Tetra Pak is 2023 Climate Leader for reducing greenhouse emissions

Tetra Pak has been named as a European Climate Leader 2023 by the Financial Times, in recognition of the company’s progress in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and its robust commitments to climate action.

The accolade comes after thousands of companies were assessed by the Financial Times and Statista who assigned individual scores based on the company’s volume of emissions, level of disclosure on these emissions and its reduction of emissions as a percentage.

Only the leading 500 companies with the greatest reduction in their GHG emissions intensity made it to the final list. Tetra Pak was ranked amongst the top 20% of the 500 companies listed, achieving a 54.3% absolute reduction of the Scope 1 and 2 emissions over a five-year period.

Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy. Scope 3 includes all other emissions associated with a company’s activities.

“The acknowledgment is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders,” Adolfo Orive, President & CEO at Tetra Pak said.

“While we are proud of our achievements to date, we have plans to continue mitigating our environmental impact further – by decarbonising our value chain, driving circular solutions while contributing to food system resilience and protecting biodiversity,

“All these actions are core to our purpose, as we commit to making food safe and available everywhere and we promise to protect what’s good – food, people and the planet,” Orive pointed out.

The ranking also recognizes Tetra Pak’s efforts across the value chain (Scope 3), highlighting its regular inclusion amongst CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) A-listed businesses and its net-zero targets as approved by Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) along a 1.5° pathway.

Jonathan Kinisu, the managing director for Tetra Pak East Africa said in an exclusive interview that sustainability and Tetra Pak are intertwined.

“For us, sustainability has been there from the beginning, long before it was sexy across the industries, if you look at the Tetra Pak package that we use, it constitutes 70% of paperboard from sustainably managed Scandinavian forests,” Kinisu explained.

He revealed that Tetra is looking at moving that 70% paperboard, closer to 90-95% and has committed a lot of funds and research towards this.

Kinisu said that in addition to the environment, Tetra Pak has is committed to people. “Whether its staff from a technical and knowledge perspective, and from CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) perspective in terms of ensuring support to the poor and the vulnerable,” he pointed out.

He explained that by using aseptic technology, Tetra Pak ensures that it provides food everywhere. In order to manage waste after food is consumed, Kinisu said that the company is investing heavily in recycling.

He said that Tetra Pak is set to engage a recycler in Uganda for Tetra Pak packaging material.