Environment

Sustainable products, energy efficiency and renewable energy, minimisation of CO2 emissions, waste reduction, water consumption

Management approach

Vetropack is committed to keeping the impact of glass production on the environment as low as possible and conserves natural resources accordingly. Vetropack’s environmental commitment focuses on climate protection and consequently on the company making an active contribution to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal No. 13 (“Climate Action”).

As part of the new strategy, Vetropack formulated the objective of becoming an industry-wide leader with regard to environmentally friendly production. Under the “Clearly Sustainable” strategic direction, Vetropack established relevant key figures and short-, medium- and long-term targets. The main key indicator is CO2 emissions per tonne of glass produced. For this indicator, Vetropack has defined a reduction of 30% compared with 2019 as the target for 2030.

Since glass is a sustainable product compared with other packaging materials, Vetropack can also encourage sustainable consumption patterns with its environmental commitment in line with SDG 12 (“Responsible Consumption and Production”).

The Environment specialist group is responsible at the Group level for coordinating and monitoring all environmentally relevant activities. This group develops and issues binding guidelines and minimum requirements on the basis of the Vetropack corporate strategy and sustainability policy and the Group’s environmental management targets (with respect to energy and water consumption, emissions and waste volume).

When managing and procuring energy, Vetropack Group considers both strategic and economic factors as well as technical factors. In so doing, it depends on external consulting expertise and has been using a new energy management system for structured energy procurement since 2021. The aim is to manage energy comprehensively throughout Vetropack Group from planning through strategic procurement to controlling consumption and auditing.

In the glass industry, it is largely the energy-intensive melting processes that have an impact on the environment and natural resources. In the supply chain, the processing of raw materials and packaging materials and the transport of raw materials and finished products primarily influence energy efficiency. Vetropack therefore focuses on increasing the energy efficiency of its furnaces and increasing the proportion of used glass in production. Vetropack is implementing an energy management system at more and more sites for this purpose. In addition to plant-related energy reduction measures – which are linked to the relevant life cycles – alternative energy sources are becoming increasingly important. The company plans to convert to “green electricity” by 2025.

The company wants to achieve a proportion of used glass of 70% and operate climate-neutral logistics across the whole Group by 2030. Another important way of conserving natural resources is lighter glass containers. Efforts to reduce their weight are being made as part of VIP Glass technology.

Production operations already conserve water resources to a very large extent because water is used only as a coolant in glass production and its consumption is regulated in a closed-cycle system. Vetropack also seeks to produce as little waste as possible. Such waste mainly results from the processing of used glass, and this in turn is due to the fact that large amounts of foreign materials are still being deposited into used-glass collection containers. Vetropack has therefore invested in a new used glass recycling plant, which will increase the recovery rate for old glass and at the same time ensures that the glass quality is not impaired. Thanks to this investment, the proportion of used glass can also be increased. Metals, paper and other residual materials from the recycling process can be separated by this means and be recovered even more efficiently.

In addition to improving the environmental footprint of Vetropack products, providing evidence of this and communicating it to customers is becoming ever more important. For large customers in particular, information about the environmental footprint of their glass packaging is increasingly important. Vetropack therefore reviews the progress it makes in terms of environmental performance using various indicators for which annual targets are defined. The indicators used here include data on energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and waste volume. Vetropack evaluates its environmental management activities by means of internal inspections and audits and – where required by law – inspections by certified external institutions.

Disclosures

GRI 301 Materials
301-2 Recycled input materials used
GRI 302 Energy
302-3 Energy intensity
GRI 305 Emissions
305-1 Direct GHG emissions (Scope 1)
305-2 Energy indirect GHG emissions (Scope 2)
305-4 GHG emissions intensity
GRI 306 Waste
306-3 Waste generated

GRI 303 Water and Effluents
303-1 Interactions with water as a shared resource

In general, no water is consumed to produce glass. Water is used only as a coolant and its consumption is regulated in a closed-cycle system. Cooling water occasionally needs to be replaced, and The fact that water is only used and not consumed in the glass production process is clear from the minimal difference of around 92 000 m3 between the quantity of fresh water obtained by Vetropack in the year under review (total 1 319 963 m3) and the quantity of waste water (total 1 227 932 m3) (see disclosure 303-5).

303-2 Management of water discharge-related impacts

The quality of wastewater discharge systems must comply with the minimum standards of national and/or local governments. As a basic principle, Vetropack complies with all wastewater discharge regulations that apply to its production sites. If a deviation is found, Vetropack takes measures immediately in cooperation with the relevant authorities.

303-5 Water consumption