Alliance to End Plastic Waste names former UN Environment official as first president, CEO

Jacob Duer

Newly-formed not-for-profit organization the Alliance to End Plastic Waste has appointed Jacob Duer, a former director at the United Nations, as its first president and CEO.

Duer will join the group Oct. 1 after most recently serving as director for the United Nations Environment Program.

“Jacob is an experienced, impact-driven, global leader with a breadth of expertise working across a broad range of stakeholders in the public and private sectors,” Alliance chairman David Taylor said in an Aug. 22 statement. Taylor also is CEO of Procter & Gamble Co., which is a member company of the Alliance.

Duer’s goal in this newly created role is to advance the Alliance’s mission to develop, deploy, and bring to scale solutions that will minimize and manage plastic waste and promote solutions for used plastics. This includes plastic reuse, recovery, and recycling to keep it out of the environment.

Since launching in January, the Alliance has initiated projects focused on the collection of plastic waste along rivers that lead to oceans, municipal and city partnerships, idea incubation, and information technology infrastructure.

The Alliance is made up of about 40 companies that have provided funding to create programs to tackle the problem. There was an initial pledge of US$1 billion with a goal of raising US$1.5 billion over five years. Member companies include BASF, Braskem, Clariant, Covestro, Dow, DSM, Formosa Plastics Corp. USA, LyondellBasell, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, Mitsui Chemicals, Nova Chemicals Corp., PolyOne, and Westlake Chemical Corp.