SC Johnson, Ellen MacArthur Foundation Partner to Advance a Circular Economy

SC Johnson and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation have announced a global partnership reflective of their mutual goal to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. SC Johnson joins the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s nine existing Global Partners—Intesa Sanpaolo, Danone, Google, H&M, Nike, Phillips, Renault, Solvay and Unilever—in driving forward market-leading, circular economy initiatives at scale.

SC Johnson and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation share a vision for influencing systemwide change and will work with others to encourage new circular business innovation. The multiyear partnership builds on SC Johnson’s decade-long journey to improve the sustainability of its products. As part of this effort, the company has spent years working with industry experts to understand barriers to circularity and to find solutions to overcome them.

“Plastic pollution is an enormous problem, and it is going to take businesses, governments, consumers and civil society working together to solve it," said Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO of SC Johnson, in a statement. "We're all going to have to come together, and Ellen and the Foundation have done an excellent job creating an opportunity for partnership and progress.”

"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,” said Dame Ellen MacArthur, founder and chair of trustees for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in a statement. “We are delighted to welcome SC Johnson as a Global Partner and look forward to the progress we can drive together, toward an economy that works in the long term.”

With the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimating that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean, the duo believes it is imperative that all actors come together and change the way people live with and use plastic.

In October 2018, Fisk Johnson joined leaders from around the world to sign the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment at the 2018 Our Ocean Conference in Bali, Indonesia. SC Johnson joined a global coalition of leading businesses and governments to tackle the plastic pollution crisis. This commitment, led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with U.N. Environment, is addressing the root causes of plastic pollution and will help keep plastic out of oceans.

With the increasing attention on the global plastic waste crisis, SC Johnson also published its commitments and progress to further reduce its own plastic footprint, as the company has been relentlessly focusing on designing unnecessary plastic packaging out of its products for years. The company announced plans to boost recycled plastic content in its packaging and support reuse of plastic bottles through concentrated refills and launched an effort to make Ziploc bags recyclable at curbside.

SC Johnson continues its mission to make curbside recycling of used flexible plastic film a reality in the U.S. and reduce waste that enters landfills. The company achieved an important milestone last year with the introduction of the first-ever trash bag made with 100 percent post-consumer recycled film, including Ziploc bags, collected through a pilot program at a U.S. recycling center.