Ball Corporation, one of the world’s leading suppliers of sustainable aluminum packaging and aerospace technologies, has announced 2030 sustainability goals focused on enhancing product stewardship and social impact to create value for stakeholders, together with a vision for how industry partners can collaborate to achieve a fully circular aluminum beverage packaging system.
Ball’s new global sustainability goals, which will drive performance across the life cycle of its products, include a commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions before 2050 and transitioning to 100% renewable electricity by 2030. The goals also include ensuring all aluminum is purchased from certified sustainable sources and converting 80% of Ball’s global beverage can volumes to its lightweight STARcan designs.
Complementing the longstanding ESG programs, Ball is expanding its disclosure of existing D&I and social programs with specific 2025 goals for every region and business. For example, Ball Beverage Packaging South America has committed to increasing the proportion of non-white employees in new hires from 31% to 47%, and Ball Beverage Packaging EMEA plans to increase the representation of women in manufacturing roles by achieving a 25% recruitment rate of women for these positions.
In addition to its sustainability goals, Ball also shared ‘Toward A Perfect Circle,’ an industry vision which sets out how, by working together, beverage brands, retailers, and aluminum beverage packaging manufacturers and their suppliers could make aluminum cans, bottles and cups – the world’s most recycled beverage containers –surpass a 90% recycling rate from today’s rate of 69% and increase the global average recycled content rate to as much as 85%. Today, recycled aluminum uses only 5% of the energy compared to using virgin material, and recycled cans have the potential to be back on the shelf in as little as 60 days.
According to Ball, it will drive multi-stakeholder action to achieve this vision, including developing a low-carbon roadmap for the aluminum beverage packaging sector. The company will also advocate for investment in infrastructure and technology to support a more effective and efficient recycling system in the regions where it operates. Ball will work with partners to publish this multi-region recycling roadmap and carbon pathway plan within the next year.
“As a world-leading manufacturer of aluminum beverage packaging, Ball has a responsibility to our stakeholders and the planet to improve the environmental performance, social impact and economic returns of our business and take a leading role in driving industry-wide solutions to the climate crisis,” said John A Hayes, chairman and CEO of Ball. “Our customers are seeking low-carbon and truly circular packaging options as they work to fulfill net-zero targets and meet growing consumer demand for sustainable products. Infinitely recyclable aluminum cans, cups and bottles are the solutions. We look forward to further enhancing our products and developing an industry-wide circularity roadmap in collaboration with our partners.”
Ball will be engaging with key stakeholders across the aluminum beverage packaging sector to develop and promote the best methods, policies and actions to achieve a fully circular aluminum beverage packaging system.
