Unilever Australasia and Blackmores were among the top winners at this year’s Australian Packaging Covenant (APC) Awards.
The APC Awards celebrate the achievements of industry in improving packaging sustainability across their operations and in their innovations.
APC acknowledged a number of category winners at the ceremony in Sydney in late August, as well as four businesses that have made an outstanding effort to minimise the environmental impact of their packaging.
The 2016 Outstanding Achievement Award Winners were: Blackmores for APC Signatory of the Year; Cerebos for Design; Australia Post for Packaging Stewardship; and Unilever Australasia for Recycling.
Unilever Australasia was particularly singled out for its role in the organisation’s global performance against its packaging sustainability, waste management and product stewardship targets. Some of the highlights in 2015 included the redesign of its 500ml Lipton Ice Tea bottles that saw an annual saving of 343 tonnes of PET and 60 tonnes of polypropylene, and the removal of foil wrapping for Lipton Black Tea, saving an average 41 tonnes of material each year.
Blackmores received its award in recognition of its attainments in packaging sustainability across the business. Examples of this include it formally integrating Planet Ark’s Australian Recycling Label and associated authorised Packaging Recyclability Evaluation Portal (PREP) in 2015. In the past year, it also increased the amount of waste diverted from landfill from 43% to 67% thanks to various recycling and staff training initiatives under its new waste management plan.
APC said that these awards indicate a new direction for the organisation, which is working closely with governments and industry to finalise a more collaborative, targeted and transparent Covenant for 2017.
“The Awards are a critical part in the journey of our transformation,” APC CEO Trish Hyde said. “The future of the APC will be to embrace collaboration across the supply chain – as demonstrated by these award winners – to support our members, while also delivering real environmental benefit.”
The full list of winners is available on the Australian Packaging Covenant website along with an Awards Booklet with more detailed insights.