According to SIG Combibloc, beverage cartons are a sustainable form of packaging and sustainability is integral to the group’s corporate strategy. Environmental awareness and action embraces the company’s entire value chain, starting with the use of a renewable raw material wood extending to the sound recycling of used cartons. SIG Combibloc handles raw materials and resources with care and remains committed to ongoing improvements of the ecological profile of its beverage carton. This effort is promoted both by the company’s inhouse development team and in cooperation with the external suppliers of liquid packaging board.

Using a renewable resource, wood, as the main material distinguishes the beverage carton fundamentally from all other drinks packaging. Responsible and sustainable forest management ensures unlimited availability of this natural raw material for future generations.

SIG Combibloc places great importance on the fact that wood used for liquid packaging board is sourced from sustainable forestry as well as from controlled and socially acceptable sources. In 2005 all board suppliers of SIG Combibloc implemented an independent chain-of-custody certification of their product chains. This system ensures that all wood comes from controlled sources and can be traced from liquid packaging board production line back to the forest.

Ecological optimisation and recyclability also play an important role in SIG Combibloc’s product development. Close cooperation between R&D specialists and environmental experts ensures that ecological aspects are taken into consideration already at the earliest stages of development. This approach is illustrated by some of the newly developed spouts. The new combiSwift spout weighs only 2.7 grams. And the combiSmart spout for combifitSmall tips the scale at a mere 2.36 grams, meaning that even fewer resources are consumed.

These newly developed products bring an effective response to current political and public calls for resource-efficient packaging solutions. Being lightweight and easily stackable, carton packs offer efficiency throughout the logistic chain. This helps transport companies save on road tolls while keeping down fuel consumption and emissions. Lower emissions make an important contribution to reducing air pollution and relieving the earth’s climate situation.

In 1997 SIG Combibloc started to introduce an environmental management system at various locations. This system is designed to help the company reduce its consumption of such resources as energy and water. Systematic implementation of the environmental management system has helped to achieve a high level of transparency as well as continuous reductions in resource consumption in the individual production processes.

To ensure a shared understanding of all environmental aspects across the entire company, SIG Combibloc reorganised its environmental responsibilities in 2005. As part of this global effort, local responsibilities were defined for national environmental issues and appropriate internal service functions were installed or reinforced across the entire organisation. Numerous employees at all locations have since undergone environmental training programmes on relevant environmental issues to support our customers competently.

SIG Combibloc believes that sector activities can and will make an important contribution to strengthening the future of beverage cartons. This is why the company is an active force in various national and supraregional industry initiatives aimed at monitoring and shaping developments in the packaging and environmental area as well as communicating the unique environmental benefits of beverage cartons.

One example of such an industry initiative is based in the emerging Chinese market. Already a member of the China Packaging Federation, SIG Combibloc joined the Circular Economy Committee (CEC) as a permanent member in 2005. The committee was formed in December 2005 and its premier objective is to create a platform for dialogue with the government. This platform will then be used to develop a framework for a national recycling system to handle the country’s used beverage packagings and to educate the population on the concept of the circular economy.

On the European level, SIG Combibloc is a member of the "Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment" whose "Working with Nature" campaign is currently highlighting the benefit of wood as a renewable material.

In addition, SIG Combibloc actively supports the setting up and expansion of national collection systems and recycling capacities for beverage cartons.

Meanwhile in many countries beverage carton recycling is "state of the art". Germany, for example, has long operated a nationwide system for the collection and sorting of carton packaging; the recycling ratio in this country has been above 60 percent for many years. The reclaimed valuable fibres can be used to manufacture a wide variety of products such as folding boxes and cardboard tubes and cores. This reuse of a renewable material yields additional environmental benefits.