Sustainability is on everyone's lips

Our 2030 strategy sets ambitious sustainability goals

At global level, sustainability throughout the Vetropack Group is driven by the targets defined in our 2030 strategy. As the key goals, we will:

• reduce our carbon footprint by a further 30% (as compared to 2019)
• increase the percentage of cullet (recycled glass) in production to 70% (currently 54%)
• use 100% green energy by 2025
• implement climate-neutral logistics – from suppliers to Vetropack, and then to customers

“These are ambitious goals; we have already defined concrete action plans and are implementing effective measures to achieve them. But we want to accelerate the process even more, so we are currently reviewing our actionplans. However, let’s not forget that sustainability isn’t only about ecology: it also has economic and social dimensions.”

Embedded sustainability in three dimensions

Economic sustainability mainly involves continuity and transparency in business and operations, good relationships with all stakeholders – and, of course, research and development to foster innovation. The social dimension of sustainability is closely aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: these cover issues such as health and safety, gender equality, diversity and inclusion – in other words, just about everything that makes a company such as Vetropack a good employer!

“It’s important to point out that we’re not starting from scratch with our sustainability activities at Vetropack. For instance, we’ve already reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 74% since the 1990s,” Lootens notes. “What’s more, we have huge potential when it comes to renewable energies because of the large areas available to us. And it goes without saying that technological innovation is another key factor.”

Quantifying the reduction of our carbon footprint

Vetropack recently joined the ‘Supplier Leadership on Climate Transition’ initiative. This program brings together many leading brands in the global food and beverage industry with the aim of continuing to reduce emissions. Members are required to measure and report their emissions precisely, and they are also expected to educate their suppliers on ways of reducing emissions throughout the value chain. To measure Vetropack’s progress in achieving sustainability, one indicator is especially important: the CO2 emissions per tonne of glass produced. At present, this number is 0.436 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of glass; by 2030, it should be down to 0.3 tonnes of CO2. Final words from Lootens: “Looking even further ahead, we’re talking about carbon neutrality by 2050. But that would require us to replace the energy source for the glass melting process with hydrogen or electricity, instead of natural gas. It’s possible in theory – but in practice, we still have a long way to go.”