Packaging only accounts for 2% of Europe's carbon footprint. Primarily, the largest contributing factor to the company's carbon footprint is the
energy used during the manufacturing process and distribution.
In 2011, Nampak conducted research to measure its own carbon footprint using CIBA and Pira accredited methodology.
From this work we identified that there are 2.642 grams of CO2 per gram of HDPE, based on current CO2 values from various energy sources.
60% of the CO2 is derived from the HDPE manufacture, 20.5% from the bottle manufacture, 18% from the polymer distribution and 1.5% from the packaging material. Over the last two years, Nampak have reduced thier carbon footprint by 16%.
Through utilising the latest energy-efficient technology, Nampak is seeing a marked decline in the energy it uses and its
in-plant operations (where bottling and filling take place on a customer's site) contribute greatly to a reduction in distribution required. Similarly, product design refinements have enabled more bottles to be delivered in a load, and the company has also switched to higher capacity trailers.
Nampak will continue to analyse its carbon footprint using the methodology prepared until formal regulation is agreed. The most recent data collected will be used by the company as a benchmark for future performance.