The company demonstrated the successes of its Cut/4 CArboN program at this year’s BrauBeviale in Nuremberg, Germany, in an unusual way: its progress is seen through the eyes of “Carla” (pic), a fictional Ball employee who has been ‘hired’ as Ball’s carbon cutting coach. Carla tracks and follows Ball’s carbon cutting efforts via “Carla’s Carbon Chronicle” (www.carlacutscarbs.com/), a microsite designed to deliver real-time information about Ball’s achievements to date and those of its industry partners.
“The product carbon footprint of a beverage can represents the sum of greenhouse gas emissions a can causes throughout its entire life cycle. The initiative’s ultimate success relies on both Ball’s controllable efforts as well as those realized in partnership with suppliers and customers along the value chain,” explained Johanna Klewitz, manager sustainability & regulatory affairs.
To achieve its top-line target of 25%, Ball focuses on four of its six corporate sustainability priorities: operations, innovation, recycling and supply chain. On the operational side, Ball aims to achieve its ambitious goal through making plants more energy efficient. In Braunschweig and Hassloch, Germany, for example, Ball replaced old compressors with new ones, thus reducing the energy consumption by a total of 1.3 million kilowatt hours.
Ball has taken a major step towards reducing its cans’ greenhouse gas emissions through a practice dubbed “engineering out the unnecessary”. The idea is to optimize the cans’ overall weight while maintaining consistent high quality and performance of the products. The B-Can in Europe and the global roll-out of the CDL end are important achievements in this area.
Ball supports various recycling programs all over the world. They include the Curbside Value Partnership in the US, MetalMatters in the UK, or the away-from-home collection campaign Every Can Counts which is now operational in eight European countries. Over the last five years, more than 1,700 organizations signed up to the program and there are more than 10,000 Every Can Counts branded recycling points around the UK.
