Procter & Gamble (P&G) has announced “significant advances” across European sustainability projects in pursuit of its “Ambition 2030” goals.
According to P&G, its “Ambition 2030” goals aim to enable and inspire positive impacts on the environment and society through brands, the supply chain, and employees, while creating value for itself and consumers.
Amongst a range of announcements, P&G’s award-winning HolyGrail innovation takes centre stage. Lenor, Unstoppables and Fairy brands will pioneer the application of HolyGrail to enable further learnings behind sorting and recycling at material recycling facilities. A collaborative effort designed to solve ineffective sorting at recycling facilities via digital watermarking, HolyGrail was the recipient of the Overall Winner Award at Packaging Europe’s 2019 Sustainability Awards. The new Unstoppables and Lenor scent booster packages are estimated to first reach the German market by October 2020 followed up by the rest of the European markets.
Alongside this, P&G Hair Care Europe will also be trialing new packaging with recycled plastic material for Pantene products, starting with the brand’s clear bottles. The material is reportedly made from advanced recycling of polyethylene terephthalate Circular PET, through advanced monomer recycling – apparently meaning that it can be used in beauty packaging over and over again. P&G reports that the new material, to be produced by Indorama Ventures, is suitable for all brands packed in PET bottles. By committing to the use of this material, P&G argues that it is driving a new circular supply chain, creating an end market for recycled plastics.
P&G revealed another key sustainability update yesterday when a partnership with Viridor for the supply of HDPE was announced. This move is projected to save the equivalent of 200 million bottles of virgin plastic over the five-year duration of the deal.
“2020 is a year where action – collaborative action – will put us on the right trajectory,” said Virginie Helias, P&G Chief Sustainability Officer. “For P&G, 2020 will be a year of regenerative action where we will activate our Ambition 2030 goals across our brands, through innovation and transformative partnerships. It’s not just about reducing our impact, but about being a force for regeneration to address the challenges of plastic waste, water scarcity, and biodiversity loss. We will be leading on all of these fronts to drive change at scale and for long-term impact.”
