Crafting High-Impact Voluntary Commitments to Prevent and Reduce Marine Litter
We are pleased to have launched our summary report “Crafting High-Impact Voluntary Commitments to Prevent and Reduce Marine Litter” at Plasticity Bangkok (November 2019) as part of the UN's Sea of Solutions Week, which introduces a new guide and scorecard, named “Commitments 2.0,” which was made possible by funding from United Nations Environment. These tools will allow stakeholders around the world to create stronger and more effective commitments to reducing plastic pollution, whether for large companies, governments, or small organizations with limited resources. "The report is intended to challenge the ‘business as usual’ methods which have previously been used in crafting commitments" says Doug Woodring, Managing Director, "and to now have opportunities to engage communities with efficient, replicable and scalable commitments for the world to benefit from.”
Click here for information to our new CAPP Program, (Commitments Accelerator for Plastic Pollution), which is the "activation" of the unique scorecard and toolkit from our above-mentioned Commitments Report. CAPP is being created to develop, prioritize and scale high-impact commitments, while mobilizing communities to prevent and reduce plastic pollution. Its scope is comprehensive – across plastic pollution types, stakeholders and initiatives on land and the ocean. CAPP revolves around a tested online commitment scorecard/toolkit, a searchable set of good practices, a community of aligned stakeholders, and a practical series of learning opportunities, while being run by an expert consortium of complementary partner organizations that each bring specific experiences related to the various outcomes of the program.
Press Release with the Fijian Government as a flagship nation with CAPP.
CAPP has four main services within the program:
1. Global Community: A combination of high-tech and high-touch (technology and people) leads to the best results. CAPP offers several knowledge sharing services, such as a facilitated community of commitment makers who engage in mutual learning and “good practice” sharing both in-person and online. Members take advantage of CAPP services offered (see integrated framework) to create better commitments, and to learn from peers.
2. Digital Platform: Data and transparency drive action. CAPP welcomes stakeholders, as members, into its digital platform, using the Influent community software platform – used by over 7,000 NGOs around the world. This includes CAPP’s step-by-step template program for stakeholders to proactively identify one or more high-impact commitments they can make. This toolkit which was created in scoring 580 previous global commitments.
3. Applied Knowledge: Increasing awareness and knowledge on designing and implementing commitments are key to higher impact. CAPP continuously captures case studies and monitors commitments and their outcomes. CAPP members find initiatives and commitments made by others, validate approaches, interact with peers, and compare data.
4. Action Learning: Replicating and scaling high-impact commitments is a “contact sport” that requires peer engagement and centralized leadership. CAPP offers several action learning opportunities and both online and in-person trainings for designing new commitments and improving existing ones.
Scoring includes a focus on the Magnitude of the commitment, and how much impact it can make, as well as replicability and scalability, and its Velocity – how fast it can be implemented or activated. These can be used by entities of any type (public, private, govt), and big or small….but the point is to consider these points, and to look for others which might be similar to what you are planning as a committer, and to see how you can improve upon or replicate what also might have already been done or tried. We also have over 100 SIC type codes, to categorize which commitments fit where
Special thanks to authors Rob Steir, Bernal Teral and Doug Woodring, with valuable contributions from Amy Brooks, Mathilda Blume, Connor Keisling and Linda O’Doughda.
Included below is an infographic we created as part of the report, when discussing some of the issues of plastic pollution, with one being the volume of material, and the extra local transportation needed (and thus traffic, fuel and costs), when transporting rigid materials which are not compressed, bailed or shredded - and effectively mean the shipment of "air" around our cities. This is one big reason that the costs of recycling are uncompetitive to that of using virgin materials, and a challenge that the world can focus on fixing.
