November 2019

The Coca‑Cola System introduces innovative KeelClip™ packaging technology on multipack cans in Europe: a first for the NARTD industry

KeelClip™ to initially roll out in Ireland, the Netherlands and Poland early next year
Minimalist recyclable paperboard “topper” replaces plastic shrink film
Move supports Coca‑Cola’s global goals to work towards a World Without Waste, where all packaging is collected, recycled and reused.

Coca‑Cola and its strategic bottling partners Coca‑Cola HBC and Coca‑Cola European Partners have today announced that they will begin rolling out the KeelClip™, an innovative, minimalist paperboard packaging solution, on multipack cans across Europe. This move, representing a first for the non-alcohol ready-to-drink (NARTD) industry, underscores the Coca‑Cola system’s commitment to pioneer packaging solutions that are more sustainable in terms of recyclability and overall environmental footprint as it works towards its global goals for a World Without Waste.

The three partners have worked closely with Graphic Packaging International – developer of the KeelClip™ technology – to bring this sustainable packaging solution to market. This new type of packaging not only replaces the plastic wrap, but also minimizes the amount of paper/card required.

As part of this initiative, Coca‑Cola HBC will remove shrink wrap from all of its can multipacks in all European Union markets by the end of 2021. In total, Coca‑Cola HBC will invest €15 million in KeelClip™ and will begin the roll-out in Ireland and Poland early next year, followed by Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Romania in 2020. All of Coca‑Cola HBC’s European Union markets will have KeelClip™ by the end of 2021. This will save 2,000 tonnes of plastic and 3,000 tonnes of CO_² annually. The KeelClip™ will be used on all can multipacks of up to eight cans, larger can multipacks will be bound by a carton pack.

Coca‑Cola European Partners committed in October to removing all unnecessary or hard to recycle plastic from its portfolio, avoiding the use of more than 11,000 tonnes of virgin plastic a year across the countries where it operates. It will roll-out KeelClip™ in the Netherlands early next year with more markets to follow, investing €14 million in its factory in Dongen, Netherlands to install a new can line and a KeelClip™ packaging machine.

“KeelClip™ is our latest investment in innovative, sustainable packaging solutions. Alongside the four water brands we introduced this year in 100% recycled PET bottles, the increased use of recycled PET and continued lightweighting across the portfolio, KeelClip™ is another demonstration of our commitment to delivering our World Without Waste goals.”-Marcel Martin, Group Supply Chain Director, Coca-Cola HBC

Joe Franses, Vice President, Sustainability at Coca‑Cola European Partners said: “Innovation is a key principle of our sustainable packaging work and the application of this fully recyclable paperboard KeelClip™, which comprises a top board that the cans clip into and a central cardboard ‘keel’ – similar to a ship’s keel – that stabilises the pack, is another example of how we are delivering on our commitment to remove all unnecessary and hard to recycle single-use plastic from our products.”

Steve Gould, Graphic Packaging International’s new product development and marketing director, beverage division, Europe said: “The KeelClip™ technology is effective for can multipacks of various diameters and heights. This means that we can provide a safe, effective package with no need for secondary plastic. When businesses such Coca‑Cola HBC and Coca‑Cola European Partners invest in these technologies, we can really make a difference to the way we package goods and drive the industry to continue to change too.”

28.11.2019

The Circular Economy Platform Hungary has entered into partnership with the Holland Circular Hotspot

News

On November 28, 2019, a declaration of cooperation between the Hungarian Circular Economy Platform and the Holland Circular Hotspot was solemnly signed at the first Circular Economy Summit.

The Circular Economy Platform, which was established as an initiative of the Business Council for Sustainable Development in Hungary (BCSDH), the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Ministry of Innovation and Technology just a year ago, has taken an important step towards promoting the circular economy with this collaboration. Through this partnership it will be possible to get to know about the best international examples of circular economy initiatives and related knowledge and tools, to share domestic experiences, and to foster the shared work of governments in terms of disseminating good solutions for achieving EU goals. Along with the ceremonial signatories, another 80 companies and organizations have already joined the Platform.

“I am proud that through cooperation with the Holland Circular Hotspot, we are gaining access to leading international know-how, which will help the Circular Economy Platform Hungary to put the circular economy on a more dynamic path in our country. With the involvement of business-, governmental- and scientific-, as well as professional and social organizations, we can achieve our goal: a sustainable economy” – said Attila Chikán Jr., President of BCSDH. “BCSDH and its partners play a prominent role in facilitating the paradigm shift and joint thinking, along with building a community of forward-thinking change leaders and sharing business solutions that make a real impact” – he added.

Transitioning to a circular economy is a great business opportunity today. The core of the concept is not yet deeply understood by most companies, although the use of this model can increase the resilience of the world economy and facilitate the achievement of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The circular economy could generate business opportunities worth $ 4.5 billion worldwide by 2030.

A survey undertaken by the Circular Economy Platform confirmed that, as of today, most companies still identify the circular economy with waste management. The need to share knowledge and to highlight good practices and business solutions was thus identified. The respondents themselves confirmed that collaboration, knowledge sharing, and governmental incentives are needed to start changing the present economic model and making up for lost ground.

“The goals of the circular economy can only be achieved with the active involvement of stakeholders, which requires opportunity and interest. The Circular Economy Platform will play an important role in creating this opportunity by providing the right framework for the business-, government- and scientific sector to foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing. To create interest, we need to ensure the existence of conditions that help the economy to embark on this new path, while also raising interest in learning about and applying this new approach. The Ministry of Innovation and Technology has set the goal of understanding the interests of economic operators through legislation that is aligned with the goals of the circular economy. In addition, the ministry has provided grants worth 244 million forints to small- and medium-sized enterprises for projects that include creative and innovative ideas. These projects aim to prevent waste production or increase the reduction and recycling of waste, this way helping achieve the goals of the circular economy” – said Ferenc Hizó, Deputy State Secretary for Sustainable Development, in an opening speech that represented the Ministry of Innovation and Technology.

Copies of Material Matters, one of the foundational texts on the theme of the circular economy, were specially published for this event in English. One of the authors, Sabine RAU-OBERHUBER, who came to Hungary at the invitation of Embassy of the Netherlands, gave some insight into the book to participants.

‘’If we want to provide clean water, food and shelter, decent work and well-being for nine billion citizens, as enshrined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, then we need to act now by transitioning to a circular and sustainable economy to ensure we are not too late. Our embassy, as one of the founding members of the Hungarian Circular Economy Platform, supports the goals laid down in the Memorandum of Understanding that include, among others, sharing knowledge and best practices for closing the material loop’’ – highlighted René van Hell, Ambassador of the Netherlands in Hungary in his introduction.

“The circular economy is about rethinking how we use our raw materials and resources to create a sustainable economy free of waste and emissions. It means shifting from the current linear model of “take, make, waste” to an economy where we “reduce, reuse, recycle” – said Tibor Bodor, Country Manager, ING Bank N.V. Hungary Branch, who welcomed the new form of cooperation as the host of the conference.

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Circular economy

According to the current so-called linear economic model, technical and biological components are extracted from nature, transformed, and are then disposed of without recycling.
In contrast, in the circular economic model metabolic processes are involved in a closed circle, waste is almost 100% recycled, and biological

Circular Economy Platform spornsors in 2019:

28.11.2019

Krisztián Putti has been awarded the BCSDH “Future Leaders” Talent Program scholarship

News

Krisztián Putti, a master’s student of energy engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, has been awarded a scholarship to participate in BCSDH’s ‘Future Leaders’ Talent Program in 2020, sponsored by Eisberg, ALTEO and Grundfos. Six high-quality pieces of coursework were selected for the finals and judged by a six-member jury on November 22 at E.ON’s headquarters in Budapest.

Members of jury: Zoltán Gazsi (Eisberg), Zsuzsanna Károlyi (E.ON), Attila Kelemen (ProSelf), Irén Márta (BCSDH), Zita Szederkényi (BCSDH), Katalin Urbán (Grundfos)

Sponsors of Future Leaders Talent Program in 2019:

22.11.2019

Henkel extends partnership with Plastic Bank

Member News

Düsseldorf – Henkel extends its collaboration with the social enterprise Plastic Bank for another five years. Following the achievements of the partnership launched in 2017, Henkel will support ongoing projects in Haiti, the Philippines and Indonesia and significantly contribute to developing an infrastructure of more than 400 Plastic Bank collection points in Egypt. Alone in 2020, Henkel will integrate more than 600 tons of the recycled material – called Social Plastic® – in its product packaging.

As part of its commitment for a circular economy and against plastic waste in the environment, Henkel was the first global consumer goods company to partner with Plastic Bank. The joint goal is to reduce plastic waste in the oceans while improving the lives of people in poverty – especially in countries that lack waste management infrastructure. The idea behind: At dedicated centers, the local population can return collected plastic waste and exchange it for money, goods, or services. This material is then integrated back into the plastic value chain as Social Plastic®.

Since the start of the collaboration, Plastic Bank opened additional collection centers in Haiti. Furthermore, Henkel helped the organization to establish a supply chain to ensure the collected plastic waste can be processed and recycled to finally be integrated back into the value chain. Earlier this year, Henkel launched a range of Beauty Care and Laundry & Home Care products with packaging including up to 50 percent Social Plastic®. In total, more than 200 tons of Social Plastic® were already processed by Henkel. This milestone received external recognition: For example, Henkel received Packaging Europe’s “Best Practice” Sustainability Award and Ecovia’s Sustainable Beauty Award in the “Sustainable Packaging” category.

Establishing a collection ecosystem in Egypt

The extended partnership, backed by Henkel’s consumer goods businesses Beauty Care and Laundry & Home Care, continues to focus on two aspects: Further increasing the integration of Social Plastic® in the company’s product packaging and scaling up Plastic Bank’s global footprint to prevent plastic waste to end up in oceans or waterways and to provide opportunities for people in need.

Henkel will support Plastic Bank in further enhancing the availability and integration of Social Plastic® as a resource for packaging. Through establishing a collection ecosystem in Egypt, Plastic Bank expects to reach an additional collection capacity of up to 5,000 tons annually – this corresponds to up to one billion bottles over the five year-period.

Holistic approach to tackling the problem of plastic waste

“Plastic Bank creates a value chain that contributes to a better world. Our partnership with Henkel is a good example of what can be achieved by joining forces and we are delighted about our extended collaboration,” says David Katz, CEO of Plastic Bank. “Together we can create true added value by tackling the waste problem in a holistic approach while at the same time helping people in need.”

“The cooperation with Plastic Bank helps us to pursue our strategy to implement more recycled plastic into our product’s packaging while ensuring a steady income for the collectors”, says Jens-Martin Schwärzler, Executive Vice President and responsible for Henkel’s Beauty Care business. “The partnership with Plastic Bank also enables us to match our consumer’s desires to apply environmental consciousness into their daily lives.”

“Since joining forces about two years ago, we’ve been working closely to avoid plastic ending up in the ocean and improve the lives of people in poverty – particularly in countries without effective waste management infrastructure,” says Bruno Piacenza, Executive Vice President and responsible for Henkel’s Laundry & Home Care business.

“Our collaboration with Plastic Bank is a unique partnership, addressing two of the world’s biggest challenges of today: plastic waste and the lack of opportunity for people in need”, says Sylvie Nicol, Executive Vice President Human Resources and Chairwoman of Henkel’s Sustainability Council. “We are excited to take the next steps – for the environment and a better future for even more people in Haiti, the Philippines, Indonesia and Egypt.”

Commitment for a circular economy

The partnership with Plastic Bank is part of Henkel’s various activities to foster a circular economy and to promote sustainable packaging solutions. The company has set itself specific packaging targets to promote a closed loop for plastic: By 2025, all packaging will be recyclable, reusable or compostable* and the proportion of recycled plastic in the packaging of consumer products in Europe will rise to 35 percent. Already today, many product packaging already consists of 100 percent recycled plastic. To drive progress in the field of sustainability, Henkel is collaborating with different partners along the value chain and participates in many cross-industry initiatives. For example, the company is member of the New Plastics Economy and founding member of the global Alliance to End Plastic Waste. To learn more about Henkel’s strategy and activities in the field of plastic, visit www.henkel.com/plastic.

20.11.2019

Online courses are growing in popularity – people spend more and more time with studying online

Member News

While research proves that 15 minutes of individual, online learning is more effective than 45 minutes spent studying in groups, the statistics of Coca‑Cola Hungary’s #YouthEmpowered programme show that people in Hungary are still willing to travel as much as 50 kms in order to study in groups. However, the programme’s online courses, which were launched in April 2018, are being used by thousands of people all over the country. The modules aim to help people to find their way in the labour market, and their popularity shows that there is a great need for online skill development, especially if these are complementing an already existing knowledge, or help people to prepare for new situations.

Coca‑Cola Hungary’s #YouthEmpowered programme has launched its unique online modules 1,5 years ago. The programme’s online modules, which are partially interlapping, but also complementary to the programme’s in person trainings, help people to develop their self-knowledge, communication skills, but also to manage feedbacks and to prepare for job interviews as well. During the last 1,5 years, over 6,100 users have registered to the platform, and currently over 2,000 users are completing one of the 10+1 modules. While the number of online users is constantly increasing, the programme’s statistics help us to answer the question of: who, when and why use online courses today in Hungary?

The programme is more popular among women

One of the most important target groups of #YouthEmpowered are young mothers, expectant moms and young women who are planning to return to the labour market or are in the process of changing their career path. While the majority of participants at the programme’s in person trainings are women, the online trainings are just as popular among them: 84% of the registered users, over 5,100 participants are women between the age of 22-25.

For young mothers and expectant moms, online trainings have the benefit of offering the opportunity to study anywhere, anytime, with shorter breaks as well. With suitable time management, they can gain new skills through the online trainings even while raising children or can receive help in starting their own business as well.

We like to study during summer as well

Contrary – or even, complementary – to the traditional study period lasting from fall until spring, the online trainings of #YouthEmpowered are most popular during the summer months. The highest number of new registrations were tracked during June and July this year, and the popularity of the online trainings didn’t decrease during the festival season either.

For new graduates, an important target groups of #YouthEmpowered, this part of the year is often spent with looking for internship or job opportunities – in their case the modules focusing on job seeking, CV- and motivation letter writing and preparing for job interviews can especially be helpful.

We love filling out online tests

After having taken the first step and having registered to the programme, online users seem to like spending time on the platform. The 6100 registered users of #YouthEmpowered have spent over 97,000 minutes with the online trainings, most of them having completed all the 11 courses. The programme’s self-knowledge questionnaire is by far the most popular among these. Contrary to the rest of the online modules, this module is not a traditional learning course, but focuses on helping users to identify their top skills and finding the most suitable career. Courses focusing on time management are closely following this test in popularity, followed by the modules about financial literacy, communication and managing feedback.

20.11.2019

The “Our Climate – 360 ° Exhibition” was opened

Member News

On November 5, the exhibition “Our Climate – 360 ° Exhibition” was opened at the French Institute in Budapest, thanks to the French BNP Paribas Foundation and the Hungarian Branch Office of BNP Paribas. The exhibition explores the issue of human-induced greenhouse gas emission and uses a documentary approach to guide visitors through geopolitical, economic, energy, environmental, technological and scientific issues related to climate change. Between November 4 and December 12, the bilingual exhibition featured a number of programs: guided tours for school groups, conferences, lectures and film screenings.

The exhibition was produced in France by Universcience, with the support of the BNP Paribas Foundation, in collaboration with UNEP (United Nations Environment Program). At the opening event, experts, researchers and organizations interested in the topic met at the French Institute, where climate researcher dr. Florent Dominé gave a lecture for the audience on the effects of climate change at the Arctic.

15.11.2019

Future Coca‑Cola bottles can be made of recycled sea waste and paper

Member News

Coca‑Cola joins the innovation community of Paboco paper bottle manufacturer as a founder

Coca‑Cola invests a lot of resources into the development of sustainable packaging solutions. The company announced World Without Waste strategy last year and now it joins a pioneering community of companies in cooperation with the Danish Paboco paper bottle manufacturer start-up. Paboco wants to produce a completely bio-based and recyclable paper bottle for the first time in the world, which could serve as packaging for carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks, beauty products and other everyday consumer products. Meanwhile, Coca‑Cola revealed innovation of a bottle made of recycled sea waste as a pilot, experimental project.

Coca‑Cola announced its World Without Waste strategy in 2018 according to which the company pledged, among others, to transform all its packaging materials into fully recyclable ones by 2025 and recycle as much packaging material as it uses by 2030. Focusing on breakthrough innovations in the field of packaging technologies was fully in line with these efforts. Therefore, as a founder member of the recently launched Paboco Pioneer Community, Coca‑Cola joined forces with leading professionals of material science, design and technology in order to improve sustainability of packaging industry by developing sustainable paper bottles. Together with other members of the community, Coca‑Cola helps the paper bottle concept get over technical obstacles and thus enabling paper bottles to be manufactured and used in large-scale by sharing its R&D experience and know-how.

For now, the first-generation paper bottle has recycled paper in its external layer to lend solidity to its structure. The internal coating is attached to this in a manner that allows for the separation of the two layers and thus recycling. The next step of the development of this technology is working out the process for large-scale manufacturing, and to create an all-round bottle with a bio-based coating inside made of recyclable paper fibers, so that even if the bottle ended up in nature, it would decompose without environmental risk.

As for recycling, 300 pieces of sample bottle have already been made to demonstrate that sea waste can once be reused and recycled as new packaging. These bottles made as an experiment and not to be marketed for the time being contain 25 percent recycled plastic collected from the Mediterranean Sea and on its seashore. The new chemical recycling technology develop jointly by Ioniqa Technologies, Indorama Ventures, Mares Circulares and Coca‑Cola has proved in practice that it is possible to produce bottles from sea waste, even from low quality or tinted plastics which were previously considered unsuitable for recycling.

The samples produced are the first plastic bottles in the world which were recycled by the use of sea waste. This gives evidence for the potential advanced recycling technologies can offer: a new chance for the plastics intended to be burnt or disposed in landfills to revive – and thus reducing negative environmental impact. Coca‑Cola plans to apply this solution when producing many of its bottles as of 2020.

Protecting natural waters, collecting and recycling plastic waste are of high priority for Coca‑Cola in Hungary too. Together with the General Directorate for Water Management and Plastic Cup, the company announced that the global foundation of Coca‑Cola would help cleaning Lake Tisza and the upper section of the river Tisza by providing a financial support of HUF 73 million and its employees’ volunteering work. This is the Zero Waste Tisza project which aims to collect and recycle at least 80 tonnes of plastic waste within two years.

05.11.2019