2024 has been a defining year for the Plastic Footprint Network (PFN). While international negotiations toward a Global Plastics Treaty are still struggling to deliver the ambition the world urgently needs, one thing has become clear across the private sector. Companies know that plastic is not going away as a strategic issue. Many are already preparing for the next decade with stronger data, harmonised approaches, and credible mitigation strategies.
This is exactly why the PFN exists, and why this year has been so important.
This week marks a major step forward.
All PFN technical modules developed during the 2025 cycle are being handed over by the working groups to the Scientific Committee for full review. Their comments will be integrated in February, and the full set of new and updated modules will be published by the end of March 2026.
With this milestone, it is a natural moment to look at what the PFN has achieved so far, and what we will build together in the next cycle.
How the PFN started
The PFN emerged directly from practice. After EA and Quantis published the Plastic Leak Project, EA created Plasteax in 2021 to provide transparent, polymer specific end of life data. As Plasteax use expanded, practitioners began asking increasingly technical questions about applying and evolving the methodology: how to update fate factors, how to model long life items, how to integrate new microplastic science, how to reflect changing waste systems.
These questions revealed a simple truth. Plastic footprinting needed continuous scientific development, shared governance, and a collaborative space to evolve. This is what led EA for Impact to convene the PFN at the end of 2022.
2023: Establishing the shared foundations
PFN’s first full year focused on establishing common ground. The harmonised plastic footprint methodology was published, secondary data was updated and aligned with WWF’s ReSource Tracker, and the Vision for a Corporate Plastic Accountability Framework was released with CDP, WWF, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Pew, Minderoo and WBCSD.
Eleven technical and strategic modules were developed, forming the basis now referenced across leading disclosure systems such as CDP, TNFD, WWF and WBCSD.
2024: Strengthening the foundations and expanding relevance
2024 brought important methodological progress across three pillars.
- The Plastic Pollution Mitigation Action Framework (PAF) was developed.
- The fishing gear module expanded the method to a significant yet under addressed leakage source.
- The microplastic impact model advanced with the MariLCA community, translating microplastic inventories into ecosystem impacts.
In 2024, EA and WBCSD published a joint case study “Examining Progress on Plastic Pollution: Circularity & Plastic Footprint” examining the relationship between circularity metrics and plastic pollution mitigation. The work relied heavily on PFN concepts and data, and confirmed a key insight: circularity is not a proxy for reduced leakage. This strengthened PFN’s positioning and underlined the importance of footprinting in evaluating true environmental outcomes.
Additionally, EA’s 2024 report with WBCSD on plastic corporate disclosure underscored how critical harmonized plastic data is for investors and financial institutions. The report highlighted that inconsistent corporate disclosures remain a major barrier to assessing plastic-related risks and opportunities, and emphasized that PFN’s harmonized plastic accounting and footprinting methodologies can enable the comparability, transparency and validation needed by ESG data providers and markets. PFN provides the scientific foundation enabling more rigorous, decision-useful plastic data, ultimately improving capital allocation across the financial system.
2025: The year of deepening granularity, impacts and mitigation
2025 has been one of the most productive years yet, with major advances across three areas.
Impact valuation
Work with Valuing Impact that translates leakage and associated health and ecosystem impacts into monetary values. This enables companies to integrate the societal cost of plastic pollution into double materiality assessments and internal decisions.
Mitigation and action accounting
The Plastic Pollution Mitigation Action Framework (PAF) v1 was published in March 2025, followed by consultations with PFN members and the Strategic Committee. In Q1 2026, PFN will engage the PFN Advisory Committee and key brand owners, ahead of the publication of the PAF Guidance planned for end of March.
New modules and updates
- Long life items (LLI)
Led by EA and EVEA
Introduces temporal accounting, allowing plastics used in durable goods to be modelled over realistic lifetimes. Includes scenario approaches to reflect how waste infrastructure will evolve across the next decades. Provides a long awaited way to treat long lived plastics consistently across sectors.
- Release rates
Led by EA, through the Packaging Data Hub, in collaboration with Systemiq
A full expansion of the release rate modelling for mismanaged waste, covering all endpoints including open burning, dumpsite retention, informal collection, and leakage to land and water. Integrates product and geography specific parameters with newly available literature.
- Agriculture
Led by EVEA
A new module structuring plastic leakage from agricultural applications, including mulch films, greenhouse films, irrigation systems and protective materials. Introduces source specific pathways and intervention points for both macro and microplastic losses in agricultural contexts.
- Microplastics from packaging
Led by EA
A new module in development translating global assessments of microplastic generation and migration from packaging into an operational methodology that companies can apply to their portfolios. Builds on recent empirical studies and is designed for rapid evolution as new findings emerge.
Modules updated with more granularity and new datasets
- Textile microfibres
Led by EA in partnership with The Nature Conservancy
Expanded to cover both synthetic and natural fibres, with more granular fibre loss rates across production, manufacturing, use and end of life. Integrates data from brand pilots and new research partners. Also includes the assessment of mitigation interventions such as filtration and design improvements.
- Tyre microplastics
Led by MarilCA
Updated with new tyre wear rate datasets, new fate models (including work from Ospital et al. 2025 and Saadi et al. 2026), and improved spatial differentiation of environmental pathways. Strengthens the ability to quantify tyre wear emissions consistently across geographies.
- Supporting datasets
Multiple modules benefited from refreshed secondary data, new country level parameters, updated polymer specific factors and improved alignment with emerging scientific literature.
Additional PFN relevant publications in 2025
- CDP x PFN step by step guide
Not a module, but a co-published practical guide for companies preparing plastics disclosures through CDP. It explains how to use PFN aligned methods to answer disclosure questions, navigate data gaps and connect footprinting with mitigation planning.
Looking ahead to the 2026 edition
The current PFN cycle runs until the end of March 2026. The next edition begins in April.
Q1 2026 will focus on working with PFN members and committees to prioritise the 2026 programme, with emerging areas including:
- sectorial guidelines for automotive, pharma, medtech and financial institutions
- new modules on paint microplastics, pellets and additional product categories
- more detailed methodological guidance for mitigation action quantification
- target setting guidance aligned with global disclosure frameworks
Thank you
None of this would be possible without the dedication of PFN members, working group contributors, scientific reviewers, and partners across academia, industry and civil society. A warm thank you to Dr Elena Corella for her scientific leadership as chair of the scientific committee, and to Nadim for joining as co-chair of the Scientific Committee in 2026. Your expertise and commitment are what make PFN a trusted reference.
A closing thought and an invitation
There is still so much to build. The demand for credible plastic footprinting and mitigation accounting is growing faster than ever, and PFN’s collective intelligence is what keeps the field moving forward.
If your organisation is not yet involved, now is the right moment. The 2026 edition starts in April, and early engagement ensures you can contribute to shaping the next methodological priorities.
Join us in advancing the science, the methods and the alignment needed for credible corporate action on plastic. Together we can continue raising the standard for what meaningful progress looks like.
