It has taken a shareholder revolt, not new regulation, to get one of Australia's two biggest supermarkets moving on plastic packaging.
What Woolworths did that Coles hasn't
Woolworths has become the first major Australian supermarket to publicly disclose a plastic intensity score, reporting 10 grams of plastic packaging per unit sold. Coles has not published an equivalent figure.
The investor pressure campaign
A coalition of around 190 Coles shareholders has lodged a members' statement ahead of the company's November AGM, demanding Coles report its own plastic metrics and set reduction targets. The campaign is backed by the Australian Marine Conservation Society, along with SIX and Future Super.
Why it matters at this scale
Packaging makes up roughly 60 per cent of Australia's litter, and both Coles and Woolworths rank among the top ten brands found polluting Sydney Harbour. Between them, the two chains control around two thirds of Australia's $148 billion supermarket market, so a packaging decision at either one moves a genuinely enormous amount of plastic.
Read the full release from the Australian Marine Conservation Society, 7 September 2026.
Related reading: The Unpackit Awards: Australia's Best and Worst Packaging, Named and What Happens to Your Empty Bathroom Plastic? The Problem in Numbers.
Measuring your plastic footprint shouldn't need a shareholder motion, we have known ours since day one.