Absolut Focuses on Agriculture, Supply Chain & Packaging to Meet 2030 Sustainability Goals

(Credit: The Absolut Company)

by | Nov 5, 2020

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(Credit: The Absolut Company)

The Absolut Company has announced that the production of Absolut Vodka will be fossil fuel free by 2025, and completely carbon neutral by 2030 with no offsets needed. To reach these goals, the company is working on multiple green packaging initiatives with its Paboco Paper Bottle Community and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, promoting sustainable agriculture, and working with its supply chain partners to help move them toward circularity, the company said in its 2019/2020 Sustainability Report.

The company says it has already made progress on its 2030 ambition. In 2018, it started using waste spirits as a fuel at the distillery as part of the company’s plan to eliminate the fossil fuel LPG. “This is a small proportion of the total energy used but it is significant when compared to the overall amounts of fossil fuel we use,” the company writes in its sustainability report. Absolut now uses all its waste spirits this way.

Another way the company is making progress toward its 2030 goal is by working on improving energy efficiency, including switching to LED lighting, optimizing pumps, and phasing out fossil fuel reliant cars from its car pool.

These and other initiatives have, by the company’s internal calculations, reduced carbon impact per bottle to 1kg of CO2. Absolut is seeking third party verification of this and hopes to report on it formally during 2021.

Moving forward, Absolut has identified its main Scope 3 categories as occurring in its packaging production, wheat cultivation and distribution to markets around the world, so it will focus much of its efforts in those three areas, the company says.

In September, the company announced it was rolling out 2,000 paper bottle prototypes as part of the Paper Bottle Company initiative. The first production run goes into controlled testing this month, according to Absolut.

This latest prototype is constructed from 57% paper and 43% plastic, which is recyclable and itself made of 100% recycled content, a spokesperson for the Absolut Company said. The rollout is set to start in Sweden and the United Kingdom. Once the company receives initial feedback from consumers, it plans to launch a second pilot production run next spring.

Absolut Vodka and the sparkling pre-mixed drink line Absolut Mixt will be the first two products tested in the paper bottles, the company said.

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