Our sustainability story
Because sustainability is a journey, and this is ours. It’s not an easy one, but we are determined to overcome challenges in our quest to develop net-positive packaging solutions.
Our sustainability commitments are an integral part of our business strategy, our Corporate Compass. They represent how we will give back more than we take. To have a net-positive impact on people and the planet. To create lasting change. Included in our strategy are industry-leading goals for each of the four positives: Climate+, Forest+, Resource+, and Food+.
Climate+
Our Climate Positive commitment is to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in line with 1.5° climate science, take more carbon from the atmosphere than our value chain emits, and pioneer carbon-negative packaging concepts.
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Food+
Our Food Positive commitment is to bring people even more safe and nutritious food and drink, wherever it is needed, at prices they can afford, and reduce the amount of food and drink that is lost during filling, storage, transport, and consumption.
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Resource+
Our Resource Positive commitment is to lead the way towards a fully circular packaging system. Our ambition for our packs is that one day, they are made exclusively from renewable or recycled materials, and that every pack we make gets recycled.
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Forest+
Our Forest Positive commitment is to maintain 100% of the forest area we source from through FSCTM certification for all the paperboard we procure to make our cartons, and support the creation, restoration, protection, or improved management of an additional 650,000 hectares of sustainable forest.
Click for moreCase studies in sustainability
Water packaging
Nearly 1.5 million plastic bottles are sold every minute throughout the world. Approximately 70% of these bottles end up in landfills where they take at least 450 years to completely degrade.
Scholle IPN has packaged water in bag-in-box all over the world for over 20 years. We’ve produced over 60 million 3-gallon bag-in-box packages, which replace production of 1.3 billion 16.9 oz (500 mL) water bottles.
The manufacturing of our containers produces minimal emissions, offers a better product-to-package ratio, and collapses as it’s used, ensuring that every drop is expelled.
Here are some ways Bag-In-Box packaging has improved the water market’s environmental scores over the last 20 years and 60-million packages:
- Plastics Saved: Saved 86% plastics use compared to bottles.
- Total Weight Saved: Saved 2,404,040 kg (5,300,000 lbs). Equal to 44 rail cars.
- Total Energy Saved: Saved 1,200,000,000 MJ. Energy equivalent of 204,752 barrels of oil.
- Total Greenhouse Gas: 22,300,000 kg (24,582 US tons). Equal to 4,900 cars driven for one year.
- Total Post-Consumer Solid Waste: Saved 509,958 m3 (667,000 yd3). Equal to 6 Royal Albert Halls.
Lightweight and recyclable pouches
Materne’s GoGo squeeZ brand is working to lower their reliance on resources and packaging has been a primary focus.
We’ve worked with Materne to develop a recycle-ready film structure for their pouches, and to significantly reduce their closure’s overall plastic weight.
RecShield
Our recycle-ready, high-barrier family of films for flexible packaging like spouted pouches.
- Available in PE and PP structures.
- Provides recyclability for the environment with barrier protection to reduce food waste.
Lightweight Fitments
We engineer fitments with as little waste as possible. In this example, our R&D team:
- Reduced the fitment weight by 43%.
- Eliminated 2,267,962 kg (5,000,000 lbs) of plastics by making this change. That’s the same weight as 5 Airbus A380s!
Eliminating waste in automotive lubricant packaging
Shell Lubricants was striving to satisfy their customer’s need for the most sustainable and ergonomic package for motor oil in the industry.
Moreover, Shell also needed to respond to service operators’ call for an easier-to-use, faster, and more-economical package by changing their traditional, rigid 1-liter (1-quart) bottles to flexible bag-in-box packaging.
The result was the performance packaging solution, Ecobox™ which offers many more benefits than simply holding the product. Ecobox™ is an exceptional opportunity for Shell Lubricant’s customers to expand their specialty oils offerings without the need for bulk storage.
Since launching the Ecobox with Shell in 2012, we’ve gone on to manufacture +60mm packages across the world, destined for both institutional and retail channels.
Bag-in-box packaging helps reduce waste in this market application by:
- 65% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions versus rigid bottles.
- This is equivalent to the CO2 emissions from 35,888,789 liters (9,480,815 gallons) of gas consumed.
- 99.9% product evacuation (significant improvement over bottles).
- Since 2012, we’ve diverted +1,000,000,000 1-liter (1-quart) bottles from production and landfill.
Pouch packaging for concentrated beverages
Coca-Cola’s Freestyle dispensing system was introduced in 2009. With a touchscreen-operated flavor selection interface, consumers can custom-make +100 drink flavor combinations.
The key to making this system work was to package super-concentrated flavorings in small pouches separately; then mix the flavors with bulk HFCS from bag-in-box packaging and carbonated water dispensed at the on-site location.
The Freestyle system created a range of significant environmental savings with its packaging, but also fuel emissions through eliminating the need to load trucks with water-based post-mix syrup bags.
Some benefits of the Freestyle system:
- Eliminate trucking of water (and related fossil fuel waste) found in traditional, bulk bag-in-box post-mix products.
- Each flavor pouch uses 85% less plastic than a post-mix bag-in-box package.
- Since 2017, we’ve diverted 95,254,440kg (21,000,000 lbs) of plastic.
