Sustainability in the Plastics Industry: Concerns, Issues, and Strategies

An increased corporate emphasis on sustainability can be seen in such areas as: annual reports with published sustainability goals, sustainability management systems with balanced scorecards and dashboards, websites using increased screen area and space for sustainability communications, internal and external stakeholder opinion gathering, development of sustainable supply chain plans, and marketing strategies focusing on green or sustainable consumers. To address this ever increasing attention to sustainability, a research project to understand sustainability in the plastics industry was initiated with the membership of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE). This paper focuses on the results of the research (global survey) and the implications of sustainability to the plastics industry