It is a world first. NGOs want a judge to force the French multinational yogurt and water bottles Danone to free itself from its addiction to plastic which often fails in nature, in a summons consulted this Monday, January 9 by AFP.
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ClientEarth, Surfrider Foundation Europe and Zero Waste France demand that Danone be condemned to plan a “deplasticization trajectory”or leaving the plastic, judging his efforts insufficient.
“We are well aware that this cannot be done overnight, but it must start today”pleaded with AFP Antidia Citores, spokesperson for the coalition of NGOs.
“Duty of care”
The organizations are launching this procedure in France on the basis of a law of 2017, on the “duty of care”which obliges large French companies to ensure respect for fundamental human rights and the environment even among their suppliers around the world.
This “duty of care” is increasingly used by associations to sue large groups and publicize controversial activities: TotalEnergies for an oil project in Uganda and Tanzania, EDF for a wind project in Mexico, Suez in 2021 for its management of water in a city in Chile, BNP Paribas for financing new oil and gas projects…
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Danone had first been given formal notice at the end of September by the coalition of NGOs, at the same time as eight behemoths in the agri-food and distribution industries (Auchan, Carrefour, Lactalis, etc.) The coalition only assigned Danone, step later in the procedure which paves the way for a hearing before the Paris court.
“The dialogue is still ongoing with the others (companies). It is not excluded that they must also be accountable to French justice.one of the NGO lawyers, Sébastien Mabile, told AFP.
One of the ten biggest plastic polluters
Danone gets the ball rolling, NGOs say, not least because the group doesn’t mention plastic pollution in its “vigilance plan” while it is among the ten largest “plastic polluters” in the world, behind Coca Cola, Pepsico or Nestlé, depending on the movement “Break free from plastic”.
Danone thinks ” very surprised “ by the gait, in a reaction to AFP. The company, which notably produces yoghurts of the same name and bottled water (Volvic, Evian or Aqua in Indonesia), considers itself “long recognized as a pioneer in environmental risk management”.
The company claims to implement a “complete framework of actions aimed at reducing the use of plastic, developing reuse, contributing to the strengthening of collection and recycling channels so that plastic remains outside nature and developing research on alternative materials”.
Recycling rather than reducing use
Danone (100,000 employees, more than 24 billion euros in annual turnover) used nearly 751,000 tonnes of plastic in 2021, according to its latest annual report. The group has set itself the goal of designing packaging “100% recyclable, reusable or compostable” by 2025.
NGOs criticize it for betting on recycling its packaging rather than dealing with the problem at the source by reducing its use of plastic, in favor of returnable bottles, for example. “Recycled plastic does not prevent having plastics at the bottom of the ocean”summarizes Antidia Citores.
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She also regrets that the group buys, for example for baby Blédina meals, vegetables that have grown under plastic greenhouses, mulched with polypropylene. More broadly, activists are calling for an end to the “extremely serious environmental damage” resulting from its activities, underlines Me Mabile.
The goal, he adds, is “to raise the plastic issue on the corporate agenda at the same level as the climate issue”so that they reduce their plastic footprint as well as their carbon footprint.
The international community, under the aegis of the UN, has begun negotiations aimed at developing a treaty by 2024 to combat plastic pollution, very difficult discussions. Danone states that it supports the establishment of a “global binding global plastic treaty”evoking a “systemic challenge impossible to solve by a single company”.
