You Can’t Bulldoze Your Way to Transformation of an Economy

Catalytic alliances are essential for system change

By Amy Larkin and Claudette Juska | Published 11 hours ago | About a 6 minute read

Image: Photo by Victor Ung on Unsplash

We’re living through a time where mistrust feels ever-present and visceral. Yet there are always opportunities if we gather enough people who mistrust each other into the same room, find mutual benefit, and illuminate how their diverse perspectives are essential to finding common ground and a bold vision.

Today, there is an extraordinary opportunity in California. SB54, the new Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, which comes to market in January 2027, incentivizes the transition from single-use packaging to a reuse economy. California is the 4th largest economy in the world, and has the potential to turbo-charge a new economic system where resources are valued, both literally and figuratively. This move will take time, energy and money for new waste systems, localizing consumer goods production and packing plants, changing behavior, and building alliances between the many links in the reuse chain. And SB54-generated funds will cover many of the costs.

We are former Greenpeacers who have been pivotal actors in transforming two industries - refrigeration and packaging. And our parent organization RESOLVE is leading a third transformation - mining. All three initiatives include multinational and small enterprises, civil society, cultural and labor groups, regional and national governments, engineers, scientists, and the United Nations. That’s a lot of opinions to listen to and consider - all important.

Creating these catalytic alliances took tenacity, patience and courage - from everyone. Here’s what we learned.

No matter what political and socio-economic winds are blowing, now is the time to socialize and exchange your ideas with those who oppose you. You may not achieve the desired change, but you will learn your missing links, and how and with whom you can overcome your obstacles.

Our most recent initiative, PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse, includes multinationals, informal waste labor, small reuse enterprises, environmental justice, science, health, and government leaders. We cross deep cultural and economic divides, and every timezone in the world...yet we arrived at consensus on a suite of new industry standards to undergird the growing reuse industry. We began building this coalition many years before SB54 became law.

When we both worked for Greenpeace in the 2000s, HFCs were the most important greenhouse gases no one ever heard of. They’re thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide and dissipate quickly. It was urgent they be phased out of refrigeration. After Greenpeace made a big noise against Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, Coke, McDonald’s and Unilever founded a consortium, Refrigerants, Naturally!, WITH Greenpeace and the United Nations Environment Programme. Pepsi joined soon thereafter.

Listen to people you mistrust as well as your adversaries or competitors. In addition to the Greenpeace/multinational chasm, Coke and Pepsi working together in a pre-competitive manner was newsworthy. After numerous meetings and dinners together, we ALL developed trust.

There is surprising common ground and mutual benefit where you least expect it. Some standards and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations had to be changed to legalize natural refrigerants. The chemical lobbyists told us it was never going to happen. But Claudette, an engineer on the international UL refrigeration committee, worked to modify the standards. She used peer-reviewed and market data, and the other committee members listened. Companies were ready to supply the U.S. market with a full array of HFC-free equipment immediately after the rules changed.

After our three major brand allies began changing their cooling equipment, they did something unexpected and world-changing. They invited Greenpeace to present its HFC phase-out request to the first Consumer Goods Forum Sustainability Summit. And the group agreed! A week after CGF announced its commitment to phase out HFCs at the COP in 2010, the U.S. Secretary of State invited the CGF CEOs to a meeting. With these corporations’ blessing, the U.S. Government then began to flex its political muscle to include HFCs in the Montreal Protocol, anticipated to save up to 0.5°C of global warming. 175 parties have now ratified. Only an unlikely coalition could have achieved this milestone.

Coalition building has to begin before the legislation. NGOs are central players to de-risk markets for sustainable brands. We’ve been preparing for something like SB54 for eight years. When we co-founded PR3, we thought we’d create reusable packaging standards using the same playbook we used for HFCs. Nope.

We found early allies in Nestle and Cisco, and received funding from the Walmart Foundation, but were unable to rouse other consumer giants to champion reuse. (A few years in, Coca-Cola, Target, Ahold-Delhaize, Unilever, and Avery Dennison joined us to develop the standards.) Industry was reluctant despite clear data showing that reuse was the most effective and cost-efficient packaging system to reduce plastic waste. Until now. California’s SB54, and other enabling and incentivizing regulation is coming soon to other U.S. states, the E.U., and other G20 countries.

SB54 became policy because NGOs of all stripes advocated for it over many years. There are six PR3 Standards covering the whole system, and we are launching certification shortly. The standards were designed to optimize and de-risk both environmental and economic performance, and ensure that workers and communities benefit from new reuse systems. If we had not spent the past eight years coalescing the full spectrum of players for successful reuse, and then developing industry standards with them, SB54 could not support reuse with interoperability, scalability, and security.

On PR3’s Standards panel, we build consensus by dedicating sufficient time for every side to share its perspectives. Whether the priority is safety, environmental or public health, protecting jobs or maintaining a viable business, every perspective matters and is given an equal opportunity to be heard. When needed, we survey our workgroup and panel members to make sure every side can gather their thoughts and let us know how they really feel about the issue being debated. Sharing the findings with the full group leads to creative brainstorming of paths forward. With time, even the most contentious topics in the reuse standards were thoughtfully and successfully negotiated to consensus.

Finally, culture matters.

After thousands of meetings, trust has developed amongst our global and diverse Panel, and PR3’s reuse industry standards are being adopted in numerous markets. They include a new reuse symbol introduced in June 2026 and already in use on every continent except Antarctica. As a visual narrative is so powerful, several other industries embracing circular economy have asked if they can use the symbol. In the coming year, we will develop criteria for using the symbol for textiles, fashion, and electronics reuse innovators.

Reaching systemic tipping points requires years of work from tenacious, courageous leaders from all ends of the spectrum. Despite pressures on every corporate department - from unpredictable costs/margins and tariffs, to marketing amid shifting cultural allegiances - now is the time to sow the seeds for change. The conversations you have today with your colleagues, adversaries and competitors mean that when the winds shift, you and your unlikely allies can make bold moves.