Continuous journey to sustainable plastic packaging

Global plastic packaging manufacturer RETAL is committed to continuing its journey to a more sustainable future.

Utilising the widely-accepted Measure-Mitigate-Compensate approach, RETAL is integrating a Circular Economy Strategy across its operations worldwide, driven by Sustainability Director Emmanuel Duffaut. 

Duffaut says, “I can count on the strong and positive support of the RETAL Board of Directors to address the huge challenges the packaging industry is facing as a whole in terms of improving environmental performance approach and for RETAL to tackle climate change, which is our largest direct environmental impact.”

The company has published its first Sustainability Report to actively boost its CSR global performance, setting baseline figures to quantify future mitigation efforts. Duffaut adds, “Our carbon footprint shows that energy consumption is by far the main contributor to our process GHG emissions, so energy efficiency is crucial to our climate change strategy. We have already gained the ISO 50001 accreditation at two of our factories and we are now looking at deploying a certified company-wide common energy management system.”

RETAL purchases as much certified renewable electricity as possible, with its Lithuanian, Italian, Czech, French and US factories already sourcing up to 100% of their electricity from renewable sources, and solar panels at both its Cyprus and Lentvaris facilities. RETAL is also actively working at increasing the use of recycled raw material in its preforms, which has a much lower carbon footprint than virgin material, not only in Europe in compliance with the SUP directive but also across its global operations. 

The company gained a B score from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and increased its global EcoVadis evaluation from 45% to 51%, taking it to Silver standard. Duffaut says, “These are good results as they show that we are taking climate change, and CSR at large, seriously, and doing what needs to be done, but there is still much to be done to reach the A score with CDP and increase our EcoVadis score to Gold, which is our ultimate goal.”