HP Inc., IKEA Join Ocean-bound Plastics Supply Chains Initiative

NextWave Plastics announces two new member companies, HP Inc. and IKEA, are joining its consortium of worldwide businesses committed to scaling the use of ocean-bound plastics by developing the first global network of ocean-bound plastics supply chains. The addition of HP and IKEA marks 10 companies collaborating to “turn off the tap” of plastic entering the ocean.

In addition, NextWave was recognized on October 20 as the winner of the P4G 2018 Circular Economy Award sponsored by the Danish Government for its commitment to the significant reduction of ocean-bound plastics.

Since announcing in September 2016 that it would join the First Mile Coalition to clean up plastic waste and create economic opportunity for the people of Haiti, HP and its partners have built a fully functioning ocean-bound plastics supply chain using bottles collected in Haiti. The company announces it has sourced 250 tonnes of ocean-bound plastics from Haiti—more than 550,000 pounds—and created more than 600 income opportunities for adults in the country. That’s more than 12 million plastic bottles that have not entered the Caribbean Sea and instead are being upcycled into original HP ink cartridges.

In June 2018, IKEA announced its updated sustainability strategy with new commitments to become people and planet positive by 2030. Commitments included removing single-use plastic products across its stores by 2020 and designing all IKEA products with new circular principles by 2030, with the goal to only use renewable and recycled materials.

“While HP has already demonstrated our commitment to sustainable impact by eliminating ocean-bound plastics and reusing them in our products, we firmly believe in the power of collaboration,” said Stuart Pann, chief supply chain officer at HP, in a statement. “We want to scale our collective efforts amongst industry leaders, work together to address barriers and engage others in the quest for an ocean free from plastic. We have a responsibility to take the critical steps necessary to reduce plastic pollution. Collaboration within and between industries is one of those critical steps.”

“The consequences of plastic pollution are severe, and IKEA is determined to contribute to its solution in a positive and proactive way,” said Lena Pripp-Kovac, sustainability manager at Inter IKEA Group, in a statement. “Together with other NextWave companies we will be developing a global network of ocean-bound plastics supply chains, learning from each other’s efforts and working together to ensure maximum business, community and environmental benefit. Our goal is to make ocean-bound plastic a commodity for the future, and we want to take initiatives to prevent plastic from ending up in the ocean in the first place. We hope this membership will lead to new learnings and new innovations and that we can inspire other companies to follow.”

HP and IKEA will join founding members Bureo, Dell Technologies, Herman Miller, Humanscale and Interface at the fifth annual Our Ocean Conference, taking place October 29 and 30 in Bali, Indonesia, where their engagement will be formally announced.

In 2017, as part of a United Nations commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 14, Dell Technologies and Lonely Whale launched NextWave Plastics. The goal was to build on Dell’s ocean-bound plastic program launched in 2016 and bring together a cross-industry consortium of companies to work together in a collaborative, open-sourced and transparent fashion to create the first global network of ocean-bound plastics supply chains and scale the use of ocean-bound plastics.

Since its launch, NextWave member companies including Bureo, Dell Technologies, General Motors, Herman Miller, Humanscale, Interface and Trek Bicycle, have each been developing their product use cases to demonstrate the viability of integrating ocean-bound plastics found in areas such as Indonesia, Chile, Philippines, Cameroon and Denmark, into their supply chains. The addition of new member companies supports greater demand for these plastics and strengthens supply chain stability.

NextWave member companies are currently sourcing verified ocean-bound plastics from Cameroon, Chile, Denmark, Haiti, Indonesia and the Philippines. They are committed to expanding supply chain efforts in those countries and adding new sources of supply from a minimum of three additional countries including India, Taiwan, Thailand by the year 2025. Through these efforts, NextWave companies will also expand the types of material sourced and will work closely with other supply chain development initiatives to create scale within priority communities.

NextWave Member companies are committed to having maximum impact today and currently are on track to have diverted a minimum of 25,000 tonnes of plastics, the equivalent to 1.2 billion single-use plastic water bottles, from entering the ocean by the end of the year 2025.