Tetra Pak, the world leader in food processing and packaging solutions, announced that it plans to cap carbon emissions at 2010 levels by the end of 2020 and increase efforts to double the recycling rate for used beverage cartons by the end of the decade.


The 10-year targets are part of an ambitious new environmental program that is designed to deliver on the company’s ultimate aim of providing sustainable packaging using only renewable materials, achieving a minimal environmental footprint and creating zero waste.

Environmental efficiency has always been at the heart of Tetra Pak’s strategy because it is critical to both business performance and to society as a whole. The ambitious targets reinforce the company’s commitment to deliver solutions that achieve sustainable profitable growth for both Tetra Pak and its customers:

• Climate: Tetra Pak aims to cap carbon emissions at 2010 levels by the end of 2020 while continuing to grow. With an estimated 5 percent compound annual growth rate achieving this goal would require a 40 percent relative reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions. This target not only includes Tetra Pak’s operations, but those across the entire value chain, meaning that it will ask suppliers to meet agreed on targets and support customers’ activities to reduce their own emissions.

• Recycling: By 2020, Tetra Pak is committed to help double the global recycling rate of its used beverage cartons to provide valuable raw materials for a host of new products. With an estimated 5 percent compound annual growth rate achieving this goal would mean that about 100 billion used beverage cartons are recycled in 2020 alone. This is done through active engagement in the entire recycling value chain; from technology development, efficient collection and sorting schemes and increased consumer awareness.

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• Responsible sourcing: Tetra Pak aims to increase the supply of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper board used in its products to 100 percent, with an interim target to achieve 50 percent in 2012. Tetra Pak works closely with its suppliers and other stakeholders to increase access to FSC-certified wood fiber. By the end of 2011 alone, the number of Tetra Pak cartons carrying the FSC logo will nearly double from 2010 levels to 16 billion.

• Sustainable products: Tetra Pak aspires to develop packaging material based on 100 percent renewable materials. Its cartons are already mainly based on paperboard from a renewable resource, wood fiber, and Tetra Pak is taking important steps towards increasing the renewable content. The company has signed an agreement with Brazilian producer of green polyethylene, Braskem, in order to launch caps containing renewable polymers made from sugarcane in 2011.

“Today Tetra Pak has made the scale of its environmental ambitions crystal clear,” said Tetra Pak President and CEO Dennis Jönsson. “These are tough targets and achieving them will be a real challenge – but we are investing innovative thinking, industry leading expertise and real commitment to meet them. We are raising the bar again, because environmental performance is critical to enabling sustainable and profitable growth, both for Tetra Pak and our customers.”

Tetra Pak has always driven improved environmental performance, from a focus on resource, energy and waste efficiency in the 1970s through to today’s solutions that tackle broader and more complex climate change challenges. Tetra Pak announced earlier this month that it has achieved, and in some cases exceeded, its five year environmental targets, set between 2005 and 2010:

• Through improved energy efficiency and with increased use of renewable energy, Tetra Pak has cut its absolute CO2 eq. emissions by 12.9 percent while increasing production by more than 23 percent over the last five years (a relative reduction of more than 30 percent), according to just released independently audited figures.

• In 2010, 40 percent of Tetra Pak’s paper board supply was FSC certified, with 8.5 billion cartons carrying the FSC logo.

• 30 billion used Tetra Pak cartons were recycled around the world in 2010, a twofold increase since 2002, diverting 473,000 tons of material away from landfills and providing valuable raw material for new products. PD

—From Tetra Pak news release