“

In the interests of Vetropack’s majority shareholders, our financial management aims to achieve our company’s self-financed development in the long term.

David Zak, CFO

Sustainability

Economic performance

We endeavour to achieve long-term development for the Vetropack Group on a self-financed basis. To be competitive in the glass packaging industry, we set ourselves operative return targets which, at the same time, promote sustainable growth. It goes without saying that we take account not only of the economic effects of our business activities, but also of their ecological and social impact.

Target return, 2030: Return on Operating Capital Employed (ROOCE) of 20 percent
Investments focus on optimising production capacity
Multi-year programmes (Performance Improvement Program, PIP) to boost the efficiency of our processes and thus increase the company’s performance
Measures to standardise information technology with a new focus on Operational Technology (OT)
Ukrainian plant in Gostomel resumes deliveries to local market
Further use of machines and utilisation of used glass from St-Prex at other Vetropack Group sites

Our Strategy 2030+ is geared to our company's the long-term development. It recognises the concerns of our stakeholders and takes account of economic, environmental and social impacts. If we are economically successful, we generate the funds needed for investments to maintain and expand our market position in the glass packaging industry. The profitability of our investments ensures that we have the appropriate capital at our disposal, and that we will develop profitably.

We finance our growth largely from our own resources. One key performance indicator here is Return on Operating Capital Employed (ROOCE). This should be 20 percent in the medium term. We ensure financing of the company's development by optimising the use of capital and generating a positive cash flow before deducting investments and dividend payments.

Concepts, policies and measures

Investments in sustainability

Sustainability criteria play a decisive part for us in the context of our investments. We attach increasing importance to the trade-off between anticipated future energy and CO₂ prices on the one hand, and potential energy and greenhouse gas savings on the other.

Our investments focus on technological innovations that promote the ecological efficiency of our processes. These include new furnaces, such as hybrid furnaces. Melting furnaces lose around one percent of their efficiency every year due to natural ageing. On average new furnaces deliver 10 percent better energy performance than predecessor models. For this reason, investments in various optimisation and refurbishment measures for our furnaces are crucial so we can produce more energy-efficiently in the future, and achieve our climate targets. This is also why such investments are at the core of our decarbonisation roadmap, which sets out the strategic direction for achieving our climate targets as validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. Elements of the decarbonisation roadmap include, for example, new solar systems (at Hum na Sutli and Kremsmünster in 2024, and at Boffalora in 2025) and new furnace concepts (at Kremsmünster from 2028 onwards). More information is available under Climate protection.

Cullet processing plants are another key aspect of investment to improve our economic and ecological efficiency. Thanks to our own cullet processing plants, we can use high-quality cullet as a raw material for new products. This reduces our energy demand, CO₂ emissions and, consequently, production costs. We explain our cullet sourcing strategy in the Resources and Supply chain management sections.

In terms of social sustainability, our investments are concentrated on training, workplace optimisations, and providing tools to facilitate collaboration within and among the plants.

Performance Improvement Program (PIP)

The Performance Improvement Program (PIP) empowers us to implement customers’ requirements efficiently and respond to growing competition. We are implementing the PIP on a continuous basis in the individual Vetropack plants. The focus in the reporting year was on the plants at Boffalora (Italy) and Kyjov (Czech Republic).

The PIP helps our entire Group of companies to achieve economic and ecological efficiency thanks to strategic production planning, and it strengthens our economic performance capacity throughout the Group. Optimisation of existing production capacities is at the core of the PIP – because optimal utilisation of our furnaces’ capacity enables us to achieve economically and ecologically efficient production.

The PIP comprises a process that recurs every year. By adopting a structured approach, the PIP leads to cost savings and improved performance in our company, and it supports the implementation of best practices in production. The PIP focuses on these improvements to production:

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by optimising the mix of raw materials: increasing the share of recycled glass and reducing the percentage of soda
Efficient production and product lines: prioritisation of products with the greatest potential for acceleration; prioritising products with long production runtime
Colour concepts: we reduce product scrap and produce more efficiently thanks to colour concepts and strategically planned colour changes
Rightweighting: if possible, glass containers should only contain as much material as is necessary to meet quality criteria such as design and stability. This makes the glass thinner and lowers the weight, thus reducing environmental impact.

Progress and events in the reporting year

Resilience in Gostomel

In May 2023, we were already able to resume production of flint glass at our heavily war-damaged plant in Gostomel, Ukraine. The plant financed the repair measures from its own resources by selling cullet and stocks of products to other glass manufacturers. The plant’s geographically favourable location enables customers to collect products directly from the site. This efficient circulation of goods and packaging substantially reduces logistics costs. However, energy security continues to present a risk, as it has in the past. In case of an emergency, we refuel generators directly on site so we can maintain production for several hours. In the reporting year, reconstruction work progressed so far that the second melting furnace should be able to resume operation in 2025, depending on market demand and the geopolitical situation. Our aim is to maintain our market share in Ukraine and, ideally, to gain new market share.

Development of the Italian market

Our new plant at Boffalora is one of the most modern facilities not only in our own Group, but anywhere in Europe. We are manufacturing products here that were not present in the portfolio of our old plant in Trezzano (Italy). As also described in the Customer satisfaction section, the commissioning of our Italian plant presented us with some challenges. On the one hand, these arose from the new processes we implemented while, on the other, we find ourselves facing a difficult combination of market conditions and consumer sentiment. To meet these challenges, the teams on the ground are aiming to make full use of the new plant’s performance capacity. By expanding the product portfolio, we will also acquire new customers in Italy and strengthen our position there.

Making further use of machines and used glass from St-Prex

Following the closure of the St-Prex site, we are endeavouring to continue using of state-of-the-art machines from that plant elsewhere within the Group: this will allow us to replace less efficient or less powerful machines. We began the dismantling work and transferred the first machines during the year under review. In addition, we are transporting the used glass that is no longer utilised in St-Prex to other Vetropack sites, thus returning it to the glass loop.

Efficiency boost from restructuring information technology

To make our processes even more efficient, we made a start on standardising our information technology during the reporting year. To an increasing extent, we are replacing decentral structures with Group-wide, central ones. At the same time, we are stepping up our investment in our employees’ digital expertise.

One key issue in the reporting year was the transformation of IT towards an IT/OT organisation. OT (Operational Technology) entails the use of machine computers, robots, sensor technology, and a wide range of IT applications in the production-related environment. This includes a focus on end-to-end digital mapping and automation of processes. Within the scope of our targeted digital transformation, we are expanding our business models through holistic digitalisation. Further insights into our digitalisation activities are offered in the Innovation section.

Performance indicators

GRI 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed

Key financial indicators can be consulted here.

Economic impact

Customer satisfaction