Frucor Suntory has released its inaugural Sustainability Report, Growing for Good, which outlines the progress the company has made against its sustainability commitments in 2020.
With an aim to lead positive change in the Australian and New Zealand beverage market, Frucor Suntory has made a commitment to achieve five key goals by 2030.
These include:
- Zero waste to landfill across our sites
- All packaging to be recyclable
- Reducing CO2 emissions by 35 per cent
- Reducing water usage by 20 per cent
- One of every three drinks sold to be low or no-sugar.
Growing for Good highlights that as of 2020, 90 per cent of waste across the Frucor Suntory business is recycled, and 99 tonnes of waste was diverted from landfill during 2019 and 2020.
The focus areas for 2021 are to continue finding alternatives to divert waste from landfill and to encourage suppliers to consider sustainable packaging when delivering raw materials.
During 2020, 11 SKUs were transitioned to recycled plastic packaging resulting in 270 tonnes of virgin PET being used. This means that now 93 per cent of Frucor Suntory’s packaging s recyclable.
The company reduced CO2 emissions by eight per cent in 2020 by creating a co-shipping arrangement with partners to maximise the capacity used on all freight. It also introduced lower emission fridges to key customers.
In 2021, Frucor Suntory will expand the co-shipping program, continue with fridge upgrades, and partner with suppliers to reduce emissions from the raw material supply chain.
An air rinser was installed on one of its canning lines, resulting in the saving of 12 million litres of water annually. Frucor Suntory also implemented a new process to reroute water to reuse it rather than wasting. Through these two initiatives the company has seen a 14 per cent reduction in water use.
Moving forward, the goal is to install another air rinser and continue investigating further cleaning process changes to optimise water use.
Meanwhile, Frucor Suntory had a few key low and no-sugar product launches in 2020, including V Sugarfree Blue, NZ Natural flavoured water in cans, and Gatorade No Sugar.
It also launched a new marketing campaign highlighting Pepsi Max as a no sugar beverage. These initiatives have led to one-in-five of its drinks sold are now low in sugar or contain none at all.
The focus for 2021 will be to continue to introduce greater choice through new product innovation, leveraging the Suntory Group relationship. It will also continue introducing smaller pack sizes.
Frucor Suntory’s Head of Sustainability, Ben Walkley, said: “We believe it’s our social responsibility to have a positive impact on the world around us.
“Despite the challenges we faced in 2020, we made great progress across almost all areas of our sustainability agenda and implemented a number of projects that are delivering encouraging results. It’s great to be able to share some of the work we’ve done – and the results we’ve achieved.
“This year we have a comprehensive calendar of activities building on the work completed in 2020 – specifically a continued focus on developing opportunities and solutions to the issues of packaging and climate change.
“This involves a shift towards a circular economy, and ongoing efforts to decarbonise our operations.”