Sustainability report - EnviroAction

Amcor employs a multi-pronged strategy to prevent and minimize adverse environmental impacts.

Our EnviroAction program aims to reduce impacts related to our greenhouse gas emissions, waste production, and water use.

EnviroAction EnviroAction is Amcor’s internal framework for reducing the environmental impacts of our operations.

Launched in 2008, the program establishes a set of long-term goals to drive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and water use by 2030. These goals are informed by the Kyoto Protocol and are aligned with the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (UN-IPCC) long-term reduction targets.

Amcor splits our EnviroAction goals into milestones, dubbed “EnviroAction periods,” every three to five years to create a more tangible pathway to 2030. FY20 was the first year in a new EnviroAction period that will extend from 2020 to 2025.

Each Business Group is responsible for contributing to a portion of the EnviroAction goals. Sustainability leaders then work with individual sites within their Business Groups to develop and implement plans to achieve them.

Metrics for each site’s performance toward EnviroAction goals are tracked in a global EnviroChart database. Site champions enter energy, waste, and water data from meters and invoices on a monthly or quarterly basis, which helps sustainability leaders monitor progress, celebrate successes, and devote additional resources where needed.

Progress toward our EnviroAction goals is reported annually. Amcor’s Chief Commercial Officer shares updates quarterly with the Board and Amcor’s Global Management Team, and monthly with Business Group senior leaders.

Site champions are also encouraged to collaborate with co-workers to propose and deliver improvements at their location. They are supported by our EnviroAction Toolkit, which contains resources such as checklists, best practices, case studies, and toolbox talks to help them identify opportunities to improve environmental performance, no matter how advanced the site is in its sustainability journey.

The following pages share our performance in each EnviroAction area over the past year.

*compared to 2006 baseline

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of modern times. FY20 saw stakeholders across the value chain grow increasingly vocal about its importance and the urgency of working toward a solution.

Because GHG emissions are so closely linked with climate change, Amcor’s work to track and reduce our GHG footprint remains a more vital part of our sustainability strategy than ever.

Amcor’s EnviroAction goal for GHG emissions targets a 60% reduction in GHG emissions intensity by 2030, inclusive of Scopes 1, 2, and 3, compared to our 2006 baseline. As of the end of FY20 we had achieved a 36% reduction in GHG emissions intensity compared to our baseline, leaving us approximately 60% of the way to achieving our goal.

In pursuit of this goal, we have implemented a range of initiatives focused on reducing GHG emissions across our global business. These include lowering energy consumption at our facilities, more efficiently managing our operational waste and water use, designing packaging that uses fewer and less carbon-intensive materials, working with suppliers to reduce the footprint of our supply chain, optimizing product and material transport, supporting the development of lower-carbon waste infrastructure, and incorporating climate change strategy into relevant business decisions.

To date, the majority of our progress toward our 2030 EnviroAction goal has come from our work to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions within our own plants. Amcor operations and facilities teams have focused on energy efficiency projects at the site level, such as LED lighting retrofits, optimizing chiller systems and other equipment, and implementing Energy Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to better track and control plant-level energy usage.

Energy management teams across the business continue to seek opportunities to improve energy efficiency within our facilities. We continue to explore renewable energy sourcing opportunities such as power purchase agreements and renewable energy sourcing.

Moving forward, we anticipate that much of the remainder of our work to achieve our 2030 EnviroAction goal for GHG emissions will focus on our Scope 3 footprint – more specifically, our raw materials.

While we recognize that Amcor’s largest waste impacts across the value chain are related to the disposal of our packaging, we also know we must consider the waste created within our own operational boundaries.

Amcor’s long-term EnviroAction goal is to send zero waste to landfills or incineration without energy recovery. This reflects our vision that all unavoidable waste contributes to a benefit by replacing either virgin materials or fossil fuels.

In FY20, our total waste production was 403,891 tonnes, of which 75% was recycled. To date, we have achieved an 85% reduction in waste-to-landfill since our 2006 EnviroAction baseline.

As with GHG emissions, the number of sites included in this calculation increased from FY19 due to Amcor’s acquisition of Bemis in June 2019. Tireless work on the part of our operations teams reduced total waste-to-disposal by 3,184 tonnes between FY19 and FY20 – a reduction of 10%. This puts us well on our way to achieving our current EnviroAction period goal of 20% reduction in waste-to-disposal² by 2025.

Amcor sites face different waste-related challenges across our global operations, particularly between regions where waste and recycling infrastructure is well-developed and those where landfilling is cheap and recycling is not commonly available. Our sites around the world continue to apply creative thinking to better manage operational waste. Our EnviroAction Toolkit supports this work by offering checklists with ideas for how sites can reduce waste- to-disposal. Amcor’s work to make more of our products recyclable also supports this goal. As we change our products to be more recyclable, the types of waste we produce also become easier to recycle.

Operations teams and EnviroAction champions at each site collaborate to implement the most locally appropriate tactics to reduce their waste footprint, including source reduction, reuse and recycling, and responsible disposal of hazardous waste. Due to our global footprint, hazardous waste is managed in accordance with local- and country-level legislation.

For example, the 5,466 tonnes of hazardous waste from our facilities in the U.S. are governed by U.S. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act legislation, while the 9,236 tonnes of hazardous waste from our facilities in the E.U. are managed in accordance with country-level legislation based on the EU Waste Framework Directive.

We recognize sites that have achieved zero waste-to-disposal with a certification program. Sites receive this certification after they have demonstrated through verified data that their operational waste-to-disposal volumes have been equal to zero tonnes over the previous 12 months. Once certified, each site’s performance is validated quarterly to ensure ongoing adherence to our zero waste-to-disposal goals.

As of June 2020, 118 Amcor sites held a Zero Waste-to-Disposal certification.

FY20 Total Weight of Waste by Disposal Type

²Amcor defines “waste-to-disposal” as operational non-hazardous waste that is landfilled or incinerated without energy recovery.

Managing water use in our operations more responsibly – especially in water-stressed regions – is an important part of Amcor’s sustainability commitment.

Our approach to water management entails minimizing water use, managing water discharge quality, reducing pellet pollution, and protecting local water sources.

In FY20, Amcor’s total water withdrawal from all sources was 6,740,080 kiloliters (kL). Approximately 17% of this water was withdrawn in locations with High or Extremely High baseline water stress as defined by the World Resources Institute Water Risk Atlas tool. To date, we have achieved a 35% reduction in water withdrawal compared to our 2006 EnviroAction baseline.

We also track our absolute water use, which excludes surface water that is returned intact to its original source. This helps focus our water efficiency efforts where they will have the most environmental benefit. Our absolute water use in FY20 was 5,723,772 kL, approximately 20% of which was used in locations with High or Extremely High baseline water stress. Due to Amcor’s acquisition of Bemis in June 2019 and the significant number of sites added to our footprint as a result, we recalculated our FY19 absolute water use to establish a new baseline for tracking progress in this area. These calculations revealed a 1.3% decrease from FY19 to FY20 across our global operations.

Amcor sites use water for a variety of purposes – in evaporative cooling towers; in manufacturing equipment; in boiler, hot water, and steam systems; and in sanitary and domestic appliances such as toilets, faucets, showers, basins, dishwashers, and ice machines. The bulk of our water use is for cooling purposes. In this area, there is a trade-off between water and energy use. If we were to use electricity for cooling rather than water, it is possible our GHG emissions would increase as a result. We favor the use of water rather than electricity for cooling because it leads to lower climate change impacts.

FY20 Total Water Withdrawal by Source (kL)

As our production requires the use of water, operational continuity relies on sufficient availability of water to meet these needs. In areas with very high water stress, Amcor sites have occasionally had to temporarily adjust their operations due to limited water availability during severe droughts.

Since each of our manufacturing sites uses water slightly differently, and because water availability and infrastructure vary drastically based on location, our global approach to water management allows individual sites to adapt to local conditions by developing Water Management Plans (WMPs).

In the process of creating a WMP, sites define the main uses of water within their facility and identify whether they are located in a region with high or extremely high water stress according to the Water Risk Atlas. From there, they outline the water management measures they plan to implement in the coming year, creating a plan to guide them toward the most appropriate management practices based on their use and location.

As part of our EnviroAction goals, all Amcor sites are required to have a WMP in place and to update it annually. In FY20, we achieved 100% compliance with our WMP goal, including developing WMPs for all newly acquired sites.

Another important way Amcor reduces our impact on water systems is by protecting the water supply from potential pollution related to our operations, such as plastic pellet pollution.

In FY20, several Amcor sites completed a year- long pilot of Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) methodology to understand how Amcor can better prevent this type of pollution. Quickly into the pilot, participating sites were encouraged to find that many of Amcor’s existing environmental management and safety practices already align with OCS methodology. Even so, implementing the methodology revealed additional interventions and helped standardize their implementation across sites to further reduce the likelihood of pellets entering the environment and water supply. Following the completion of this pilot in FY20, teams from participating sites are reviewing and sharing learnings in support of a broader roll-out of the OCS initiative in FY21.