Unilever Vietnam was honored to be the only Vietnamese business representative at the 16th Asia Pacific Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production in the Thai capital Bangkok last November.

The event was organised by APRSCP and Thai SCP Association in collaboration with partners like the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, IGES, ERIA, EU SWITCH-Asia SCP Facility, UNDP, UNIDO, The WWF-Thailand SCP Project, and PPP Plastic.

This year the Asia-Pacific Roundtable focused on promoting best practices, programmes, local initiatives, and lessons learned on SCP, the circular economy and net zero emission-related projects in Asia and the Pacific region.

It was an opportunity to identify synergies and build cooperation to engage actively in the development and implementation of the SCP, circular economy and net zero emission 2030 and 2050 targets.

Besides, organisations and businesses enhance discussions and sharing experiences and lessons learned in scaling up existing and new SCP and circular economy technologies, strategies, tools, and approaches through research and information awareness, capacity building, financing, and monitoring and evaluation.

At the conference, Unilever Vietnam shared its experience in implementing the public-private collaboration programme to promote the circular economy in plastic waste management in Viet Nam.

The programme has been initiated and promoted by Unilever Vietnam in collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and partners Dow Vietnam and SCG Vietnam since 2020.

It aims to share knowledge, transfer technology, increase public awareness, and promote innovation to solve the plastic waste problem in the country, especially low-value and hard-to-recycle wastes.

Unilever has pioneered in promoting the circular economy model by promoting the construction of a waste segregation-at-source and collection system, and collecting and processing more plastic waste than packaging sold on the market.

In addition, the company makes unceasing efforts to reduce its virgin plastic use by half, increase post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic use, and ensure that all packaging is recyclable.

It has contributed to the achievements of the public-private cooperation programme by collecting, handling and recycling more than 17,000 tonnes of plastic waste, achieving 77 per cent recyclable packaging and reducing the use of virgin plastic in packaging production by 55 per cent through absolute reduction and the use of PCR plastic.

Unilever and other partnersenterprises at the conference also visited the "Zero Waste" model Wang Wa community in Rayong Province in Thailand.

It was an opportunity for businesses and organisations in the region to learn from the sustainable plastic waste management model in Thailand and implement it in their own countries.

Household waste, recyclable and inorganic waste are recycled and transformed into materials such as ecological bricks or everyday items such as planters, hats and bags.

Meanwhile, organic waste is separated for recycling into organic fertilisers to serve the community and commercialise it.

The collected recyclables are redeemed into necessities for the community.

Government agencies collect and treat non-recyclable household waste. — VNS