Partnerships for Scaling Impact:
Private Sector Rallies Around Circularity with $25M Investment

Imagine you had $25 million to accelerate the growth of solutions to help end plastic waste. In May 2021, this concept became a reality with the launch of the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund. The Fund aims to grow to $100 million and, at scale, will recycle more than 500 million pounds of plastic over its lifespan.

But to realize the Fund’s true potential, partnerships will be key. That’s why Dow is a founding member of the Closed Loop Fund — and hopes to encourage other players to invest in the Fund to reach the $100 million goal. Working together, organizations will have greater ability to turbocharge solutions to plastic waste.

The Fund aims to make this vision a reality by investing in three strategic areas to increase recycled plastics:

• Access – Increasing the collection of targeted polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) plastics by advancing current and next-generation material collection systems, including transportation, logistics and recycling sortation technologies and infrastructure.

• Optimization – Upgrading recycling systems to more efficiently aggregate, classify and sort the targeted plastics to increase the total amount of high-quality plastic, including food-grade and medical-grade plastic, sent for remanufacturing.

• Manufacturing – Investing in facilities and equipment that manufacture finished products, packaging or related goods using recycled content, including recycled PE and PP.

Dow’s emphasis on partnerships and collaboration to build a more sustainable planet starts at the top: “A commitment and capital alone are not enough to end plastic waste,” stressed Dow CEO Jim Fitterling stressed at the launch of the Fund. “We urge others, across all sectors of society, to scale the technologies, partnerships and capital needed to build the circular plastics supply chains of the future.”

The Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund is the latest step toward realizing Dow’s vision of a flourishing circular economy. Starting in 1992, Dow launched an external environmental council with leaders from NGOs, government, academia and business that played a vital role in furthering our approach to sustainability.

Two decades later, in another strategic partnership, Dow and The Nature Conservancy set out to demonstrate how companies can incorporate the value of nature into business decisions. The collaboration was built on a simple premise: when a company makes a fully informed decision on how its operations rely on and affect nature, it can lead to better outcomes for business and for conservation.

Fast-forward to today: World leaders are preparing for crucial fall convenings — the UN General Assembly and COP 26 — where discussions on tackling climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions will take place. For Dow, partnerships and investments in materials science and innovation are key for tackling these challenges — and the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund offers a new path forward toward meeting climate action goals set forth by the Paris Agreement.

As the world races to find solutions to some of the greatest challenges of a generation – from climate change to reducing plastic waste – the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund offers a unique opportunity for business and investors alike to reimagine what’s possible for plastics and our planet. Learn more here.