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We wrote a 90-page report (& video) on the potential investment impact of a demand��decline in low value, high volume plastic. One of our key conclusions was that��companies were facing growing pressure from a combination of campaign groups,��consumers & regulators to address "the plastic problem." Results of that pressure��included profit warnings, elimination of entire product lines and efforts and investments��in product or systems innovation.

COVID-19, unsurprisingly, resulted in a need to both protect and reassure with regard to��hygiene. Single use plastic is convenient, cheap to produce (at times even more so as oil��prices declined during COVID-19), easy to use, and ideally suited to COVID-19-related health &��hygiene demands. Multiple sources reference significant increases in plastic waste and��pollution resulting from higher PPE through to food packaging use. COVID-19-related��increases in plastic usage are, obviously, just one factor in assessing the total plastic��demand picture. It is too early to determine longer term trends in PPE consumption, and��also how much those might be offset by for example, changes in shopping behaviour or��innovation.

In our earlier report and our Food & HPC Risk Radar we noted the consumer sector has a��more visible and identifiablepollution impact vs other industries exposed to plastic. The��branding that is such a powerful benefit to staples companies, in particular, can leave��companies vulnerable because consumers are easily able to link individual brands or��companies to specific environmental issues. Campaign groups refer to well-known��individual brands by name (e.g., "Top Global Polluters" in the new Break Free From Plastic��Brand Audit 2020). Also, more data identifying specific companies and their plastic��consumption is being published. On the other hand, it is likely to be impossible for the��average consumer to identify who, for example, originally produced the resin used in a drinks bottle.