Johnnie Walker’s parent company Diageo – whose brand portfolio also includes Guinness and Smirnoff – has paired up with venture management firm Pilot Lite to kick off a new sustainable packaging company called Pulpex Limited. The new venture will offer environmentally sound solutions to delivering plastic-free packaging to an ever-increasing, eco-conscious world population.
To start, the famous brand of Scotch whiskey will debut the world’s first paper-based spirit bottle in early 2021. The bottle is fully recyclable, renewable, and biodegradable – made of sustainably sourced wood pulp lined with a spray coating instead of a plastic film barrier. It has a lower carbon footprint than PET or glass, and it’s scalable.
Ewan Andrew, the chief sustainability officer at Diageo, said:
We’re proud to have created this world first. We are constantly striving to push the boundaries within sustainable packaging and this bottle has the potential to be truly ground-breaking.
For now, the Johnnie Walker paper bottle will be limited edition, and there are no set plans to package other Diageo products in paper bottles. This move is part of a trial project to gauge the potential large-scale rollout of such packaging in the future. The company is looking for ways to replace the use of glass bottles across its product lines.
More than 95% of the packaging currently used by the corporation’s brands is made of glass. The global demand for glass has become unsustainable. Every year, 50 billion tons of sand is used to make glass packaging. That’s two times more than nature can replenish. The harvesting of so much sand is disrupting ecosystems and leaving coastal communities vulnerable to flooding caused by erosion.
On a mission to help with this problem, Pulpex Limited is set to expand its brand partnerships. It has unveiled an impressive list of some of the largest international producers of bottled drinks that are also backing the technology. In addition to Diageo, the consortium also includes PepsiCo and Unilever, who plan to launch a glass-replacing paper bottle in 2021 as well. Together, these three companies alone represent over $100 billion in global beverage sales. However, more companies are expected to join the consortium soon to ensure that the technology can be used in every area of life.
Pulpex Limited writes on its website:
As global demand for glass bottles and PET containers grows steadily, we are looking to work closely with industry leaders from around the world who represent some of the largest consumer brands across Homecare, Personal Care, Consumer Healthcare, and Beverages.
Collectively, our goal is to harness the ecological credentials of pulp to champion a revolutionary approach to packaging – a present-day zeitgeist and ‘hot topic’ on almost every corporate CSR and sustainability agenda.
Now is the ideal moment to begin thinking about and implementing strategies for the use of alternative materials, like the paper bottle. The EU Commission passed the Single-Use Plastics directive back in May 2019, which bans plastic bottles, straws, etc. And, more such bills will likely be given in the coming year.
