Protects what’s good

At Tetra Pak, our approach to sustainability is shaped by our purpose ‘We commit to making food safe and available, everywhere and we promise to protect what’s good: protecting food, people and the planet’.

Leading the sustainability transformation

With a world-leading position in food processing and packaging, backed by more than 70 years of trusted experience, we aim to lead the sustainability transformation within the industry, recognising the interconnectedness of five focus areas: Food systems (which is related to protecting food), Climate, Circularity and Nature (which connect to protecting the planet) and finally Social Sustainability (which links to protecting people).

Food systems lie at the heart of this model. Given our business model and position in the value chain, we believe that we have a role to play in helping to feed a growing global population while minimising food loss and waste, reducing climate impact, protecting biodiversity and promoting circularity – while respecting human rights across our own operations and the value chain.

By constantly innovating to develop our solutions – both in food and beverage packaging and processing – we can further support food availability, safety, and reduce food loss and waste without compromising the health of our planet.

Responsible sourcing practices and strategic collaborations help us to conserve and restore biodiversity, mitigate and adapt to climate change and contribute to global water resilience.

We are working to decarbonise1 our value chain – including sourcing, our own operations and our products – to help mitigate climate change.

By designing recyclable food and beverage packaging, which uses recycled and renewable materials, and expanding collection and recycling to keep materials in use and out of landfills, we also support the development of circular solutions.

Our sustainability agenda

Food. People. Planet.

Contributing to the global agenda

Our approach to sustainability has always been driven by our purpose. We support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and have a long-term commitment to the UN Global Compact and its ten principles.

Sustainability highlights

Below are some of our 2022 sustainability highlights. For the full story, see our latest Sustainability Report. www.tetrapak.com/sustainability/sustainability-updates

Top rated by CDP on Climate and Forests

We were recognised for the fourth consecutive year as part of the CDP2 ‘A List’ for action on climate change and forests. This means that Tetra Pak was rated among the best of almost 15,000 companies that were scored based on data submitted through CDP’s 2022 Climate Change and Forests questionnaires.

Approved science-based climate targets

In 2022, our climate ambition for net-zero3 GHG emissions across the value chain by 2050 was approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)4. For the company, this means a 46 per cent reduction in absolute scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions by 2030, and a 90 per cent reduction across the same scopes by 2050 compared to 2019.

Helping to restore the Atlantic Forest in Brazil

We launched a pioneering land restoration initiative to help restore biodiversity and mitigate the effects of climate change in 2022. In the first year of the Araucaria Conservation Programme, around 38,000 seedlings of native trees were planted on 87 hectares of land. We plan to restore up to 7,000 hectares of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil by 2030 and map a larger area for carbon capture.

Decarbonising food systems at COP27

At the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, we put forward our agenda to use our industry expertise to accelerate actions and enable a shift towards resilient and sustainable food systems. Our progress depends on embracing a mindset that drives both growth and sustainability for a better future – system thinking, science- based decisions and collaborative innovation are crucial to this.

Study to accelerate recycling in Benelux

The feasibility study aims to advance circular paper-based packaging solutions by assessing a new recycling facility at Stora Enso’s Langerbrugge site in Belgium. In collaboration with Stora Enso, Tetra Pak is launching a new recycling process to recover the fibres of collected beverage cartons in the region that can be then used as source material for producing recycled containerboard.

Developing the world’s most sustainable food package5)

We successfully completed a commercial validation of a polymer-based barrier to replace the aluminium layer in aseptic cartons and kicked off the testing of a fibre-based barrier that is a first within food carton packages distributed under ambient conditions. We also collaborated with leading beverage brands to launch a number of new tethered cap solutions that are designed to prevent litter as the cap stays attached to the package.

Collaboration with polyAl recyclers in Italy

Our collaboration with the polyAl recyclers Ecorevive and Ecoplasteam draws on our network to promote their products and find new market opportunities for recycled materials. We also work to consolidate the flow of polyAl from carton recyclers and streng

1) Our decarbonisation efforts focus on avoiding and mitigating GHG emissions correlated to our products and company, and carbon compensation to balance unavoidable residual emissions through nature-based solutions and other initiatives.

2) CDP is a not-for-profit that runs a global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. www.cdp.net/en/

3) Tetra Pak’s trajectory towards net-zero emission across its own operations by 2030, and across the value chain by 2050, builds on a combination of reduction and mitigation of emissions in own operations as well as customers’ use of Tetra Pak’s products, material suppliers' emissions, and compensation of residual emissions initially via the company’s land restoration project.

4) SBTi’s Corporate Net-Zero Standard is the world’s first framework for corporate net-zero target setting in line with climate science. This includes guidance, criteria and recommendations companies need to set science-based net-zero targets consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

5) This means creating carton packages that are fully made of renewable or recycled materials which are responsibly sourced, thereby helping to protect and restore our planet's climate, resources, and biodiversity; contributing towards carbon-neutral production and distribution; are convenient and safe, therefore helping to enable a resilient food system; and are fully recyclable.