2023 Britvic Soft Drinks Review Licensed - Flipbook - Page 4
WELCOME
SUSTAINABILITY
CATEGORY OVERVIEW
Building a circular
economy
The climate crisis requires “rapid transformation of
societies,”1 the UN warned in October 2022, when it
concluded that progress towards cutting carbon dioxide
emissions to limit any rise in the global temperature to
1.5°C had been “woefully inadequate”.1 In December,
scientists warned that by the end of the century more
than one in ten species on earth could be lost.2
Considering the dire warnings, the pace of change
in the UK can seem frustratingly slow. We have a
collective responsibility to make the changes required;
the soft drinks industry takes the part it can play in this
seriously. That’s why Britvic is committed to creating a
world where packaging never becomes waste, and as
a founding signatory of The UK Plastics Pact, we are
committed to playing our part in achieving a circular
economy for plastics and looking at solutions Beyond
the Bottle.
The UK’s first DRS, scheduled to be launched in
Scotland in 2024, is expected to result in 44,000 fewer
plastic bottles being littered across Scotland daily
and 160,000 fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide being
emitted each year.3 Of course, when England, Wales
and Northern Ireland’s DRS gets underway in 2025, the
savings could be even greater.4
While it’s true that the decision to launch Scotland’s
DRS ahead of the rest of the UK adds complexity to
the concept of one day having a nationwide scheme,
Britvic’s commitment to the Scottish DRS continues and
we welcome the opportunities it gives to significantly
reduce littering, improve recycling rates and increase
the availability of quality recycled material.
Scotland’s DRS will allow soft drinks producers and
their customers, to take important and decisive steps
towards building a circular economy and reducing their
environmental impact. The scheme will apply to all
soft drinks, where the volume is over 5,000 units per
year, water and alcohol in single-use formats made of
PET, metal and glass between 100ml and three litres in
volume, currently imposing a 20p deposit on all eligible
units, redeemable at the point at which drink cans and
bottles are recycled.
DRS is still politically challenging, particularly in the
current climate. One in three (34%) people reported
1
2
3
4
BUY DRINK.
PAY DEPOSIT.
RETURN THE
PACKAGING
DEPOSIT RETURNED
TO YOU
CONTAINERS
RECYCLED
£
£
1 UN Environment Programme Emissions Gap Report 2022 - https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022
2 Science Advances, Strona & Bradshaw – 16/12/2022 - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn4345
3 Zero Waste Scotland, unless otherwise stated: https://depositreturnscheme.zerowastescotland.org.uk/#:~:text=With%20Scotland’s%20Deposit%20Return%20
Scheme,more%20about%20what%20this%20means
4 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/deposit-return-scheme-for-drinks-containers-moves-a-step-closer
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SUSTAINABILITY