gathered in Ottawa, Canada, to negotiate an internationally legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.

This was the fourth of five planned gatherings of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee or INC. Countries aim to agree on a global treaty at the next INC gathering or INC-5, which will be held from November 25 to December 1 in Busan, South Korea.

Lindsey Hall: Now this has implications for the full life cycle of plastics, everything from production, design to disposal, recycling and reuse. Back in April, we released a miniseries on the topic of plastics ahead of the Ottawa treaty talks. We heard how plastic pollution is affecting the environment, climate change and human health, even as plastic production is projected to grow significantly in the future.

We talked with large companies that produce or use plastic in their products about steps they are taking to address plastic pollution and how a global treaty on plastic could serve as a catalyst for additional investments. Today, we'll explore the outcome of the treaty talks in Ottawa. We'll hear from our guests about what needs to happen between now and the final round of negotiations in Busan and what issues remain to be hashed out.

Esther Whieldon: In my interviews for today's episode, I heard that some progress was made, but much remains to be done. One positive sign is that countries agreed to create 2 ad hoc intersessional expert groups, where a smaller set of countries will try to reach some common ground on a couple of big topics in the coming months. We'll hear more about those intersessional working groups and why they matter later on in this episode.

First up, we'll talk to Erin Simon, Vice President and Head of Plastic Waste and Business at the WWF. WWF is an international conservation organization also known as the World Wildlife Fund. And together with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, it convened The Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty. This is a group of more than 200 businesses across the plastics value chain, as well as financial institutions and NGOs that support the development of an ambitious and effective global treaty to end plastic pollution.

Our second guest in today's episode is from a company that is part of that coalition. We'll be speaking to Darci Vetter, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Public Policy at PepsiCo, to understand how one major company that uses plastics in its products is approaching this topic. PepsiCo is a multinational food snack and beverage company, perhaps best known for its Pepsi soda. Darci also provides some insights on the potential path forward for the treaty based on her prior 17 years of experience as a negotiator for the U.S. government.

Lindsey Hall: Today we'll also talk with Stewart Harris, Senior Director of Global Plastics Policy at the trade group American Chemistry Council. And if his name sounds familiar, that's because Stewart talked with us earlier this year about what to expect from the treaty talks. Okay. Now let's turn to our interviews. First up, we'll hear from Erin at WWF, who starts off by describing the work of The Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty.

Erin Simon: We realized early on that the scale of change that needed to happen was never going to happen without it being done in a really public private sort of partnership, right? That meant that you didn't just give tasks to government to go off and do and tasks to businesses to do in order to solve their piece of the problem, that they really had to partner effectively to deliver on the solutions that would get us to a place where we totally reestablished how we engage with plastic from the raw material sourcing through design, use, and then recovery in recycling or reuse.

And we pulled this community of businesses together because we saw a business case for a treaty for them and a need for governments to hear that there was that alignment. 

I think we all need to remember that the folks that are negotiating these treaties, they are not material scientists. They are often civil servants coming from this with varying amounts of experience, but none of it is really in the sourcing, design, use and recovery of plastic specifically. 

And so they are getting a lot of different messages, a lot of lobbying really at them around what is the best direction. And, even if those messages are very similar, it's hard for them to know. And having it come from a large community of very well-known brands saying, "yes, we need global rules to address this, yes, we need to start with reduction", and "yes, we are willing to pay for that through extended producer responsibility," is quite influential and powerful.

Esther Whieldon: Briefly, you mentioned extended producer responsibility. Can you give us like a nutshell description of what that term means?

Erin Simon: So extended producer responsibility, or EPR as it's commonly referred to, is about asking the producer, so the P in EPR, to pay to take responsibility for the recycling or reuse of the product they put into the marketplace.

Esther Whieldon: Thank you. So for those of us who couldn't attend these last set of treaty talks, if you had to describe your experience for our listeners, what was it like there?

Erin Simon: The treaty talks over the last 4 INCs, so about a year and a half have been what I feel like an emotional roller coaster at times. You sit and watch a community of global leaders through a process that is designed to come to agreement in a very, very diverse global community in a very formal way. And it is at times really frustrating to see that the progress that needs to be happening, that they committed to, is not happening as quickly as you want.

It can be frustrating to see individual countries hold up proceedings merely because they have no desire or need for them to move along. And I feel like this last session, INC-4, there was more energy there. I, in more informal moments, saw countries really trying to find that common ground. But it's hard when we all agree that we need to end plastic pollution, but there's not as broad of an agreement on how to do that.

Esther Whieldon: Yes. I think that leads nicely to hearing from you about what were the main points of contention at these talks?

Erin Simon: So I think you can put them in some buckets. The first bucket is, there is disagreement between the UN member states and whether or not this needs to be done through global rules or by each country on their own. And the problem with that second version, doing it in your own unique way, is that that's what we've been trying for decades really. We've shown time and again that voluntary disconnected efforts are not enough.

The second is sort of larger than that, which is, does this need to be solved by reducing how much we use in the first place, by reducing the production of plastic? Or can we just solve this by putting a lot more waste management into place?

And you can imagine, there are a number of countries who are large producers of oil and gas, which, for those who don't know, 99% of plastics today come from oil and gas, they are really determined to continue to produce, and they really love that outlook of producing twice as much in the next 15 years. On the other side of that, scientists broadly say that we can't solve this problem without reducing what we use in the first place.

Esther Whieldon: Okay. So you said there was some sort of coalescing around some topics. What areas was there progress made on here?

Erin Simon: So there is agreement broadly that chemicals, so problematic polymers, products and chemicals of concern, should be included within the instrument as a key provision. They're still discussing whether or not that should be done through a global rule or voluntary action, but the majority of member states believe it should be a global rule. 

There is agreement on the need for design guidelines, so product design guidelines. Again, the majority of member states believe this should be a global rule. Some, however, still believe it should be managed as a part of a voluntary sort of solution. 

There is a lot more alignment on modes of implementation, or MOI, around the need to have good metrics and measurement, the need to have things like extended producer responsibility, or policies that can help drive that, and the need for those to be further discussed.

And so the modes of implementation are a part of the intersessional work, along with really sort of looking through how to determine what are problematic products and polymers and chemicals of concern. Those are some of the key areas that the member states are going to dig deeper in the intersessional work. 

Another area that there was a lot of discussion on was the financial instrument. There is discussion still on how it will be funded, who will fund it and who will get the money and what that money can pay for. But that's also a very complicated conversation that deserves a lot of discussion and debate to figure out how to be really successful at it, and how to really build up the capacity of countries starting from zero, which is not just about money. It's about knowledge exchange, tech exchange and techs transfer. So a great deal there.

Now what came a little bit disappointingly out of INC-4 was the lack of primary polymer production, or PPP, as it's been referred to, in intersessional work. And the reason why this is disappointing is PPP continues to be the element that there is not quite alignment on whether or not it belongs in the instrument or not. And that is because PPP represents to many as a production cap.

It is something that is a quick way to reduce how much plastic is being used in the first place, obviously, but it does create challenges to turn off that source of resources as quickly as would be desired by a large number of communities and observers who are directly impacted by it like fenceline communities. 

So by not including it in the intersessional work, it means that countries won't study it. And therefore, when they come together in November and have very little time to debate and finalize things, it will be deemed that they cannot negotiate it because they have not had enough time to study it. And that makes it harder to include in the final instrument. So I think walking out of INC-4, there was many, many an observer who were really disappointed that did not get put into the final mandate for intersessional work.

Esther Whieldon: So if I'm reading between the lines here correctly, did that effectively make it very difficult for the final agreement to include any kind of production cap?

Erin Simon: Absolutely.

Esther Whieldon: So this is an accelerated time line, right? And the goal is to finalize something by the end of this year. What would have need to have been accomplished at these talks versus where we're at now? Kind of how much catching up do we need to do in the coming months between now and this fall?

Erin Simon: I am glad you used that term catching up. Because if you think about like project planning a report and how you do it as a group because that's really what we're doing, we are working with like 175 countries to write a report and agree on a plan for moving forward. And so there's a lot of editing and a giant document of discussions on that text. And the less progress you make at each INC, the more you still have to catch up on to meet this deadline.

So what we needed to see happen in INC-4 was to hopefully simplify and streamline the text. That means moving from those 1,771 brackets to anywhere less than that, and to start to simplify options down from sometimes 13 to maybe 1 or 2, and to start negotiating the actual text so that at the end of that session, there would have been a mandate for an updated text from that process, a mandate for intersessional work, and on key technical topics that would allow us to be at a really good starting point at INC-5 this November.

What actually happened at INC-4 was while there was better negotiation and better pushback on a lot of those delay tactics that have been used in the past, we definitely ended with over 3,600 brackets in the text, which will be addressed in the process, ut that takes time because every one of those brackets represents a moment where there's misalignment. 

They did agree on intersessional work, that's great. It does not include all of the key mechanisms we think are necessary, and they also are not updating the text between now and then, they locked the text. So if they, the member states, really buckle down, do a lot of intersessional work, come together and do a lot of socializing of ideas on key topics so that they can as larger groups present text options at the beginning of INC-5 to start discussions and streamlining and speeding up that process, I think we still have a chance.

I think no matter what we look at it, our choices at the end of INC-5 are either likely to be some sort of simple version of a treaty, which will disappoint many because it won't be enough for the planet and no guarantee for it to be as strong as it needs to be, or they will punt it, meaning they'll miss their deadline. And as soon as the pressure is off that deadline, each successive meeting, each meeting thereafter INC-5.1,.2,.3, however they choose to number them, there'll be less pressure and therefore, less desire to make it as ambitious. 

So they're pulling an all-nighter effectively between now and INC-5. And I really need them to start working together because INC-4 was really supposed to be about that and you saw some of it, but just not enough.

Esther Whieldon: Was there anything we didn't talk about from the treaty that you wanted to point out happened or that we should be aware of or even key takeaways from it?

Erin Simon: I would say that what's really, I think, been difficult for me through the process is that we are once again making decisions at this high global level that impact people immediately right on the ground. That at the heart of this, there is this need to really center on the human rights of individuals who are impacted by this issue from production all the way to where that waste ends up sometimes right in their backyards.

And in many cases, when our large global community of leaders get together to make decisions, they are making pretty huge trade-offs that are impacting people. And you know that's what's necessary for the process, like the decision to get rid of PPP in the intercessional work was the difference between having intersessional work or not, because some countries wouldn't allow it to go forward with it included. That's hard to swallow when you watch that. Because at the end of the day, this should be serving those communities. And sometimes it's hard to see how the compromise does not always benefit who are trying to get it to benefit. 

But that doesn't mean that the process itself isn't valuable. We still need to come together as a global community and figure out how we're going to solve this issue. We still need to do that together because we're not going to be successful as individual countries, individual businesses or even just individual community members. It will take that coordinated collective action in order to do that.

Esther Whieldon: A couple of things Erin said really stood out to me. First is that the chance of countries agreeing to put a cap on plastic production is much lower now. And that's because it was left off of the list of topics countries agreed to discuss in ad hoc groups between now and November.

She also said the collaboration between the public and private sector is critical to solving the plastic pollution problem, which also came up in my discussion with our next guest, Darci Vetter of PepsiCo. Here is Darci, who starts off by describing PepsiCo's sustainability strategies related to plastic.

Darci Vetter: We are looking broadly across our portfolio of packaging and the way that we deliver our products to consumers to figure out how we can use less plastic packaging overall. Can we make our packages lighter or light-weighting our bottles, for example? Can we use materials other than plastic? Are there opportunities to use paper? We, for example, have just gone to a paper outer package for a multipack of our products in the U.K.

We've removed the use of plastic rings on our multipacks of drinks in the United States or we're in the process of doing that. And so we're looking for ways throughout our supply chain to use less plastic or to use plastic differently and to use recycled materials wherever possible. So really, a goal for us is to use less virgin plastic, use less plastic overall, to look at new packaging formations, but also to focus on reuse. 

And I don't want to lose that item there in that in many cases, we are delivering plastics or delivering our products in a single-use format, but we are doing a lot of work to roll out reusable solutions in a number of markets as well, whether that's returnable bottles in Mexico, universal glass returnable bottles in Spain for our PepsiCo brands, or thinking about using new venues and introducing reuse there. So reusable cups and food trays at the Men's and Women's UEFA Champions League, for example. So where are places where reuse is workable, scalable and where we can bring that to the consumer as well.

Esther Whieldon: And I think this leads nicely to a question of then what are some of the challenges that PepsiCo and the consumer staples sector in general faces related to plastic?

Darci Vetter: Well, I think when it comes to thinking about packaging, actually thinking about a number of our environmental or sustainability goals, first, you try and tackle the things within your 4 walls, right? But if you really want a circular economy, we can't do it by ourselves. We need to lean in with governments to help create and to operate and build the infrastructure for collection and recycling systems.

We need to get those materials that may have leaked into the environment or to stop them from doing so, so that they can become the ingredients in our recycled content packaging. And there's just limits to the things that business can do on its own. And so the plastics treaty in particular, provides a venue to help submit that partnership with governments, with other stakeholders to address the issue comprehensively.

Esther Whieldon: Thank you. So let's turn to the treaty talks. Can you set the scene for us, what was it like there?

Darci Vetter: Ottawa was particularly interesting because it was finally the time when the governments got down to digging into the substance. And I think most of the previous rounds had been spent thinking procedurally about how the negotiations would proceed.

And while key differences remain, it was encouraging to see in Ottawa, the parties to the treaty or to this negotiation say, okay, let's focus on what we can do and where we can make progress without prejudice to the fact that there are a lot of places where we still have disagreements, right? But let's start digging into the substance and see if that can bring us to a place where we can build trust and make progress and move forward on a number of issues. And so for me, the interesting thing about Ottawa was really the shift in momentum. Still a lot of work to go, but a sense of really digging into the substance and getting ready to provide that structure to the treaty itself.

Esther Whieldon: So given the governments, you said, were digging into more of the substance of the topics, what were the topics mainly focused on?

Darci Vetter: So we were very encouraged, PepsiCo and the Business Coalition that there did seem to be sort of emerging momentum behind emerging consensus around directly addressing both EPR, extended producer responsibility type models in the treaty itself; as well as looking at design standards, designing for recyclability and leading toward then, hopefully, global definitions, global commitments around that.

There were also some discussions about transparency and reporting that I think will be critical elements to any treaty. One of the most important things when you have a treaty like this, that both looks at sort of overall commitments, but on a very technical topic, right, when you think about how plastics are made and their components and different design structures or recycling systems, you can get pretty technical pretty quickly.

So one of the bright spots I felt from Ottawa was both that sense of progress around issues like EPR and like design standards, but also the agreement that between Ottawa and the next round of negotiations in Busan, that the delegations would meet in more technical expert groups to further refine those issues and see what progress they could make around those design standards, around EPR, and also around financing and the financial mechanisms that might help support implementation of the treaty itself.

Esther Whieldon: Talk to me about the financing mechanisms and how EPR, extended producer responsibility, might fit in with that as well?

Darci Vetter:  One of the things, I think, is critically important for any global treaty where you have countries who are at very different starting points in terms of their capacity and the resources they can bring to the table, but also their experience in having and operating collection and recycling systems are at very different points. And they're frankly at different points in terms of the waste management situation they have in their countries at any given time.

And so available resources to help deal with legacy waste, to help operate collection and design systems, and frankly, to also create momentum investment in future innovation around waste, waste management and the future of plastics, are also important elements of this treaty and momentum that could be brought to the table. So financing plays a key role in all 3.

When it comes to extended producer responsibility, when you think about the structure of EPR, it really brings in the industry players and that those of us who are introducing plastic packaging and other short-lived products to the market are saying "we will fund the collection and treatment of those products after their use," right? So industry really has the skin in the game in designing and operating these EPR systems.

That doesn't go to solve things like legacy waste cleanup and waste management of products that may already be in the environment, or other products that are not part of EPR and financing will be needed for those things. And as I mentioned before, are there creative ways that you can finance public private investment in future innovation, for example, and think about what mechanisms the treaty might create to do that?

Esther Whieldon: Is there anything in particular PepsiCo would like to see included or excluded from a final agreement?

Darci Vetter: Well, so one of the key tensions in the structure of the negotiations and the agreement itself is how much of the obligations go into the text of the global treaty itself and how much is left to countries to delineate in a national action plan as to how they would meet those global delineated objectives, right?

I think what the Business Coalition and PepsiCo would say, we need enough commonality of principles around design standards, definitions of plastics and systems, common reporting frameworks that we are all sharing the same information, we have similar sets of benchmarks that we know if we invest and we follow certain design principles, we're going to be driving toward packaging that would be recyclable, would be collected, would be introduced in a more circular way into as many different countries as possible.

So we definitely want to see those product design requirements, those common definitions, the principles and as much specificity around extended producer responsibility and waste management, those are very important to us. And global rules that can set the stage for scalability within markets are critical. 

At the same time, as I had mentioned earlier, we know that the countries around the table are starting from very, very different places. So there will need to be some of that flexibility. But I think that tension also highlighted for us in the business community an opportunity for engagement between now and Busan. 

It was clear in the discussion in Ottawa that different delegates or different countries understanding of what EPR means and how it operates are different depending on how much experience those countries might have with the concept. So I think there is an education and a technical expertise role for us to play between now and Busan to make sure that when we're saying the same words, we all mean the same thing, that could help drive toward consensus and help to sort of bridge that gap between those different starting points among countries.

Esther Whieldon: How confident are you that we'll be able to agree on text at the next gathering?

Darci Vetter: So this is a key question, right, the million dollar question. And I should tell you, Esther, that before I joined PepsiCo, I spent about 17 years as a negotiator for the U.S. government. And going to Ottawa for me, it was kind of fun to be on the other side of the table than I have been in previous parts of my life. And some of the sayings we have in international negotiation are that negotiations expand to fill the time allotted. And so a lot of the key decisions always kind of wait until the last minute.

And so in some ways, what we saw in Ottawa is no different from other negotiations in that there's often a lot of countries circling each other around what their positions are until the switch sort of flips and then you start to really dig in, which I think we saw in Ottawa and things can move quickly after that. But this is a very complex agreement, and that switch didn't flip until the penultimate round that has been scheduled, and there's a lot of work to do between now and then.

And so I just feel like there's going to need to be a lot of creativity on the part of the negotiators to look at what is possible to do now and to make sure that is reflected, cemented in the treaty text, but to think about what the treaty could be and how to use some of the tools in the toolbox about setting benchmarks or revisiting provisions or thinking about processes, technical processes that can be ongoing to continue to provide definition, revision, updating.

I mean that even if we had what we thought was the perfect treaty and all the topics were covered at the end of November in Busan, technology is going to continue to evolve, right? And we want a treaty that can evolve with it and that would incorporate and allow countries to apply to their sort of national action on this, the latest thinking and the latest technology.

So I think there's a particular challenge on the urgency of this topic, on the urgency of trying to really finish this process while we have momentum and to provide a treaty that is living in some ways, right, and can continue to sort of start and then strengthen to start to address key topics and perhaps revisit them or continue to work on them at strategic points.

I mean I'm an observer, not a negotiator this time around, but I think there are lots of examples in different sort of international treaties and protocols that have recognized that this is an issue that's likely not going away, that there are critical places where we can start, but that we also want an instrument that can evolve with the issue itself. And so my hope is that those countries, even that have some reservations about particular aspects, are asking themselves, what do we know we can do today and work ourselves into the answer on some of these tougher things tomorrow and start with that spirit on the road to Busan.

Esther Whieldon: Darci noted the importance of making sure the treaty can evolve over time and serve as sort of a living document really. Both Darci and Erin noted that countries have agreed to create 2 ad hoc intersessional expert groups.

One of those will discuss financial mechanisms and options, and the other group will focus on plastic products, including the design and chemicals of concern that are contained in plastics and have the potential to adversely impact human health or the environment. And this leads us to our next guest, Stewart Harris of the American Chemistry Council.

We'll hear him mention 2 examples of how chemicals are currently regulated. One is an EU regulation called REACH, which stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals. It came into force in 2007. He also mentions the U.S. Toxic Substance Control Act or TSCA which dates back to 1976 but was updated more recently in 2016. I started by asking Stewart for his take on the recent negotiations.

Stewart Harris: The talks in Ottawa went well. The most important thing is that governments agreed to do additional work on 2 specific areas: finance and design. Finance is important and also a difficult topic for governments to work through and so it's good that they've given themselves additional time there. 

And design is key for our member companies. So for the companies that produce plastic as a material, design is incredibly important because it represents the beginning of the circular economy. In addition, this extra time that governments gave themselves to work through those 2 issues of finance and design, will hopefully create the foundation for further areas of alignment or agreement between governments so that they can finish the negotiations by the end of the year.

Esther Whieldon: Can you tell us a little bit more about the design discussion? Do you have a sense of what they're trying to hash out between now and South Korea?

Stewart Harris: Yes. So governments are going to be looking at plastic products, at chemicals of concern in plastic products, and then the design of plastic products. 

So when we're looking at design, design is incredibly important as we consider moving to reuse and refill models as we look at recycling and circularity. And so just considering how products are made, what they're used for, and transitioning away from that linear model to a more circular model. 

One of the topics that also was discussed for intersessional work is plastic products and chemicals of concern. And so governments are going to take a look at how best to address chemical additives that are included in plastics. And of course, part of that is wrapped up into the product design discussion. Which additives are being used in which products? Does that impact circularity? Does it impact reusability and options for the end of life?

Esther Whieldon: Are there any particular aspects to the design, and I'm thinking potentially chemicals of concern as well, that the industry is worried could be included in a way that would harm its ability to profit in the future?

Stewart Harris: So we are concerned or we do have some concerns with including chemicals in the plastics agreements. As you may know, chemicals are regulated typically at the national level through national chemical management systems like REACH in the EU or TSCA in the United States.

There are also some international agreements like the Stockholm Convention, that deregulate chemicals internationally, specific sets of chemicals internationally. And so we are concerned with duplicating that authority. Chemical additives are a subset of chemicals, and we prefer a holistic approach to chemical management like those domestic authorities in the EU, in the U.S. and other countries that have established chemical management systems.

At the same time, we recognize that not all countries have a chemical management system, which is why we supported at the recent International Conference on Chemicals Management, the adoption of the Global Framework on Chemicals, which really encourages governments and provide some financial support to governments to establish their own domestic chemical management systems, regulatory chemical management systems.

Esther Whieldon: To what extent does the ACC want to see the agreement have binding measures versus voluntary?

Stewart Harris: So ACC and the plastic industry at large is looking for governments to complete negotiation on a legally binding agreement that will end plastic pollution. And that will include a mixture of globally binding rules as well as nonbinding measures. That's typical in most of these multilateral environmental agreements where you have that mix of legally binding and voluntary measures. And we think the question for governments is, which measures are going to be legally binding and which measures are going to be voluntary?

So for example, we were just talking about EPR. It's very difficult to imagine a scenario in which there would be a single global EPR system. But we could see the global agreement require as a what's sometimes referred to a universal obligation or a binding rule that governments establish national action plans and then within those national action plans, they identify a sustainable funding mechanism. And that sustainable funding mechanism could include EPR.

And then we could see nonbinding or voluntary rules or guidance as it's typically referred to in the global agreement context that would provide governments with a toolkit, if you will, or instructions on how to craft an EPR system or an EPR-like system that would help them achieve that requirement or meet that requirement of a sustainable financing mechanism in the context of the global agreement.

Esther Whieldon: So Lindsey, today, we heard from our guests how there was some progress on what measures to include in a treaty. But we also heard that a lot of work remains between now and when countries gather in South Korea in November. As Erin of the WWF put it, negotiators are effectively "pulling an all-nighter" between now and the next round of talks.

Lindsey Hall: We also heard there's reason to remain hopeful. As Darci of PepsiCo noted, a lot of key decisions in this kind of international negotiations are not typically made until the last minute.

Esther Whieldon: And we heard how countries are focusing on several topics, including design standards for recyclability and circularity, and mechanisms for transparency and reporting on progress. They're also looking at mechanisms for financing, including extended producer responsibility programs.

Lindsey Hall: And we heard from Stewart that the treaty could include a mix of mandatory measures and voluntary guidance that would give countries some flexibility to come up with solutions that best fit their needs. So please stay tuned as we continue tracking these negotiations and how companies and financial institutions are approaching the topic of plastic pollution.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of ESG Insider. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe, share and leave us a review wherever you get your podcast.

Esther Whieldon: And a special thanks to our agency partner, The 199. See you next time.

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