SC Johnson and Ellen MacArthur Foundation: A Groundbreaking Global Partnership

Experts estimate that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. As a longtime champion for the environment, at SC Johnson we believe it’s imperative that business, government, NGOs and individuals work together to tackle this problem before it’s too late.

That’s why at the 2018 Our Ocean Conference in Indonesia, Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson joined Dame Ellen MacArthur, founder of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Erik Solheim, United Nations Environment Executive Director, to launch the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment.

Signed by over 400 organizations, the Commitment aims to address the root causes of plastic pollution, such as eliminating excess packaging and making more packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable.

The New Plastic Economy Global Commitments include:

• Take action to eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging by 2025.
• Take action to move from single-use toward reuse models where relevant by 2025.
• Make 100% of plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
• Significantly increase recycled content in plastic packaging by 2025.

SC Johnson also in 2018 made public our commitment to reduce plastic waste related to our products. See our progress on our commitments here. 

In 2019, SC Johnson became the tenth Global Partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, working to drive market-leading circular economy initiatives at scale. Other partners include Google, Phillips and Unilever. 

As Fisk shared at the time, “Plastic pollution is an enormous problem, and it is going to take businesses, governments, consumers and civil society working together to solve it."

The multi-year partnership builds on SC Johnson’s decade-long journey to improve the sustainability of its products. As part of this effort, we have spent years working with industry experts to understand barriers to circularity and to find solutions to overcome them.

Said Dame Ellen MacArthur, Founder and Chair of Trustees of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation: “Built upon their strong history as a family company and pioneering work on transparency and product circularity, SC Johnson is taking a leadership role to help redesign global systems according to circular economy principles, and to address major challenges such as plastic pollution. We are delighted to welcome SC Johnson as a Global Partner and look forward to the progress we can drive together, towards an economy that works in the long term.”