Making a difference
Delphis Eco’s CEO, Mark Jankovich, discusses the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference COP26, and how the cleaning industry needs to change and act to help achieve climate change targets.
Hard on the heels of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement of the 26th session of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), we now all understand more about what will be tackled at this summit, and indeed what this means for the country – and cleaning industry – as a whole.
COP26 is due to take place in Glasgow in November 2020, and is arguably the most important UN climate change yet. There are exactly 10 years left until 2030 – the year identified in The Paris Agreement to achieve the goal of keeping global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
The Paris Agreement was the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate change agreement and so marked a step-change in how the global crisis is being approached. It’s not a ‘nice to have’ – it’s now legally binding. This climate crisis will quite literally have an unfathomable impact on the future for generations to come.
Sir David Attenborough joined PM Johnson when he launched the UN Climate Change Conference, where the importance of Glasgow was made perfectly clear: unless we do something now, the climate crisis becomes insoluble.
The UK has committed to the target of net zero emissions by 2050 – an ambitious target but a doable and important one – and the Prime Minister set out various plans to help achieve this, such as bringing the ban of petrol, diesel or hybrid cars forward from 2040 to 2035.
So, what does this critical year in climate change mean for the cleaning industry? And, more importantly, what can we do to play our part and help achieve these targets outlined?
44 | SUSTAINABILITY
We as an industry have the potential to make a big difference. Nearly all cleaning products come in some form of plastic packaging – bottles of bleach, detergents, anti-bacterial sprays and so on. According to the National Geographic, 300m tons of plastic is produced annually and the world only recycles 9% of the plastic it makes annually, meaning a minimum of 91% goes into landfill, the ocean or is incinerated. Needless to say, this has a material impact on climate change through waste processes.
We need to find ways to reduce the amount of virgin plastic produced and what gets discarded – and there are ways. For example: using recycled plastic so we aren’t adding to this number. In fact, using recycled plastic as an alternative to virgin plastic achieves a 70% reduction in carbon; a huge improvement.
There are often businesses – big, global organisations – who say that achieving 100% recycled plastic in their products is too difficult or too hard to achieve. We don’t accept that. It is possible. It is achievable. We know this because we did it.
Our products at Delphis Eco are packaged in material made from 100% recycled plastic. It wasn’t an overnight achievement – in fact it took six years and a lot of patience, determination and sheer grit – but we did it. And if we – as an SME – can do it, then there is no excuse for anyone else in the cleaning sector to not do the same.
We do it by using recycled plastic bottles sourced from local authorities, diverting thousands of tonnes of plastic from going to landfill or the ocean. It’s this approach – i.e.
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