UN plastic treaty talks fall apart — again
After talks in Geneva collapsed Friday, the United Nations Environment Programme, which oversees the negotiations, said the negotiating committee 'agreed to resume negotiations at a future date to be announced.' Any future talks would be the seventh round and the second extension after delegates failed to reach consensus by their original end-of-2024 deadline.
The U.N. gave little guidance about how talks would proceed, saying only it was a process led by member countries.
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'This has been a hard-fought 10 days against the backdrop of geopolitical complexities, economic challenges, and multilateral strains,' Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director, said in a statement. 'However, one thing remains clear: despite these complexities, all countries clearly want to remain at the table.'
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Over 4 years since the Taliban took Kabul, millions of Afghans have been sent back to a country in crisis
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Forbes
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- Forbes
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Some companies engage in lobbying that has little to do with the needs of their customers. Often, the focus is on protecting profit margins, preserving market share, or avoiding costly operational changes. That can mean pushing to loosen safety or transparency rules, resisting reforms that raise production costs, or reshaping legal definitions to fit what the company already offers. Publicly, these brands may speak the language of social responsibility; privately, their policy positions preserve loopholes, delay progress, or keep competitors out. Every so often, a company does the opposite. It uses its influence to advocate for customer needs, not just its bottom line. This is rare. And in 2025, one of the most surprising examples came from a brand better known for dating culture than family policy. Grindr Enters the Policy Arena With Purpose Grindr, widely recognized as a dating app, stepped into the policy arena with purpose. In the second quarter of 2025, the company spent $372,000 on lobbying for expanded access to surrogacy and IVF, tax deductibility for related expenses, and updated legal definitions of reproductive healthcare. CEO George Arison, who has two children through surrogacy, had a personal stake in the work. That spring, Grindr brought its lobbying in-house, creating a government affairs team to lead the charge. Its priorities: make it easier and more affordable for same-sex couples to build families through surrogacy and IVF, expand the tax code's definition of reproductive healthcare, and support HIV prevention and treatment programs. In December 2024, Grindr announced a $300,000 family-building benefit spread over five years and available to each eligible employee. Administered by Carrot Fertility, the program covers 80% of costs for adoption, surrogacy, and fertility treatments. It also includes hormonal healthcare such as menopause care and low testosterone treatment. Paired with 20 weeks of paid parental leave and a hybrid work model, it's one of the most comprehensive packages in the tech sector. Lobbying Backed by Bipartisan Engagement A company spokesperson told Forbes: 'We have been working hard to educate lawmakers on the issue on a bipartisan basis, and have also directly engaged the Trump Administration at the cabinet level to encourage regulatory updates that could allow for a broadened definition of eligible reproductive healthcare expenses and empower businesses to support all families – LGBTQ+ couples, individuals with health conditions, and other hopeful parents in creating the families of their dreams.' The gap is significant. U.S. tax law still largely blocks same-sex couples from deducting surrogacy expenses, and even IVF costs linked to surrogacy often don't qualify. Most employer health plans exclude surrogacy entirely even if they cover some IVF treatments. Some explicitly exclude any surrogacy-related medical care. The result: even 'family-friendly' employers can't close the gap without creating their own benefit programs. Redefining a 'Family-Friendly' Company Since January, a quarter of eligible Grindr employees have enrolled. One employee and his husband are expecting their first child. For Arison, the effort is personal and policy-driven: 'I'm very lucky to have two kids through surrogacy… I believe that small, targeted changes in public policy – such as making all surrogacy expenses, which are ultimately medical expenses, tax deductible – could make it far easier and more affordable for gay men to have children. In the meantime, I wanted Grindr to play a role by leading on what we offer employees and advance such policies on a larger scale.' By combining lived experience, robust internal benefits, and strategic lobbying alongside direct advocacy, Grindr challenges the idea that family-building benefits belong to a certain kind of company. It shows how corporate influence can widen the path to parenthood, making it accessible to more people, in more ways, than most would imagine.
