Environment

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As a responsible business, RETAL is committed to mitigate our environmental impacts and we have defined an Environmental Policy, in which we formalise objectives to measure and reduce our direct and indirect GHG emissions and promote plastic circular economy in order to reduce plastic pollution.

Climate change

Climate change is our main direct environmental impact, mainly due to the greenhouse gases generated by the production of our raw material, thermoplastic resins (PET and HDPE).

We adopt a 3 steps approach: measure, mitigate and compensate.

1.Measure

RETAL has implemented the systematic calculation and certification of its corporate carbon footprint according to the ISO 14064 standard, to establish an emission baseline from which to quantify and report mitigation results on an accurate and credible way (Carbon Footprint certificates).

Our climate change performance and activity is disclosed publicaly through the CDP platform (www.cdp.net) and our annual sustainability report.

2.Mitigate

In terms of mitigation RETAL does the following:

We purchase and produce Renewable electricity:

• In 2018, 23% of our global electricity consumption and 39.5% of our European electricity consumption were purchased through certified schemes from renewable sources.
• If that energy had been sourced from a conventional electricity mix, RETAL’s emissions would have increased by 32.839 tCO2eq, thus 3,1% more in total emissions for 2018
• In 2019, we built the largest solar panel instalation in the Baltic region at our Lentvaris plant for a capacity of 1.4MW This is the second RETAL plant to be equipped with solar panel after our factory in Cyprus.

We light-weight our products:

• More than 90% of our GHG emissions come from the production of our raw materials, PET resin
• Our designers team is constantly looking at reducing the weight of our products through more efficient design and in 2018, 44 light weighting initiatives across our operations allowed to save 1869 tn of resins resulting in a GHG reduction of 4.092 tnCO2 saved .

We work on energy efficiency and process optimisation:

• We implement energy management systems in our factories – Two are already certified ISO 50001

3.Compensate

RETAL will soon start to explore opportunities to off-set part of our GHG emissions.

Circular Economy

Statement on Plastic Litter

We are conscious that plastic pollution is a global issue and thus requires global solutions but “every bits count” and as an element of the value chain that leads to plastic pollution, RETAL feels responsible to contribute to solving this global issue in any way we can by promoting and fostering plastic circular economy: plastic packaging and PET packaging in particular, are recyclable material that still have a high economic value after their first use.

To that end, in 2018 we have created an internal working group to identify the different opportunities for action considering the whole life cycle of our products, from raising awareness to acquiring a recycling plant or implementing collection schemes.

In 2019 we will select and start implementing the most relevant and impactful lines of action taking into account RETAL’s size and position in our value chain as well as the development of legal frameworks such as the Directive on Single Use Plastics in the European Union.

Our first step has been to join PETCORE Europe, an association representing the whole PET value chain in Europe to collaboratively promote the sustainable development of the PET packaging industry and to work towards increasing collection and recycling of PET packaging.

We are also members of the Recyclass platform whose objective is to improve the recyclability of plastic packaging through design and the Waste Free Oceans initiative that aims at reducing the global impact of marine litter by collecting and upcycling marine plastic waste into useful products.

Microplastic statement

We are, of course, aware of the well-publicised issue of microplastics traces found in bottled beverages. In order to ensure that RETAL is not negatively contributing to this issue, we have conducted extensive independent migration tests across every aspect of our production process and are pleased to confirm that no microplastics were found.

Our on-going due diligence enables us to provide clear analysis of migration tests performed across our production facilities and we will continue to actively monitor the progression of a closed loop economy, particularly where related to the global bottled beverage industry.

As a responsible plastic packaging manufacturer, RETAL understands that the microplastics light is shining particularly brightly on our industry and we welcome the opportunity to support continued research and to work within, or to exceed, all regulatory framework that protects consumers.

Environmental Policy