Earlier this month, more than 2,600 international negotiators and industry delegates descended on the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, to finalise the long-awaited Global Plastics Treaty. The stakes were high: this was their sixth attempt at reaching an agreement, a process spanning almost four years. But following 10 days of intense negotiations, the treaty stalled at the final hurdle, once again.
Negotiators first put the idea of a Global Plastics Treaty on the table in March 2022, at the United Nations (UN) Environment Assembly, where representatives from 175 nations signed a resolution to develop an international legally binding agreement, addressing the full lifecycle of plastic pollution. The newly established Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) started work soon after. At the time, Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said the eventual treaty would be “the most important international multilateral environmental deal” since the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Throughout, negotiations have been dogged by fossil fuel and petrochemical lobbyists. The pro-plastic lobby reached a climax of 234 in Geneva, outnumbering the combined diplomatic delegations from all European Union (EU) nations. In the run-up to Geneva, many of these actors “tried to distort scientific consensus through strategic funding, ghostwriting and aggressive lobbying”, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned. As a result, these lobbyists managed to sway some governments into voting against progressive clauses like a hard cap on virgin plastic production, ultimately stopping the vote from reaching a consensus and going ahead. Many global environmental campaigners said the draft treaty had been significantly watered down because of this, and resolved that no treaty is better than a bad treaty.
The fashion industry had a scant presence in Geneva, which is perhaps unsurprising given it has historically failed to lobby as effectively as other industries, lacking the right industry organisation or a unified front. Yet experts say a legally binding plastics treaty could be especially monumental for fashion.
According to the 2024 Materials Market Report by global non-profit Textile Exchange, the fashion industry increased its production of fossil-based synthetics from 67 million tonnes in 2022 to 75 million tonnes a year later, with polyester accounting for 57 per cent of total global fibre production in 2023. Extracting virgin fossil fuels for products is only the beginning: throughout their lifecycles, plastic-based fashion products will shed thousands — if not millions — of microplastics, a process that continues to inflict environmental harm and affect human health long after those garments end up in landfill. That’s in addition to all of the more insidious ways plastic creeps into fashion supply chains, from packaging and hangers to stretch and performance-enhancing finishes.
Turning off the virgin plastic production tap — one of the key sticking points in negotiations — could finally force fashion brands to reckon with this reality, and invest in scaling plastic-free and recycled alternatives, as well as the circular infrastructure to make them viable at scale.
