Target 12.5: Substantially reduce waste generation
By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
Packaging and product design by consumer-goods, retail and e-commerce companies drives waste generation, and shareholder voting is already the active lever. As You Sow's 2025 proposals on eliminating unrecyclable flexible plastic packaging won 15.6 percent at PepsiCo, 13.7 percent at Mondelez, 13.6 percent at Amazon, 11.6 percent at Kraft Heinz and 17 percent at Home Depot. The four consumer-goods votes were backed by holders of over 241 billion dollars. Industry lobbying against binding production limits is documented at the plastics treaty talks, where CIEL counted 234 industry lobbyists in August 2025. Conduct is decisive and lobbying is the obstacle, so owners can deliver most of this outcome.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
7 campaigns on record
Provide accurate recyclability information for plastic cups and disclose details on the transition to reusable cups.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement
Starbucks agreed to ensure it provides accurate recyclability information and to share details about its transition to reusable cups by early 2026.
Our Top Ten Victories from the 2025 Shareholder Advocacy Season, Green Century
Issue a report examining the risks and opportunities of adopting reusable packaging systems to cut single-use plastic packaging.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement
McDonald's agreed to publish a comprehensive study, targeted for early 2024, examining reusable-packaging risks and opportunities.
Amazon, Yum Brands, Kroger face upcoming shareholder votes on circular packaging, Waste Dive
Publish an annual reuse/refill baseline assessment and expand reusable and refillable packaging pilots.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement
Keurig Dr Pepper agreed to publish an annual reuse/refill baseline assessment in its corporate social responsibility report and to launch new reuse and refill pilots by 2024.
Colgate-Palmolive, Keurig Dr Pepper enhancing reuse efforts, Packaging Dive
Publish a baseline assessment of reuse and refill packaging pilots and disclose plans to expand them, and explore accelerating its 2030 plastic-reduction targets.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement
Colgate-Palmolive agreed to publish a reuse/refill baseline assessment in its 2023 sustainability report and to more fully disclose existing and planned reuse pilots.
Colgate-Palmolive, Keurig Dr Pepper enhancing reuse efforts, Packaging Dive
Report on actions PepsiCo could take to reduce its reliance on single-use plastic packaging, including strengthening refillable-bottle goals.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement
PepsiCo committed to set, by the end of 2022, a time-bound goal for the percentage of beverage volume delivered through packaging-avoiding or packaging-minimizing strategies such as refillable bottles, fountain drinks, at-home systems like SodaStream, and powder/drop formats.
Reduce plastic packaging used to ship orders and report on the company's plans to do so.
With Green Century Capital Management
Result: Approximately 48-49% of votes cast were in favor (shares representing about $387 billion voted yes); described as the most-supported environmental proposal in Amazon's history. The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).
Amazon's own reporting showed single-use plastic used to ship orders fell from 97,222 metric tons in 2021 to 85,916 metric tons in 2022, an 11.6% decrease; As You Sow credits shareholder pressure though Amazon's sustainability report does not explicitly attribute the change to the resolution.
Nearly half of Amazon shareholders agree: Time to cut back on plastic packaging, Grist
Issue a report by December 2021 estimating how much plastic packaging Kroger releases into the environment and describing the company's strategy to reduce plastic packaging.
Result: 45.6% of votes cast were in favor The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).
Kroger later pledged that its Our Brands packaging would be 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2030 and launched a mail-back recycling program with TerraCycle's Loop, but As You Sow found the company set no recycled-content goal for plastics and had cut its earlier 20% recycled-content pledge in half.
Kroger: Sustainable Packaging Policies for Plastics, As You Sow
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.