I work for a company that is one of the top worldwide plastic polluters. We use plastic in packaging. I was in an astonishing series of meetings recently, organized by the global corporate office for legal, R&D and supply chain that went like this:
First, we had a series of trainings about climate change that had none of the typical bullshit. They straight explained that the whole idea of recycling is stupid and shifts focus to the part where it makes the least impact, that carbon offsets don't really work, that we can't rely oil running out because the environment and the economy will collapse way sooner than that will happen.
The second part was I guess appealing to people's emotions by showing devastating effects that humans have caused already, for example there was a picture of starved baby bird that died because the parents were feeding it plastic garbage from the ocean.
The third part was practical plans to make various industries sustainable, the point was that drastic measures are required for most companies and that the worst offenders are not consumer-facing so relying on public pressure will not work.
The fourth part was about practical challenges that are not solved yet in our company and everyone got a list of goals they should achieve by 2030. Removing the plastic entirely was one of the goals.
They actually talked about the number go up problem and how we should lobby for extremely strict sustainability legislation. I'm now personally responsible for implementation of glass or aluminum packaging that should be returned and reused. I even became a bit optimistic about the future, because typically I imagine my kids (if I had any) in 30 years living in a fascist state and their job is manning the machine guns against waves of migrants from Africa where the environment collapsed and crops failed.
