From recycled design to digital watermarking, Fabio Mora, Global Packaging Director of Ferrero Group, was interviewed by foreign media to discuss all about the corporate sustainability layout, specifically addressing Ferrero's commitment to make all its packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 strategy.
In 2019, Ferrero committed to making all of its packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. How are these plans progressing, and is there a roadmap for achieving the final part of these goals?
We have developed a roadmap of the necessary steps to be taken by the 2025 target and have completed a comprehensive plan for packaging materials and policies. Our top priority is to find long-term solutions for sustainable packaging that will allow us to maintain our commitment to quality. This will take time, investment and collaboration with all industry players.
As part of our commitment, we have launched a number of new campaigns and collaborations at the global, market and brand levels. Some of our recent activities include.
As we become members of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, we will be participating in the New Plastics Economy Initiative. As part of this, we will join a group of leading companies from across the plastics value chain who are all committed to a shared vision of a plastics circular economy in which plastics never become waste or pollution.
Our R&D department is constantly working on innovative and sustainable solutions and is collaborating with key suppliers to develop eco-designed flexible and rigid packaging, such as single-material flexible films and new lightweight boxes that improve their recyclability and minimize their overall environmental impact.
Through Nutella, we have teamed up with Loop, a leading reuse platform, and Carrefour to launch a reuse pilot program in France. Our cans can be returned to the store's recycling station and then cleaned, sanitized, refilled, and used again in the same circuit.
We have joined the 4evergreen Alliance, which promotes the contribution of fiber-based packaging in a circular and sustainable economy, minimizing its impact on the climate and the environment.
Ferrero recently participated in the HolyGrail 2.0 digital watermarking project. Can you break down this collaboration for us and explore the potential of the project as a whole?
We joined HolyGrail 2.0, driven by AIM (European Brands Association as an associate partner), as part of our commitment to plastic packaging sorting innovation and investment in pilot projects to improve current sorting technology gaps. The project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of digital watermarking technology for accurate waste sorting, thereby improving the efficiency and quality of recycling. Specifically, we recognize that through this pilot, there is an opportunity to sort a specialized stream of food packaging plastics, which in turn will generate recycled materials that promote recycling best practices.
In addition, your company has signed up to the Consumer Goods Forum's new rules on packaging design. Could you introduce these rules to our readers and explain how Ferrero is implementing them?
We are committed to developing sustainable packaging and materials. Together with the Consumer Goods Forum, we have finalized the "Golden Design Rules" for plastic packaging design, with the goal of accelerating the pace of plastic packaging use in order to reduce the amount and quality of plastic used. The latest design rules focus on eliminating unnecessary plastic packaging by reducing top space and plastic overwrap, and increasing the recycling value of a variety of plastics, including PET thermoformed packaging, flexible consumer packaging, and rigid HDPE and PP.
At Ferrero, we understand the need for coherence and scale to drive positive change globally, which is why we signed on to the new Golden Design Rule. As a long-time partner of CGF, we share the organization's vision that the transition to a circular economy requires a different approach to plastics use, from production, consumption and reuse, to recycling and disposal.
Looking ahead, what is the next step for Ferrero in the field of packaging sustainability?
As part of our commitment to make our packaging 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025, we recently announced that our Ferrero Rocher chocolate line will come with recyclable boxes. The final design will be made of PP because it is easier to recycle globally, but the box will remain transparent in order to maintain our "signature" design.
Thanks to the 16- and 30-piece boxes, Ferrero Rocher will save around 2,000 tons of plastic worldwide in one year, starting with the launch in September 2021. Once the implementation of the new eco-designed box portfolio was completed throughout Ferrero Rocher, the full impact of the project is estimated to have reduced the use of approximately 10,000 tons of plastic.
The new 16-piece and 30-piece boxes have at least a 30 percent lower carbon footprint compared to the previous boxes. In addition, when a box is recycled, it has an even lower climate impact - a 70 percent reduction in carbon footprint compared to the previous box.
The new eco-designed box is an important step, but it is not the entire Ferrero Rocher packaging sustainability journey. By 2025, all box forms and non-recyclable packaging components will be switched to new recyclable materials so that all components are recyclable by 2025.
