June 2021 - BCSDH

What is the future of packaging? – The last episode of the Circular Economy Academy was held

What is the future of packaging? Are there innovative solutions that can solve the problem? What can companies do? Yesterday, the third and the last episode of Circular Economy Academy was held with the participation of more than 30 company representatives.

As the founder of the Circular Economy Platform, H. E. René van Hell, ambassador of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands gave an inspirational welcome speech to the participants about the successful cooperation of the Circular Economy Platform and its founders. He gave an insight of the first and second episode of the Academy and highlighted on the trends of measurement tools, food waste, and packaging.

Firstly, Dorottya Kovács, Communication specialist of the Coca-Cola HBC Hungary has presented the Coca-Cola first paper bottle pilot project, which is currently running in Hungary. She spoke about the commitments and activities of Coca-Cola on the field of packaging. At Coca-Cola by 2030, all primary packaging must be 100 % recyclable, and 100% of beverage packaging should be collected. To do so, Coca-Cola is working in 2 pillars. First is the reduction of packaging, and the second is innovative packaging, which contains the paper bottle prototype. 2000 Hungarian consumers can be the first to participate in the first European market test in Hungary. The plant-based AdeZ drink is offered through a partnership with Kifli.hu, which is one of the Hungary’s fastest growing online grocery retailer. After using the bottle, consumers are pleased to share their feedback about the bottle. The used bottles are being collected, so that developers can examine how the material has reacted to transportation and use.

After that, participants could learn about 3 innovative businesses, which are solving the problem of the single-used packaging. Envirocare was introduced by Ivana Birová, project manager of Envirocare. This Slovakian company is focusing on research of ecological bioplastic and Panara, the producer together has developed a nonoilen. Nonoilen is a thermoplastic material based full on bio-based polymers and is fully biodegradable without any synthetic polymers and compared to other plastic, it helps improve mechanical properties (flexibility, shape stability) and it all has food-contact certification.

A Hungarian innovative company, Greenstic has also been introduced by Márton Bati, co-owner of the company. Greenstic was established 2 years ago, and has more than 290 compostable, plastic-free products. These are made from sugarcane, paper, recycled paper, and PLA and are designed by them or some are designed exclusively for a certain customer of theirs. The company is working together with restaurants, catering services and warehouses. The most important impact of the COVID was the growing home delivery services and the reduction of the event and festival business. The Hungarian law about banning some of the single used plastic has generated a customer demand. In the future, greenstic will use new plant based raw materials, like mushrooms, potato, grape skin, milk, hemp.

Marteen Stolk, Business Developer has introduced the activities of Ioniqa, a Dutch company, which is working with sustainable plastics. It recycles the un-recyclable PET waste, by doing so it contribute to a closed loop system for PET Plastic. It takes the rubbish PET, makes a high-quality monumer out of it which can be used by PET manufacturers. All the PET which could not be recycled will be brought back to the value chain. It will be 100% recycled, 75% less CO2 emission, and price and quality competitive to oil. Ioniqa is the first operational plant supplying the largest global PET manufacturers in the world, like Unilever and Coca-Cola.

As closing of the event, Bálint Horváth, Circular Economy Officer at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands summarized the Circular Economy Academy webinar-series and asked the participants to indicate the topics that they are interested in the future.

The Academy will be continued next year.

23.06.2021

SPAR reduces environmental impact by waste cooking oil collection

Member News

In order to support environmentally-conscious conduct, SPAR launches the specialised collection of waste household cooking oil and fat. In collaboration with a waste management partner, waste household vegetable oil and fat will be collected into dedicated containers in one hypermarket and four hypermarket stores, for three months following 21 June 2021 in a pilot project.

The “SPAR for a Sustainable Future” programme provides the general framework of actions taken by the company to improve day-to-day living conditions. In addition to health and other vital areas, protection of the environment is one of the key promoted principles. Households generate a high volume of waste cooking oil, fats and grease residue. Much of these are still disposed in the sewerage, contaminating water sources, although properly disposed cooking oil can be reused without loss.

“Our retail chain highlights the importance of protecting the environment, and implements several special environmental solutions involving customers. Following proper professional preparations and planning, we are introducing this pilot project in selected stores to collect waste household cooking oil and fat. In these efforts SPAR Hungary collaborates with Biotrans Kft. as its professional partner. If this service lives up to its promises, we will also establish the collection of waste cooking oil in all our stores with a perceptible demand and the appropriate facilities for such a collection point,” explained Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

The pilot project for the collection of waste household cooking oil and fat covers the INTERSPAR hypermarket in Tatabánya (Győri út 25.) as well as supermarkets in Székesfehérvár (Pozsonyi út 10.), Dorog (Bányász körönd 1737/16. hrsz.) and Budapest (District IV, Nap utca 16. and District XVII, Maroshévíz utca 1.).

The business partner specialised in the collection and processing of food waste provides special 800-litre containers that are highly resistant to environmental impact and heavy use. The waste cooking oil and fat collection bins provided by Biotrans Kft. take the waste oil in glass, refilled to their own packaging, or in PET bottles. Employees can monitor whether the collection bins located outside of the stores are getting full online.

Biotrans Kft. transports the waste from the designated stores and then its staff will unpack and sort the packaging material with special machinery. Then the glass bottles are utilised as a raw material for glass manufacturing, while the PET bottles are ground and utilised for energy production purposes. The waste oil is settled, heated and forwarded to a biodiesel plant where it is made into fuel.

Images attached to the press release are available in SPAR Médiatár, at the address http://mediatar.spar.hu/. The interface also enables downloading additional public images from SPAR. When using the images, please credit the photos to “spar.hu”.

For more information please contact:

Márk Maczelka, head of communications

SPAR Magyarország Kereskedelmi Kft. ∙ 2060, Bicske, SPAR út

Mobile: +36 20 823 7891 ∙ E-mail: maczelka.mark@spar.hu

21.06.2021

Inspiring presentations have been held on this year’s third ESG working group meeting

News

At our third ESG working group meeting this year, remarkable presentations have been held. The participants got to know to ALTEO’s Sustainability Barometer by Attila Chikán Jr. (ALTEO). Later, the Ecovadis evaluation of ALD Automotive Hungary have been explained by Annamária Székács (ALD).

The aim of the ALTEO’s Sustainability Barometer was to see how a potential investor thinks about sustainability, thus have a deeper understanding on people’s approach on sustainability. ALTEO’s survey was conducted among Hungarian Internet users between the age of 20 and 65 with a sample size of 1.000 people representing the gender, age and educational background of the population, and the type of settlement where they live. The questions focused on the awareness of environmental problems, concrete actions how people protect the environment, moreover how they deal with their investments.

The majority of Internet users in Hungary between the age of 20 and 65 are interested in the environment protection, 82% believe that environmental problems also impact their lives, but 32% are not yet convinced about it currently being one of the most important tasks that people have. According to 80% of the respondents, everyone is responsible for environmental problems, while 19% blames corporations, countries and global organizations. Women more typically share a sense of community, while men tend to pass responsibility on to companies.

Attila also covered the topic of investments. The majority claimed that they would prefer a financial product if it also took sustainability into consideration.

Further information can be found about the results in hungarian here.

Annamária shortly introduced their company to the participants, as ALD Automotive Hungary is a fresh member of our community. Their beliefs say, that economic development is no longer possible without environmental progress, thus the company joined the road of sustainability on a group level. They find third party evaluation a great opportunity to challenge themselves. ALD Automotive Hungary has been assessed by Ecovadis first in 2018, and had been granted a gold recognition level.

Annamária then summarized the basics of the Ecovadis methodology, which follows four topics, environment, labour and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement. They received a very detailed, up-to-date report on their strenghts and the areas that need improvement, also sharing hints how to improve each area of their company. This way they have a very clear view on where they are and where they are headed to, also receiving a silver medal in 2020.

It is of great importance for them to bring sustainability close to people, their employees, partners and clients, as the presentation was closed with their own CSR programs. Her presentation confirmed, that Corporate Social Responsibility is in the heart of their business.

07.06.2021