Social procurement and the global fight against plastic waste
Sector Spotlight Report on Plastic Waste: Learn from insights gained from over 60 social businesses
While plastic is often touted as an enemy of the environment, it is actually the linear value chains with which industries use plastic that are the root cause of the problem. For example, less than 20% of all recyclable PET plastic waste is collected to be recycled. This means that while the plastic products themselves are reusable, the lack of a proper collection system finds them in landfills and oceans where they add up to the growing global issue that is plastic pollution.
Social businesses have a key role to play in the global fight against plastic waste, especially given their innovative approaches and their ability to tackle both social and environmental issues at once. For example, social businesses lead the way for protecting and uplifting informal waste pickers that are estimated to manage anywhere between 30 to 80% of waste in cities that are lacking proper waste infrastructures. Despite acting as an important link to a circular value chain for the plastic sector, waste pickers typically face poor working conditions, unstable pay, and social stigma - all of which social businesses work to improve through their impact models.
Social businesses cannot answer to the global fight against plastic waste alone, they need cross-sector partnerships and shared value models that can help them to scale their solutions. For this reason, Yunus Social Business put together the Social Procurement Sector Spotlight Report on Plastic which condenses the insights gained from over 60 social businesses engaged in plastic waste around the world. With this report, it is our objective to shine a light on the opportunity for corporations to partner with social businesses in tackling plastic waste through social procurement.
In the report, we identify opportunities for collaboration with social businesses in the sector by surveying their:
- Product and service offerings
- Types of plastics worked with
- Impact focus areas
Contrary to conventional thinking, over 54% of the social businesses surveyed have already supplied to international companies including Unilever, H&M, Caudalie, NIVEA, and The Body Shop, busting the myth that social businesses are small “mom-and-pop” type shops, and instead asserting the fact that social businesses are ready to supply and scale their solutions on a global level.
For feedback or questions, send an email to unusualpartners@yunussb.com.
Why Now? Is the Social Business Movement Reaching A Tipping Point?
Amidst the hype from Friday’s Climate Strikes and the ongoing UN Climate Week, it was fantastic to have the opportunity to speak at the #LeadTheBeat B Corporation Summit this week. Having been involved in the social business movement for over ten years, the summit felt like a real moment of change.
5 Questions with Audi's Social Intrapreneur, Lukas Petersik
In 2022, Yunus Social Business (YSB) and Audi embarked on a journey of social procurement together with the intention to learn, innovate, and take the lead on using business as a force for good. Now at the start of the 2nd year on this journey, YSB speaks with Lukas Petersik of Audi to hear about his experience as a corporate intrapreneur striving to turn value chains into a force for good.
We took a holistic, expedient and humane approach to support smallholder farmers in Colombia
On 20 March this year, Luis Miguel Botero discovered that his social business, Pomario, faced an existential threat. It was the day that a nation-wide quarantine in Colombia was announced, which was ultimately extended until the end of August. For Botero, as for many business owners, this presented the threat that his social businesses’ revenues would disappear overnight.
