INC-5 Negotiators' Brief: Harmonized Safety & Sustainability Criteria

In June 2024, OPLN launched the INC-5 Sprint to develop science-backed safety and sustainability criteria across four key pillars: Safety, Environment, Sociocultural, and Economic. These criteria aim to guide the effective evaluation, monitoring and transparency frameworks of plastic alternatives and non-plastic substitutes. Through multi-stakeholder advisory and consultations, OPLN developed the INC-5 Negotiators’ Brief to Harmonized Safety and Sustainability Criteria (HSC). This document calls for INC-5 negotiators to mandate the development of HSC within the UN Global Plastics Treaty to end plastic pollution. HSC are a set of comprehensive, science-based principles for assessing the safety and sustainability of plastic alternatives and non-plastic substitutes, including associated chemicals of concern, and their supportive systems, services, and technologies, collectively referred to as ‘products and systems’. The HSC were presented at INC-5 side events in Busan, South Korea and have informed and aligned with the draft treaty text moving into INC 5.2.