Fisk Johnson Supports Plastic Regulation to Help Curb Global Plastic Pollution

In a keynote speech to Cornell University trustees and council members, “The Plastic Paradox,” Fisk Johnson ’79, MEng ’80, MS ’82, MBA ’84, PhD ’86, chairman and CEO of SC Johnson and Cornell trustee emeritus, recognized plastics for the myriad uses and benefits they offer before enumerating the ubiquitous, widespread  impacts of plastic waste. Having experienced the challenges of reducing plastic waste, he has concluded that plastic waste regulation is key to effectively addressing the problem. Johnson, who was responsible for the historic gift that founded the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business in 2017, spoke at the Cornell Trustee Council annual meeting on the Cornell University campus, October 18.

“In the medical field, single use plastic is used in surgical gloves, respirators, tubing, catheters, dialysis machines, in part to prevent the spread of disease,” Johnson said. “How would you feel about getting surgery without the use of surgical gloves or tubing or plastic ID bags to ensure sterility? Consider the clothes you wear. Most textile fibers are synthetic plastic. We could switch to natural fibers. However, cotton alone takes up two and a half percent of the arable land on Earth. Switching to natural would increase land use, probably by a factor of four or more, and where is that land going to come from?”

Johnson’s presentation included multiple brief, powerful videos showing beaches, oceans, and towns all across the world that are polluted with enormous piles of plastic waste. “I don’t think anyone can look at those images and not think, ‘What are we doing to our planet?’” said Johnson, an outspoken champion in the crusade against plastic ocean waste. While a few locations in Africa and Asia have introduced plastic collection and recycling efforts that afford those in direst poverty a meager income, some plastic is still very difficult to recycle, so mountains of it remain as pollutants.

As plastic waste strewn across the world slowly breaks down, tiny particles of it, or microplastics, are swept by wind and water across the globe, creating health hazards for everyone. Himself a scientist, Johnson has participated in research that shows microplastics are present even in the most remote corners of the globe, ranging from the Sahara Desert to Arctic Sea ice. Microplastics can also be found in every one of us, he said: in our blood, in breast milk, in respiratory systems, and even brain tissue. “And we’re really only beginning to understand the health consequences of that,” he said. “I think you can see the paradox of it all the benefits of plastic versus the emerging risk it brings to life on this planet. And the solutions to this issue are not simple.”

Challenges of reducing plastic packaging

As chairman and CEO of SC Johnson, a family-led consumer packaged goods company, Johnson has championed efforts to use more recycled plastic in product packaging.  The company also added refill and reuse options.

“We first launched concentrates for our trigger bottles 13 years ago so people could reuse the bottle over and over again,” he said. “We’ve since tried several different approaches, and they all don’t sell very well. It’s inconvenient to go through the motions of refilling the bottle, and the plastic issue is just not top-of-mind enough for people to give up that convenience.” The impact of removing the plastic overpack from one of its products was similarly disappointing: “Sales dropped 30 precent because it didn’t look as good on the shelf as our competition,” Johnson said.

While SC Johnson launched its first bottle made from 100 percent recycled plastic 34 years ago, “after all these years, we’ve only been able to incorporate 25 percent recycled plastic in all our packaging globally. And it’s been challenging to get just there, and it’s been costly to the point of competitive disadvantage,” Johnson said.

Regulation can level the playing field for collective action

If even the CEO of a family company as committed to being a steward of the environment as Johnson can’t make change happen fast enough, what is the answer for curtailing all the plastic waste our industrialized society generates?

“The fact is, it’s very hard for any company to unilaterally make progress addressing the plastic waste issue,” Johnson said. “In order to solve this issue, you have to get everyone in the plastic recycling loop: manufacturers, waste recyclers, waste collectors, retailers and all of us as users of plastic products to all contribute together, collectively. And it all has to be done at scale.”

The way to make that happen, he said, is through “good, practical plastic regulation.” He cited places where plastic regulation is working, such as British Columbia, where they have “one of the highest collection rates and highest recycling rates in the world.” A core principle of such regulation, he said is that “companies that produce products with plastic are 100 percent responsible for managing that plastic, from the resident all the way through the supply chain, and recycling loop back into products. And it works.”

Johnson pointed out that recycling rates are very low in the United States, where we have limited plastic regulation. “You may all go through the motions of separating waste for recycling, but the stark reality is that most of what you put in those recycling bins ends up in landfill,” he said. “We really need the government to step in and pass good federal plastic regulation, and that’s something that a number of us at SC Johnson have been advocating for in Washington for quite some time.”

Johnson cited a treaty now being negotiated among 175 countries by the United Nations that gives him hope. “It’s an extraordinarily important step forward in solving this issue,” he said. “It’s also something that a number of us at SC Johnson have put in considerable effort over the last year, speaking with many different people across many geographies, advocating for a strong treaty. It’s not an easy task to get 175 countries to reach an agreement on such a complex topic. However, I’m optimistic that a good framework will come out of this process and will begin to move us in the right direction.”

Johnson also spoke of the need to bring the plastic pollution issue to the attention of the general public with the goal of getting “people across the country to write their local federal legislators and ask for strong plastic regulation, which we see as a really important enabler to solving this issue,” he said.

One way SC Johnson is spreading the word is through a permanent exhibit opened in Chicago’s Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, the Blue Paradox. It’s “an immersive experience that helps people understand the paradoxical problem of plastic and its role as an emerging pollutant,” he said. “Importantly, as people come out the back end of this exhibit, it gives them a simple way to write their local, federal legislator. To date, over 108,000 people have signed on.” SC Johnson also plans to launch a series of human-interest stories about how plastic waste is affecting people around the world.

A commitment to live up to the expectations of our children

After Johnson’s presentation, he sat down on stage with Andrew Karolyi,  Charles Field Knight Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, for a Q&A session. Karolyi began by asking Johnson about the legacy of his father and predecessor as CEO of SC Johnson, Sam Johnson ’50,  a widely recognized global leader in corporate sustainability. Sam Johnson is also a key figure in business education at Cornell: In 1984, when he and his family donated $20 million to the Cornell Graduate School of Management, the school was renamed the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management in honor of Sam Johnson’s grandfather.

“‘Grand Sam,’ as his grandchildren called him, was a lifelong environmentalist as well as a successful CEO,” said Fisk. “His commitment and his passion for the natural world was an incredible example for me. If he were here today, I believe he would ask, ‘How will our children look back on the decisions that we make today? Will they say what we did was right?’ Those are questions I try to think about with every choice I make, and I just hope that I, and all of us, can live up to the expectations of our children.”