Chemicals in almost half of plastic additive products cannot be identified, exposing investors to litigation and regulatory costs

Hidden toxicity poses risk to human health, biodiversity and investment portfolios.

• 45% of plastic additive products have undisclosed chemical components, creating financially material blind spots for investors
• 25% of additives assessed scored in the most hazardous category, including bisphenols and PFAS
• 11% of products contained chemicals for which there is no data on their potential harms

(London, October 30th, 2025) – A new report from Planet Tracker and the Safer Chemistry Impact Fund finds that data on the potential hazards of many plastic additives – the synthetic chemicals used to enhance the attributes of plastics such as colour or flame retardants – is either undisclosed or unavailable. This lack of transparency is creating financially material blind spots for investors, who are unable to quantify their exposure to potential liabilities or price risk accurately.

The report, Toxic Additives: Analysing Product Portfolio Risk, analyses publicly available data to determine the hazard profile of 18,020 plastic additive products produced by 100 major plastic companies. The analysis uses ChemFORWARD’s toxicology reports, which score chemicals on factors including human health impacts such as links to cancer, and environmental outcomes including effects on climate and toxicity to biodiversity.

Component chemicals were identifiable for 53% of the additives assessed. 25% of these identified additives scored in the most hazardous categories – including chemicals such as bisphenols and PFAS. PFAS pollution has cost 3M alone $10.3bn in the US, with legal challenges in other jurisdictions ongoing. Meanwhile,11% of identified additives contained chemicals for which there is no available data on their potential harms. 

For investors this should be concerning. The report finds that for 45% of additives analysed, the underlying chemical components could not be identified – posing a significant hurdle to identifying and mitigating risk*.

The 100 plastic additive suppliers were marked on their hazard score between 1 (least hazardous) and 5 (most hazardous), with an average score of 4.4. Nouryon, Galata Chemicals (Artek) and ADEKA were among the worst performers.

Richard Wielechowski, Senior Analyst, Planet Tracker, said: “Investors and the public can only see surface-level risks from hazardous chemicals in plastic additives due to insufficient research and limited transparency from plastic companies. What lies beneath could be a ticking timebomb for corporates using plastics and their investors.  Although we are yet to see a significant amount of successful litigation around harm caused by plastic, the potential impact is significant.”

Bill Walsh, Fund Director at Safer Chemistry Impact Fund, said: “Planet Tracker has highlighted an avoidable risk for investors – uncharacterised chemicals in the products and supply chains of portfolio companies. Just as standardised carbon accounting metrics have become a means by which investors can evaluate a company’s success in identifying, reducing and tracking greenhouse gas emissions, there are now reliable and practical metrics that investors can use to understand how well a company is identifying, reducing and replacing high hazard chemicals with safer solutions.”

The report points to the growing academic focus on plastic toxicity. When significant health impacts from chemicals are identified, regulators move to prohibit their use and lack of compliance can result in costly legal action. For instance, Bayer has paid litigation costs of €13 billion in the last 5 years, largely related to its use of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) and glyphosate. The company has acknowledged that these costs have curtailed cash flows and limited their ability to invest in growth areas.

To minimise their exposure to these risks, investors should:

• Push for more transparency: marketing products with clear chemical identifier information; releasing safety data on additive products; running or funding chemical hazard assessments for untested chemicals.
• Push towards safer chemistry: incentivising corporates to utilise tools such as ChemFORWARD’s Plastic Additives Optimisation Tool and investing in innovation to develop safer chemicals.

ENDS

Notes to editor

*Chemical components of 53% of additive products were identified, 45% were unidentifiable, and 2% were identified but classification by ChemForward is in progress.

For more information, please contact:

Ino Rousselet, Account Director, ESG Communications | t: + 44 (0)7786148010 | planettracker@esgcomms.com

Sally Palmer, Head of Communications, Planet Tracker | t: + 44 (0)7799472824 | sally.palmer@tracker-group.org

About Planet Tracker

Planet Tracker is an award-winning non-profit financial think tank aligning capital markets with planetary boundaries. Created with the vision of a financial system that is fully aligned with a net-zero, resilient, nature positive, and just economy well before 2050, Planet Tracker generates break-through analytics that reveal both the role of capital markets in the degradation of our ecosystem and show the opportunities of transitioning to a zero-carbon, nature positive economy.

About the SCI Fund

The SCI Fund, a unique blended capital fund with seed investments from Apple and Google, aims to embed safer chemistry tools and metrics in four consumer-facing supply chains in five years. The collaborative will identify, fund, scale, and measure impact solutions to embed safer chemistry across supply chains as the standard operating system.