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We wrote a 90-page report (& video) on the potential investment impact of a demand decline in low value, high volume plastic. One of our key conclusions was that companies were facing growing pressure from a combination of campaign groups, consumers & regulators to address "the plastic problem." Results of that pressure included profit warnings, elimination of entire product lines and efforts and investments in product or systems innovation.

COVID-19, unsurprisingly, resulted in a need to both protect and reassure with regard to hygiene. Single use plastic is convenient, cheap to produce (at times even more so as oil prices declined during COVID-19), easy to use, and ideally suited to COVID-19-related health & hygiene demands. Multiple sources reference significant increases in plastic waste and pollution resulting from higher PPE through to food packaging use. COVID-19-related increases in plastic usage are, obviously, just one factor in assessing the total plastic demand picture. It is too early to determine longer term trends in PPE consumption, and also how much those might be offset by for example, changes in shopping behaviour or innovation.

In our earlier report and our Food & HPC Risk Radar we noted the consumer sector has a more visible and identifiablepollution impact vs other industries exposed to plastic. The branding that is such a powerful benefit to staples companies, in particular, can leave companies vulnerable because consumers are easily able to link individual brands or companies to specific environmental issues. Campaign groups refer to well-known individual brands by name (e.g., "Top Global Polluters" in the new Break Free From Plastic Brand Audit 2020). Also, more data identifying specific companies and their plastic consumption is being published. On the other hand, it is likely to be impossible for the average consumer to identify who, for example, originally produced the resin used in a drinks bottle.