Responsible packaging and the circular economy
When surveyed on the practical steps to take in the daily fight against climate change, consumers first mention reduced packaging. It is an important issue, straddling both environmental and quality concerns. For that reason, we offer our consumers reasonable packaging, following the principle of circularity irrespective of where our products are sold, and emphasize the importance of recycling.
Packaging is essential to maintain the quality and safety of our dairy products, which are fragile by nature. It enables us to bring their nutritional benefits to the widest audience. Lactalis is aware of packaging’s impact on the planet’s resources, environment and biodiversity. We are partnering our stakeholders and adopting a precompetitive approach to accelerate the onset of a new era, particularly on the circularity of our packaging. Our brands will continue to be pioneers and engage consumers in this joint venture.
COMMITMENTS:
100% of current and future packaging solutions for flagship products and all future packaging solutions for product innovations will be analyzed using an eco-design tool by 2025.
100% of our packaging will carry waste management information by 2025 (2019: 34%).
At least 30% recycled materials in our packaging at consolidated Lactalis Group level.
We hope to move towards 100% recyclable packaging in practice in 2033 for countries with an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system (2019 status: 89%).
We want to move towards removing PVC from our packaging by 2025.
Three concrete examples:
France
In 2021, LACTEL was the first dairy brand to market UHT milk bottles made from recycled HDPE, following the mass balance principle. This advanced recycling project, developed with INEOS, is helping us progressively replace some fossil fuel-based plastic with recycled materials (rHDPE) to create a more circular economy. In May 2021, a successful trial at our RSB-certified (Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials) dairy in Montauban (France) enabled us to produce 140,000 milk bottles.
Spain
In Spain, our PULEVA brand switched from LDPE to recycled LDPE (rLDPE) shrink films, saving nearly 550 tonnes of virgin LDPE in 2021. With an initial target of 0% to 30% of rLDPE, we have now achieved our second objective: rLDPE films with 50% post-consumer recycled content.
