Sustainability Report 2020

News & Stories

Memberships & initiatives

Verpackung mit Zukunft platform: We founded the platform Verpackung mit Zukunft together with our Austrian partners in 2020. Processors of raw materials, recycling organizations and packaging and consumer goods manufacturers have joined the initiative. The members of the platform believe that using packaging in a way that conserves resources is possible, sensible and necessary.

Forum Rezyklat: Forum Rezyklat is a German initiative launched in 2018. With over 30 members comprising distributors, manufacturers, waste disposal companies, packaging manufacturers and political representatives, it covers the entire value chain. Together, the initiative works on raising awareness of the circular economy among consumers to ensure that recyclable materials are clearly separated. Greiner Packaging joined the forum in 2020 and has since been working to ensure as early as the development process for new packaging that it can be recycled and are therefore preserved as a resource in the circular economy.

UK Plastics Pact: The UK Plastics Pact is a national initiative in the UK that brings together businesses from across the entire plastics value chain with UK governments and NGOs. Pact members want to eliminate problematic plastics, reduce the total amount of packaging on supermarket shelves and stimulate innovation and new business models. Participants also want to ensure that plastic packaging is designed so it can be easily recycled and made into new products and packaging.

Circular Plastics Alliance: The Circular Plastics Alliance is an alliance of companies at European level aiming to boost the recycling of plastics. The companies involved cover the entire plastics value chain and are committed to achieving at least 10 million tonnes of recycled plastics into new products by 2025. Greiner Packaging joined the Circular Plastics Alliance at the end of 2019, representing another step towards recycling and sustainability.

Ellen MacArthur Foundation: The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a global organization whose goal is to promote the circular economy. It achieves this by working with companies, policymakers and researchers. The New Plastics Economy was created under the leadership of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and we signed up as a company in 2017. The initiative brings together a whole range of key interest groups. Its aim is to create a circular economy for plastics where they never become waste or harm the environment at all.

LIT Factory: 2020 The LIT Factory at the Linz Institute of Technology (LIT) located at the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) is a networked factory for education, learning and research and a test laboratory for over 20 companies in Austria. The aim is to allow companies to test digital production technologies in the test laboratory. Research on innovative process technologies is also to be carried out at the LIT Factory. For example, lightweight components made of plastic are to be developed for cars, which will connect the engine with the chassis instead of steel. There are to be other research projects in the areas of production technology, medical technology, mechanical engineering as well as construction and recycling technology.

RePETitio: In 2019, leading companies in the plastics sector joined forces in the RePETitio project following an initiative by Austrian Next Generation Recyclingmaschinen GmbH. It aims to prove that PET-waste other than PET bottles can successfully be recycled into new high-quality products. As part of the project, PET household waste such as blister packaging, thermoformed trays and films are collected and sorted. The recycled flakes are then used by Greiner Packaging to produce hollow bodies and thermoformed trays for the food and non-food sector.

HolyGrail2.0: More than 85 prominent companies from the packaging value chain have teamed up under the direction of the European Brands Association (AIM). Together, they want to promote digital technologies that make it easier to sort used materials and allow higher-quality recycling of packaging. In the long term, this should help create a better circular economy in the EU. As a partner of the HolyGrail 2.0 initiative, Greiner Packaging supports the use of digital watermarks in the designs of various packaging systems.

PET2PACK: The research project PET2PACK from FH Campus Wien focuses on PET trays. It aims at closing the loop for PET rigid packaging such as meat or vegetable trays, drinking cups, films, lids and transparent packaging. Under the project, sorting trials in two existing plastic sorting plants will separate appropriate fractions from collected household plastics. The sorted PET rigid groups are then to be recycled and returned to the cycle.

REC2PAC: Rec2Pack Closing the loop of polyolefine hollow bodies is a collaborative project where all participants work together along the entire PE/PP hollow body packaging value chain. The aim of the project is to close the loop along the entire value chain and to optimize the entire system through extensive collaboration along the entire value chain in order to meet the European Union’s targets. Researchers from TU Wien, the University of Leoben and FH Campus Wien provide academic support for Rec2Pack.

Business Upper Austria: Business Upper Austria is the business agency of the Upper Austrian government and a point of contact for companies when it comes to investment and innovation projects. The aim of the business is to secure, strengthen and enhance the business and employment location of Upper Austria, further develop infrastructure to encourage investments, innovation and technologies and support innovation and technology transfer.

Plastics Cluster: The Plastics Cluster is a cross-industry network for the plastics sector. The Plastics Cluster is an initiative by the states of Upper Austria and Lower Austria. The network has existed for over 20 years and promotes collaboration between companies and between companies and research institutes. More than 140 Cluster collaborative projects have been launched over the years and attest to the active culture of cooperation within the industrial sector.

Circular economy
The circular economy is a model for production and consumption where existing materials and products are shared, reused, repaired, reprocessed and recycled for as long as possible. This prolongs the life cycle of products.
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Digital watermarks
Digital watermarks are essentially technical markings on data media such as images, videos or audio files. In the packaging sector, they are markings invisible to the human eye in the form of codes that provide information on the packaging and the material (see also HolyGrail).
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Ellen MacArthur Foundation
The foundation established by British record-holding round-the-world sailor Dame Ellen MacArthur in 2009 works together with companies, political decision-makers and scientists to advocate the development and promotion of the concept of a circular economy (www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org).
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Food and non-food sector
Areas of business and hospitality/the hotel industry relating to food are combined under the term food sector to create a clear linguistic distinction between this and the non-food sector. Non-food describes goods that are not food in the broader sense of the word and often have lower requirements than food items when it comes to logistics, storage and product presentation.
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PET
The abbreviation stands for polyethylene terephthalate. PET is a thermoplastic from the polyester family, produced by polycondensation, with a wide range of uses including the production of plastic bottles, films and textile fibers.
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Value chain
The value chain describes the steps along the production chain in order. These activities create value, consume resources and are interconnected in various processes.
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