One of Europe's largest asset managers is joining forces with a group to tackle "single-use" plastics, blamed for polluting the world's oceans and a source of growing alarm.

Dutch asset manager Robeco has joined forces with the UK’s City to Sea action group to tackle plastic pollution at the source.

The sustainability investor announced last week that it would work with the community group City to Sea to highlight the impact of single-use plastic on oceans and rivers, and help drive home what consumers can do. Support will come from direct investment into City to Sea’s Refill campaign that encourages people to refill useable bottles, where and how they can do this, and increase the number of refill stations available to them.

The partners said last week that the Refill campaign now has over 14,000 sites across the UK listed in the Refill app, which has eclipsed 80,000 downloads.

“Sustainability is clearly changing countries, markets and companies,” Robeco’s UK head Peter Walsh said, and the UK-Dutch alliance intends to engage both consumers and plastics suppliers in the effort.

Robeco launched its first dedicated sustainable fund in 1999, and the Rotterdam-based firm has positioned itself as a leader in sustainability asset management. In 2018 its chief executive Gilbert Van Hassel was named sustainable CEO of the year at the Pan-European Global Invest Forum, and the group recently signed on to the Plastic Solutions Investor Alliance, a coalition working with some of the largest consumer goods companies to tackle the menace that single-use plastic poses the planet.

At the close of second quarter 2018, Robeco had €167 billion ($190 billion) in assets under management, 70 per cent of which are institutional.