Plastics and climate
protection – an amazingly good team
Interesting insights from the Brückner Group’s Sustainability Report
How can a medium-sized company improve its environmental footprint? How is it possible to significantly reduce global plastic waste? Spoiler alert: These things cannot be achieved by burying your head in the sand. It is much better to bring bright minds together and develop solutions. Innovative technology leaders like the Brückner Group can take decisive steps, especially in the plastics industry.
So, what are the Brückner Group’s sustainability goals? In terms of its directly generated emissions, the aim is to achieve climate neutrality by 2025. In addition, annual Scope 1 emissions (produced by company vehicles, for example, and natural gas) and Scope 2 emissions (from electricity use) are set to be cut by 50% by 2030, using 2023 as the baseline year.
Why climate protection and plastics go well together.
Plastics packaging has been the subject of ongoing criticism. After all, everyone is familiar with the images of plastic waste polluting the world’s oceans. Yet it is also clear that plastics are still very much needed. The world population is growing. Food must be produced in large quantities and kept as fresh as possible before reaching consumers. And this is where plastics offer key advantages:
As a material, plastics make a valuable contribution to sustainability. That’s because plastics packaging …
- prevents food from perishing, thereby saving resources.
- takes less energy to produce than aluminum, tin, or glass packaging.
- saves energy in the transport of packaged goods due to its low weight.
Plastic is a recyclable material,” says Adina Mittmannsgruber, Group Sustainability Lead at the Brückner Group. “And the circular economy for this recyclable material must be continuously expanded and optimized – all over the world.
The Brückner Group’s Sustainability Report: specific solutions for specific challenges
Published in 2024, the report presents numerous initiatives with which the Group aims to achieve its sustainability goals. What do all the measures have in common? The ideas are all pretty smart:
The circular economy: “reduce – reuse – recycle”
Reducing, reusing, and recycling plastic waste. Unlike metal or glass, for example, recycling plastics is a much more complex undertaking, not least because there are specific factors that need to be considered, such as the different colors, material combinations, coatings, labels, inks, and so on. The later recycling process has to be taken into account during a product’s development stage so that the different grades of plastics can be efficiently sorted.
Good colors, bad colors
In recent years, the PrintCYC initiative has examined the impact of inks on the recyclability of films, with companies in the Brückner Group playing an active role. As a result of the project, certain inks have been classified as “nonrecyclable,” while other inks demonstrate good recyclability in the mechanical recycling process.
Certain pioneering work happens when brushing teeth.
PackSys Global is a founding member of the Plastic Squeeze Tube Recycling Project. One of the organization’s key aims is to design the tube in a way that guarantees good recyclability. A milestone was reached in April 2024. Studies revealed that over 90% of toothpaste tubes and over 75% of all HDPE tubes on the US market now feature a recyclable design.
Thin, but wow! The new in-line coatings for a wide range of applications.
The best barrier properties in food packaging are currently achieved by using composite materials – such as combinations of plastic and aluminum. However, such materials are not suitable for recycling. The same barrier properties for pure plastics films can now be achieved with the new in-line coatings (water-based wet chemical coatings) from Brückner-Servtec. At the same time, the finished film is fully recyclable. Several customer systems have already been successfully upgraded with this new technology.
A proven partner of the Brückner Group: the sun
Solar power is produced independently across several Brückner Group company sites. In the Thai city of Rayong, for example: Since December 2023, much of the daily electricity demand for the 16,300 m2 site can be met by the photovoltaic systems installed on the parking deck.
It’s electrifying! Sharp rise in electric vehicle charging volume
In 2023, the amount of power needed to charge electric vehicles doubled at the Siegsdorf site alone. To meet the strong demand, the company significantly increased the number of charging stations from 14 to 39. And for those who want to cut carbon emissions without relying on electricity for their commute, Brückner supports the switch to bicycles with its company bike leasing scheme across several locations.
What else is there to say about saving resources? Bon appétit!
The “NATUREFORMER KFT 90” machine from Kiefel is used to produce packaging from renewable and biodegradable raw materials or plant residues.
An honest assessment: the Brückner Group’s carbon emissions
Group-wide software for recording key sustainability figures was introduced in 2023. This so-called ESG software can also be used to calculate the carbon footprint.
CO₂-Emissions of the Brückner Group
(in tons per CO₂-Äquivalent)
|
2022 |
2023 |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Scope 1 |
2.531 |
2.490 |
|
Scope 2 |
2.879 |
4.690 |
|
Scope 3 |
14.144 |
48.839 |
The results:
Scope 1: Direct carbon emissions, mainly from the use of company vehicles, natural gas, and coolants. Significantly lower gas consumption led to a reduction in the figures from 2022 to 2023.
Scope 2: Carbon emissions from the generation of electricity. The increase in Scope 2 emissions can be explained by the fact that several new Brückner Group sites, such as those in the USA and Thailand, were included in the reporting for the first time in 2023.
Scope 3: Carbon emissions arising from external operational processes, such as those along the supply chain, transport services, or business travel. The increase in Scope 3 is mainly due to the first-time reporting of transport-related emissions.
Tip: How can you tell if a sustainability report is really transparent?
Adina Mittmannsgruber: “One quality criterion is certainly the fact that the company adheres to international standards, like the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) standards. This means that you can’t simply draw a veil over certain matters by only presenting the news that is favorable to the companies. Instead, you have to meet very specific requirements when it comes to the content.” The Brückner Group’s Sustainability Report is based on the GRI Index.
“In terms of sustainability reports, the Brückner Group has taken on a pioneering role within the industry,” says Adina Mittmannsgruber.
Through our membership of the Alliance To End Plastic Waste, we have also made tangible progress toward a functioning circular economy at international level. In short, a substantial degree of influence for a medium-sized company from Bavaria.
Any interested parties can download the Brückner Group’s Sustainability Report in full here:
