World Water Day 2018: How Amcor is preserving water around the world

Today, water powers mega-cities and major industries, and is piped into billions of homes, making it available at the turn of a tap. Most of us take for granted instant availability of water.

But more than two billion people lack access to a clean water source. Water pollution and diminishing supplies are growing global concerns. This precious resource requires urgent protection.

CLOSE-UP ON AMCOR CAPE TOWN

Cape Town, South Africa, is suffering a severe and prolonged water shortage, with residents currently restricted to just 50 litres a day each. Experts predict that the city’s water reserves will run dry in the middle of this year.

We have more than 200 Amcor colleagues living and working in Cape Town. The drought is altering life for them and their families, and spurred us to form a Water Crisis Team to further reduce our already-efficient water use in our local operations.

Our team has adjusted machinery, shut down boilers, trained site cleaners, and added filters to wash stations to restrict water flow. They’re now looking at how to safely employ “grey water” –used water from bathroom sinks, showers, tubs, and washing machines – in toilets and other applications. We are also exploring ways to provide our colleagues and their families with a weekly supply of water from other parts of the country.

PACKAGING PROTECTS WATER

World Water Day resonates with Amcor and its people for another reason. The globe’s greatest consumer of water is the agriculture industry. So, the most important sustainability feature of food packaging is how it protects and preserves the contents. On average, less than 10 percent of the energy required to produce, transport, store and prepare food goes to making the packaging. But more than one-third of food produced for human consumption worldwide goes to waste – and with it the water, energy, transportation and other resources used to produce it in the first place.

In addition, rotting food in landfills has its own major environmental implications, releasing tens of millions of pounds of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year.

MANAGING WATER RESPONSIBLY

Constantly reducing the amount of water we use and managing it responsibly in Amcor’s operations – including where water is currently plentiful – is a key element of our worldwide sustainability commitment.

In 2017, Amcor used a total of 4,463,548 kilolitres of water across our 200 sites. We know this figure precisely because we track it as part of our EnviroAction programme. Every Amcor site has a water-management plan, and our teams record details on water use, which help us learn where we can further improve.

We have lots of inspiring examples. For example, at a flexible-packaging plant in India, we reduced water use 60 percent in one year by raising awareness and installing water meters and a drip irrigation system.

We also have a strong track record of reducing water use when Amcor acquires businesses. At recently purchased locations in China, we achieved dramatic improvements through greater overall attention to water and often with simple steps like focusing on fixing leaks.

Amcor’s Manfred Smith enters water use data into the company’s EnviroAction database

HELPING BIG BRANDS USE LESS WATER

We are a partner to many of the world's biggest consumer brands, and provide them with expert assessment, design and innovation that helps continuously improve the sustainability profiles of their products.

We start with life-cycle assessments (LCA) of customer products and the packaging that surrounds them. The technique, for which we use proprietary Amcor software called Asset, considers environmental effects at every stage, including water consumption from raw-material extraction through processing, manufacturing, distribution, use, disposal or recovery, and recycling – and how they can be mitigated.

Reducing water use is a high priority for Amcor customers. As examples:

• GSK, the global health-care company, has cut water use by introducing water-efficient cleaning procedures, identifying and repairing leaks, and investing in efficient equipment. At GSK’s site in Nairobi, Kenya, for example, water consumption was reduced 16 percent by collecting and reusing water, and installing a more efficient water-heating system.

• Unilever, which has more than 400 brands of consumer products, is innovating to meet the needs of consumers in water-scarce regions, while continuing to reduce the water it uses in its manufacturing operations.

• In 2007, The Coca-Cola Company committed to replenishing every litre of water used in its beverages and production by the end of 2020 – and achieved the goal in 2016.

COMMITMENT MATTERS MORE THAN EVER

In January 2018, we became the first global packaging company pledging to develop all our packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025, directly addressing a major environmental issue with our unique capability, scale and reach.

At the same time, we committed to significantly increasing our use of recycled materials and driving consistently more recycling of packaging around the world.

We are determined to use our know-how to help change the world for the better, including by helping protect water as a precious resource. With the commitment of 35,000 colleagues around the world, we’re driving down water use in operations, and collaborating with partners and customers to drive up recycling rates and better protect water sources.

Find out more about Amcor’s sustainability leadership here.