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Lightweighting our cans

Our cans are getting lighter and so is their environmental footprint. Together with Ball we're partnering on a roadmap to reduce impact from our cans.

Over the last three years, we have worked with Ball – one of our biggest can suppliers – to cut the weight of our most common can formats (33 cl and 50 cl) by around 5% in more than 10 European markets. This lightweighting is shrinking our value chain carbon footprint by around 5,000 tonnes per year.

Through our longstanding partnership with Ball, we are now implementing a joint roadmap of actions designed to drive progress towards our shared ambitions on sustainability. Lightweighting to reduce material use and cut carbon emissions is just one aspect of this roadmap.

“Partnering with suppliers who share our values and commitment is key to reaching our ambitious targets on our journey Together Towards ZERO and Beyond. Our collaboration with Ball has already delivered notable improvements in lightweighting – a critical lever for decarbonisation and materials use in our shared value chain. Now we're going further through joint efforts to increase the circularity of our cans.”

- Johan Keerberg, VP Group Procurement, Carlsberg Group

We are also working together to encourage consumers to return more of their used cans for recycling. Joint initiatives include a trial deposit return scheme in Serbia and we have included the “Metal Recycles Forever” logo on cans there to emphasise the infinite recyclability of aluminium.

The cans supplied by Ball in Europe are already made of 62% recycled aluminium on average, achieved by a mix of pre- and post-consumer recycled material.

Promoting collection and recycling will help to increase availability of post-consumer recycled content and enable progress towards Carlsberg's and Ball's complementary targets for increased recycling rates and increased use of recycled content in cans by 2030.

 

“We are pleased to continue to partner with Carlsberg and collaborate on our aligned goals including a 90% recycling rate by 2030. Carbon reduction across our value chains is a key focus and lightweighting our cans is one way we have achieved this with Carlsberg, resulting in significant carbon savings in 2023. Our collaboration with Carlsberg will help us to meet our own Climate Transition Plan while delivering positive impact across our shared value chain.”

- Björn Kulmann, VP Sustainability, Ball Corporation

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