Mondelēz International has joined Circulate Capital’s Ocean Fund (CCOF) as a limited partner and will now be supporting scalable business solutions to help develop infrastructure for the collecting, sorting and recycling of plastic waste, including flexible films.
The goal of this investment, which is part of Mondelēz International’s Sustainable Futures impact investing platform, is to enhance focus on the physical collection of flexible films – lightweight, multi-layer plastics used by the snacking industry – that have traditionally been more difficult to collect, sort, recycle and ultimately reuse.
CCOF is an investment fund dedicated to addressing India and Southeast Asia’s plastics challenges, and its investors include some of the world’s leading consumer packaged goods companies. The fund provides financing to waste management, recycling and circular economy start-ups and small- and medium-sized enterprises across India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
CCOF helps identify collection and recycling solutions, catalyses capital to both scale and replicate those solutions and connects these enterprises to the world’s leading companies. Mondelēz International’s investment in CCOF is expected to finance enterprises that support the company’s goal to collect more plastic waste than the company currently produces across India and Southeast Asia and will further CCOF’s investments into flexible plastic waste collection, recycling and infrastructure enterprises.
“This investment marks a pivotal step forward in our contribution to a circular economy for plastics and is a clear demonstration of our long-term goal of net zero waste,” says Dirk Van de Put, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mondelēz International, Inc. “As part of our ambition to lead a more sustainable snacking company, this partnership will help fund businesses that are trying to fill systemic gaps in the collection, sorting and reuse of plastic waste, including flexible film.”
“We are excited to partner with Mondelēz International, a world leader in the food and beverage industry. Their investment in the Circulate Capital Ocean Fund will enable us to put more capital to work by funding enterprises located in South and Southeast Asia with innovative solutions to combat plastic waste and advance the circular economy,” says Rob Kaplan, Founder and CEO of Circulate Capital. “Adding Mondelēz International to our esteemed list of global partners is a reflection of the significant impact our portfolio companies have made thus far. This additional catalytic capital will also help CCOF reach our expected environmental and economic impacts by 2030 which includes the prevention of more than 13 million tonnes of plastic pollution leakage and at least 17 million tonnes of CO2e avoided.”
