Increasing circularity
Image: Carlsberg
Together with Ball Corporation, Carlsberg has introduced successful lightweighting to its most common beverage can formats
Over the last three years, multinational brewer, Carlsberg, has been working with Ball Corporation – one of the company’s biggest can suppliers – to cut the weight of its most common can formats (33cl and 50cl) by around five per cent, in more than ten European markets. According to Carlsberg, this lightweighting is shrinking its value chain carbon footprint by around 5,000 tonnes per year.
Through Carlsberg’s longstanding partnership with Ball, it is now implementing a joint roadmap of actions designed to drive progress towards shared ambitions on sustainability. Lightweighting to reduce material use and cut carbon emissions is just one aspect of this roadmap.
“Partnering with suppliers who share our values and commitment is key to reaching our ambitious targets on our journey Together Towards Zero and Beyond. Our collaboration with Ball has already delivered notable improvements in lightweighting – a critical lever for decarbonisation and materials use in our shared value chain. Now we’re going further through joint efforts to increase the circularity of our cans,” commented Johan Keerberg, vice president of group procurement, Carlsberg Group. The two companies are also working together to encourage consumers to return more of their used cans for recycling. Joint initiatives include a trial deposit return scheme (DRS) in Serbia, and Carlsberg has included the Metal Recycles Forever logo on its cans there to emphasise the infinite recyclability of aluminium.
The cans supplied by Ball in Europe are already made of 62 per cent recycled aluminium on average, achieved by a mix of pre- and post-consumer recycled material.
Promoting collection and recycling will help to increase availability of post-consumer recycled content and enable progress towards Carlsberg’s and Ball’s complementary targets for increased recycling rates and increased use of recycled content in cans by 2030.
Björn Kulmann, vice president of sustainability at Ball Corporation, said, “We are pleased to continue to partner with Carlsberg and collaborate on our aligned goals, including a 90 per cent recycling rate by 2030. Carbon reduction across our value chains is a key focus and lightweighting our cans is one way we have achieved this with Carlsberg, resulting in significant carbon savings in 2023. Our collaboration with Carlsberg will help us to meet our own Climate Transition Plan while delivering positive impact across our shared value chain.”
Across its whole operations, Carlsberg has also committed to using 100 per cent recyclable, renewable and reusable packaging by 2030, as well as a 50 per cent reduction of virgin fossil-based plastic, and a pledge to use 50 per cent recycled content in its bottles and cans. The group is aiming for a net zero value chain by the year 2040.
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