47153 AG Barr Annual Report 2025 AW4 SQ WEB - Flipbook - Page 38
A.G. BARR p.l.c. Annual Report and Accounts 2025
RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS REPORT CONTINUED
The road to net-zero
Our ambitious commitments are being delivered
through our No Time To Waste environmental
sustainability programme, which brings together
our net-zero, plastic and packaging, waste,
water and sustainable sourcing workstreams.
No Time To Waste is central to the achievement
of our science-based targets.
Further information is available on pages 39 to
46 within our TCFD disclosures.
Along with plastic, aluminium is a key packaging
material across our product and this year we’ve
achieved 62% recycled aluminium content,
reducing our use of virgin aluminium by
100 tonnes compared to the previous year.
We’re pleased to report that our multipack
film wrap is made with 100% recycled plastic.
Furthermore, the majority of our Barr Soft Drinks
bottles have a minimum 30% recycled content,
and 42% of the PET we used during the year was
recycled (rPET), up from 37% in the previous year.
Packaging
We believe that packaging should be treated
by all as a valuable resource and recycled, not
discarded as litter or waste.
We continually seek to reduce the amount of
packaging we use. Our No Time To Waste plastic
and packaging workstream has established a
clear strategy, with a long-term goal of 100%
circular packaging. This means a future where
we first reduce, then recycle and reuse our
packaging in order to minimise waste. Last year,
packaging constituted 40.6% of total emissions
across our value chain, therefore reducing the
environmental footprint of our packaging will be
a critical part of our journey to reach net-zero.
Our packaging strategy is aligned with the
commitments of the UK Plastics Pact, to which we
became signatories in 2022. The Pact’s targets
include 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable,
recyclable, or compostable, and all plastic
packaging to average 30% recycled content
(which currently sits at 26% across the UK market).
Along with Barr Soft Drinks and FUNKIN, the
packaging for all our MOMA products is now
100% recyclable, and we use clear on-pack
recycling messages to help ensure it is disposed
of correctly. To facilitate recycling, we’ve
extended our tethered caps to the majority of
our soft drinks portfolio to ensure the whole pack
– container and cap – can be recycled together.
36
During the year, we moved to a minimum of 30%
rPET content across the majority of our Barr Soft
Drinks portfolio. However, the availability of high
quality, food grade recycled plastic has remained
an ongoing issue across the food and drink
industry, in the UK and beyond. Along with many
other companies, we have had to reconsider our
rPET commitments due to challenges around its
quality and consistent availability, as well as the
delay to Scotland’s DRS, which was expected to
give us access to greater volumes of higher
quality rPET. We will review our levels of rPET
content across all of our products once the UK’s
DRS scheme is introduced and improves access
to higher quality rPET. Aligned to this, we remain
fully supportive of the introduction of a UK DRS
in late 2027.
We remain fully committed to achieving our
net-zero science based carbon emission targets
and moving to 100% circular or renewable
packaging as and when new technology in
non-fossil fuel based PET allows. However, we
recognise that the transition may not be linear.
We continue to work with our suppliers on
sustainable alternatives to rPET.
Plastic and packaging
Lightweighting has also been crucial
to our sustainable packaging
strategy, and we’ve implemented
technical changes in our production
lines to remove 1g from each plastic
bottle we use. Reducing the material
in our packaging reduces our
emissions and waste production.
