Danica Pension is backing proposals calling for big US firms to report on their plastic consumption.

Danica Pension supports calls for the likes of Amazon, Burger King, Pizza Hut and KFC to report on their use of plastic, which the pension provider said will benefit both the environment and its customers’ investments. It also supports proposals at this year’s annual general meetings (AGM) to make a plan for how they can reduce plastic.

Danica Pension chief ESG specialist, Mads Steinmüller, said: “More and more countries are tightening the requirements for plastic and want more environmentally friendly alternatives, and companies must adapt to that reality."

Overuse of plastic is a big problem for the environment; the United Nations estimates that approximately seven billion tons of plastic waste has been created worldwide, and only 10 per cent has been recycled.

Steinmüller believes the companies that don’t act could be hit financially, which will damage the return on its customers’ pension savings.

"We want greater openness about the consumption and production of plastic in order to be able to better assess how stricter requirements can affect companies' business and whether they are doing enough to be at the forefront of developments," Steinmüller added.

"It is necessary for companies to have a strategy and set goals for how they will, for example, re-design products and packaging, so that they can use recycled plastic to a much greater extent, or that the plastic can be reused for other purposes and thus support a circular economy. At the same time, there is also a clear need for the development of new materials that can replace plastic and can be gentler on the environment.”

Over 30 per cent of the shareholders of Amazon, Dow inc. and Yum Brands, and others, support the proposals.

"It clearly shows that plastic is high on the agenda for investors and an area where you want a greater focus from companies. We hope that the companies will take the message to heart and improve, because it is important that they get started as soon as possible with dealing with the plastic challenge," Steinmüller added.

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