Alpla releases 2022 sustainability goals

Austrian company Alpla has released its third sustainability report, which describes the company’s sustainable development from 2016 to 2018 and lays the foundation for “ambitious” sustainability goals for 2019 to 2022.

By 2022, Alpla aims to reduce its carbon footprint by 10 percent, even with a projected annual growth rate of 3 percent. The company also plans to increase the use of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) to 23 percent and recycled high-density polyethylene (rHDPE) to 9.9 percent. Plastic in the environment is also outlined in the report with the company allocating a “budget to financially support initiatives to eliminate marine litter.”

In the past three years, Alpla has reduced energy consumption in relation to production volumes by 6.6 percent and water consumption in relation to material usage by 40 percent. The company says it’s exceeded its 2018 target to use more recycled material and was able to lower its carbon footprint but was unable to meet its goal to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent in 2018.

“We experienced more growth than expected in countries with carbon-intensive electricity production,” explains Linda Mauksch, sustainability officer at ALPLA.

Alpla has 178 plants in 46 countries. Of those plants, 72 are “in-house,” which reduces transport routes and carbon emissions, the company says, adding that many plants have planned and implemented their own sustainability projects in India, Brazil and Portugal. Alpla also says it wants to bring more of its product development initiatives to the market each year, including a bottle made of 100 percent recycled material and a home compostable coffee pod.

Alpla, which delivers 70,000 tons of food-grade rPET per year through four sites in Germany, Mexico, Austria and Poland, has committed to manufacturing 100 percent recyclable products by 2025, investing 50 million euros in the expansion of recycling activities. The volume of processed postconsumer recycled materials should also increase 25 percent, the company says.

“Recycling completes the circuit that starts with design for recycling,” the executive board says in the sustainability report. “This is the key to sustainable packaging solutions.”