Plastic Neutral Pact sets Standards for Achieving Plastic Neutrality

Today, the non-profit organization Plastic Credit Exchange (PCEx) — which together with its partners, has prevented over 3 million kilograms of plastic waste from leaking into oceans since its founding — launched the “Plastic Neutral Pact”. The Plastic Neutral Pact is a clear set of guidelines for sustainability-conscious businesses to achieve plastic neutrality. It is a robust framework for transparent and high-quality plastic waste accounting and offsetting, and forms the basis for plastic neutral certifications to be awarded by PCEx. The global plastic pollution crisis requires a fundamental paradigm shift in the way businesses produce and use plastic, and manage plastic waste. Before PCEx created The Plastic Neutral Pact, there had been no prior mechanism to integrate the process of measuring a company’s plastic footprint, providing offset options to zero it out, and evaluating the veracity of the entire process through a third-party auditor and independent board. PCEx is providing a replicable framework empowering businesses from anywhere around the globe to take effective and informed action to successfully tackle the plastic crisis. Under The Plastic Neutral Pact, a business voluntarily pursues plastic neutrality in order to compensate for the environmental impact of its plastic usage. To ensure that future claims of plastic neutrality have integrity and consistency, The Plastic Neutral Pact requires businesses to demonstrate to the satisfaction of a third party auditor that they have accurately measured the entirety of their plastic footprint, and have purchased the corresponding amount of plastic credits to compensate for their impact. “Our experience has shown that there is a need for a standard like The Plastic Neutral Pact for full accountability, assessment, verification, reporting, and transparency on the amount of plastic waste generated and how much is recovered and recycled,” says Nanette Medved-Po, Founder of PCEx. “The Plastic Neutral Pact is a step towards a circular economy as we help businesses take responsibility for their plastic waste and find their own paths to neutrality. It is a call to action, and a promise towards faithful stewardship. Our commitment to transparency and continuous improvement means that this standard will be updated periodically to reflect developments in industry and government policy and best practice.” How Does The Plastic Neutral Pact Work? All aspiring plastic neutral companies can achieve plastic neutral certification by applying the standards outlined on The Plastic Neutral Pact. A business may choose whether to certify its entire organization, or select products, services, or brands separately. It should then work with its chosen auditor to independently assess its total plastic usage using the PCEx Plastic Footprint Calculator, which outlines the different possible sources of plastic within any business. PCEx designed this tool to allow the company and its auditor to not only systematically measure how much plastic credits the company would need to purchase in order to achieve a net-zero plastic footprint, but more importantly identify plastic reduction opportunities within its business model. After offsetting the entirety of its footprint, independent directors of PCEx are to conduct a final evaluation and award plastic neutral certification if all requirements have been met. The business may then use the PCEx plastic neutral badge to visibly communicate to its consumers their commitment to environmental protection. About The Plastic Credit Exchange Plastic Credit Exchange (PCEx) is a Philippines-based non-profit organization that partners with sustainability-conscious businesses around the globe to responsibly offset their plastic footprint, and reduce the flow of plastic waste into our landfills and oceans. PCEx has built a wide ecosystem of collaborators that recover, process and recycle plastic waste, and continuously seeks out the most environmentally and sound solutions to plastic waste reduction. PCEx supports environmental protection with programs that improve livelihoods and scale up social impact.