Plastic bag charge’s big success for UK retailers

Regulation can be very successful in cutting single-use plastic bags. Data released by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs reveals that, since October 2015, sales of single use bags have decreased 98% across leading retailers in England. The Defra data does not include the other nations of the UK, where similar success has been achieved. The plastic bag charge was introduced in 2015 when, single-use plastic bags were sold for 5p across large retailers in England; the price was later increased to 10p and applied to all retailers operating in the country.

According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), England’s main large retailers sold 7.6bn single-use carrier bags in 2014. The drop in sales of said bags since then has been astonishing: from 2025 to 2026, main large retailers in England sold 125m single-plastic carrier bags, a 90% decrease since 2016-2017. Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s have reported selling no single-use bags at all the past year. For the 2025-2026 period, retailers donated £8.7m to good causes.

Separately, the UK government has confirmed that mandatory kerbside collection of flexible plastics, such as crisp packets and bread bags, in England will be delayed by three years to April 2030. The change to the “simpler recycling” rules follows industry concerns that there isn’t enough recycling capacity to handle the extra material. Reaction has been mixed: local authority groups have welcomed the extra time to build infrastructure, while some in the recycling sector argue the delay does little to build investor trust in flexible plastic recycling.

$bn “sustainable” loans to deforestation-linked palm oil

New research from activist group Global Witness alleges that palm oil companies operating on the Indonesian island of Sumatra have continued to access billions of dollars in finance, despite ongoing links to deforestation. Part of the reason for the continuous funding access is companies self-reporting standards.

The investigation finds that banks made $31bn available in sustainability-linked loans to palm oil companies facing deforestation allegations in Indonesia between 2018 and 2025. UK banks Standard Chartered and HSBC were among those financing producers during periods when some companies faced corruption and deforestation claims.

The report highlights a wider problem: because sustainability-linked loans tend to rely on voluntary standards, with no requirement to publish targets or performance data, companies are, Global Witness says, effectively marking their own homework. Investors are growing wary too, since the full implementation of the EU’s Deforestation Regulation will soon require larger companies to prove their products aren’t linked to deforestation, or lose access to the EU market.

The palm oil sector has, of course, made huge advances in addressing deforestation in supply chains, but the Global Witness research shows that the activist community still has the sector under close scrutiny.

EU’s DPP registry launched

The European Commission has launched its Digital Product Passport (DPP) Registry and testing environment, moving the DPP from a legislative concept to an operational one for businesses selling into the EU. The registry will act as a central EU index, storing unique product identifiers and basic metadata, while detailed product information stays with companies or their service providers.

Packaging isn’t in itself subject to a general DPP obligation, but industry voices argue it will still play an important role, since QR codes and other digital identifiers required under the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation are likely to sit on packaging itself. Industry groups are calling on the Commission to keep the DPP and packaging rules properly aligned, to avoid businesses facing duplicate reporting requirements and unnecessary costs.

For more on the impact of the DPP on the apparel sector, listen to a recent podcast when Ian Welsh spoke with Pauline God from TrusTrace, a leading supply chain traceability software, about the gap between mandatory infrastructure and still-voluntary product obligations.

Offshore wind farms and sustainable seaweed at scale

Researchers at Aarhus University have shown that seaweed can be grown successfully beneath offshore wind farm turbines. Fifteen years of trials in Danish waters show that sugar kelp can be cultivated at scale offshore, with yields and quality often exceeding onshore results.

Rather than competing for new ocean space, seaweed farms would share existing wind farm infrastructure and service vessels, cutting costs and environmental impact. The seaweed also absorbs nitrogen and phosphorus from the water as it grows, helping offset nutrient pollution, though researchers note it isn’t a substitute for cutting emissions at source.

The technology itself is largely proven. The challenge ahead is building a supply chain: researchers say food manufacturers, retailers and public kitchens should all get involved to turn offshore seaweed farming into a genuine food industry; in the same way legumes have become more visible in meals over the past decade.