Reducing the carbon footprint of glass packaging in the beverage sector in the context of consumer convenience

Abstract

In pursuit of reaching targets set by the Paris Agreement, businesses in the consumer goods market must commit to significant carbon emission reduction. The consumer plays a pivotal role in determining the effectiveness of these carbon emission reduction strategies through its purchase behaviour. Previous studies have typically assessed these strategies in the consumer goods market from only one of two perspectives – environmental impact assessment or consumer purchase behaviour – and therefore tend to ignore the opportunities and barriers of connecting these two topics. To prevent this misalignment, this research has investigated carbon emission reduction strategies by conducting and integrating both a carbon footprint analysis and consumer research. The scope of the carbon footprint included glass packaging in the beverage industry within the Netherlands, using input data from Heineken, for which the research was performed. Additionally, data for the consumer research on the Dutch consumer was collected through six expert interviews and a review of four studies performed by Heineken Netherlands. Finally, since the volume consumed in the Netherlands only represents 2% of the global volume packed in glass bottles by Heineken, a case study on the United States was performed to explore what was needed to apply the results to other operating countries of Heineken. From the integration of results of the carbon footprint analysis and the consumer research, three carbon reduction strategies were derived: the transition from one-way to returnable glass bottles, lightweighting and increasing the national recycle rate. Within the Netherlands, the most recommendable strategy is to transition to returnable bottles, which can additionally be supported by the lightweighting of returnable bottles. Implementing these two strategies would decrease the carbon footprint by 16%. For successful implementation, especially the dissemination of knowledge on the benefits of reuse is required to address the issues introduced by deposit money and wear and tear. Furthermore, various unit volumes and smaller packaging sizes need to be introduced to both increase portability and to be able to fulfil the consumption scenarios that are currently addressed by one-way glass bottles. Finally, the case study on the US has revealed several factors that need to be taken into account when upscaling this research. For the carbon footprint, supplier emissions, transportation distance and parameters for disposal have major influence on the results. For the consumer research, it is important to take into account the differences in take-back culture, legislation, disposal infrastructure and the general perception of sustainability