Billionaire Fisk Johnson has been on a crusade to contain the plastic waste crisis. He has gone scuba diving among plumes of plastic sludge. He has funded research on how microplastics are damaging for human health. And he has made trips to Congress to ask for regulations placing responsibility on consumer-goods companies to recycle the plastic waste their products generate.
Companies like his! For 20 years, Johnson has been at the helm of one of the biggest consumer companies in the world—and a major manufacturer of products packaged in plastics. He is CEO of family-owned SC Johnson, which makes Ziploc bags, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day soaps and Windex cleaners.
“On one hand, I see plastic as one of the most useful, versatile and cost-effective materials developed in the last century,” Johnson testified in Congress. “On the other hand, as a lifelong conservationist, I also have seen how plastic has become one of the more profound emerging global pollutants that is affecting planetary, animal, and human health.”
That paradox is one of the most challenging questions confronting businesses—how to balance the tide of consumerism with escalating environmental concerns? Are consumers prepared to pay more and change the way they get their soap, cleaners and food to drastically reduce plastic waste?
SC Johnson still relies on plastic for packaging many of its products, and single-use plastic films like Ziplocs aren’t commonly recycled. Close to 40% of the world’s millions of tons of plastics produced are used in packaging and 85% of that plastic ends up in landfills, writes The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 13, 2024). Johnson says he has introduced sustainable packaging, including Windex bottles made from recovered plastic, but that regulations and fees on companies using plastics are needed so companies like his can remain competitive. Alternatives like glass can be costly, fragile and leave a bigger carbon footprint, he adds.
“You could say, alright, well, single-use plastics is a terrible business, and we should just get out of it,” says Johnson. “But somebody else who’s less well-intended is going to just take that up. It’s a free market. My argument is that it’s better off in our hands.”
Classroom discussion questions:
- Is there a solution to this dilemma?
- What would be your strategy as head of OM at SC Johnson?