CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT 2009
Policies and actions
Over the past few years, sustainable packaging has become part of "business as usual" at Britvic. Below are some examples of how we are doing this:
Minimising waste - reducing our packaging
- We have already removed 11,000 tonnes per year from our total packaging waste. Our target now is to remove an additional 5,000 tonnes from our primary and secondary packaging by 2010. We are on course to meet this stretching target and have already successfully completed projects which reduce our packaging by over 2,000 tonnes per year.
- One example of this is our 500ml drench bottle, where we have reduced the amount of material (and therefore waste) by four grams. This amounts to a reduction of over 17% in bottle packaging. We are continuing to focus on light-weighting the rest of our range.
- We have also made savings on our secondary packaging, for example, with Pepsi we now maximise the use of trade-ready display units instead of shrink wrap and trays. This allows the pallet of bottles to be wheeled into the store so customers can shop directly from it.
Using recycled materials
- We are working with recycling companies in the UK to introduce plastic bottles containing PET which has been recycled from British households - currently all recycled PET (rPET) is made from imported material. Initial bottle manufacturing trials have taken place, and further work is required to ensure that they meet our rigorous quality standards, but we have taken an important first step. We have also examined the feasibility of using bio-plastics packaging for our juice and water products. Unfortunately, in trials the packaging did not perform well enough to reach the quality levels our high standards demand. However, we continue to watch this technology closely for improvements.
Supporting consumer recycling
- We know that consumers would like clearer on-pack guidance to help improve their understanding of which packaging can be recycled and we want to encourage our consumers to recycle more. That’s why we have adopted the Recycle Now logo which will feature across all Britvic drinks. The on-pack logo aims to deliver a simple, UK-wide, consistent message which will help consumers recycle more material, more often.
Robinsons light-weighted bottles
Over the past two years we have invested over £5 million in making the packaging of Robinsons products lighter, saving 1,600 tonnes of plastic per year in total.
In August 2008, we made our Robinsons one litre bottle two grams lighter. This delivered two wins for us: we estimate this saves around 330 tonnes of PET a year, equivalent to over nine million empty bottles, and reduces the energy needed to make the bottles at the Robinsons factory in Norwich by 5%.
This latest two gram saving is in addition to a pack re-design in April 2007 which saw a 1.5 gram reduction for the Robinsons one litre bottle. The lighter weight allowed Britvic to reduce the amount of cardboard used in the trays displaying the bottles in store by 5% and saved an additional 50 tonnes of cardboard per year.