Albéa is moving forward with its 2020-2025 CSR roadmap that puts transparency and circular economy at the heart of its strategy. In this context, the company has just published its 4th CSR report, highlighting the joint endeavour of partners and all employees around the world to respond to the climate change challenge by making cosmetic packaging circular.
Towards Responsible packaging
To create a responsible packaging is to be aware that the Earth’s resources are limited and that the circular economy is the solution to preserve them. For Albéa and the whole packaging industry, the transformation of plastic packaging into a new raw material without ever becoming waste is a huge challenge. This implies rethinking the processes to reduce the consumption of materials, whatever they may be, and to strengthen the collecting, sorting, reusability, and, above all, the recycling of cosmetic plastic packaging. It also implies creating short, efficient, circular circuits with the least environmental impact.
The sixth “R”
As many other key players in the industry, Albéa is committed to this approach and adheres to the roadmap laid out by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation through five priorities: reducing the amount of material used, lightening weight, eliminating problematic or unnecessary materials; designing for reuse; offering truly recyclable packaging; reintegrating post-consumer recycled material; and eliminating the use of non-renewable virgin raw materials as much as possible, by using bio-sourced resins, for example.
Thus, Albéa innovates every day around the principle of the 5 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reincorporate and Renew. But the group has also added a sixth R: Rethink. Circularity is about continuously rethinking packaging from the very beginning of the product design. It is also about imagining new uses, improving logistics and relocating production as close as possible to the end consumer.
This massive challenge is now mobilizing not only the company but the entire value chain.
Transparency across the value chain
Albéa intends to participate in a responsible sector, driven upstream by consumers and brands committed to proactive sustainable development policies. Consumers around the world are increasingly committed to preserving resources and fighting against global warming. They therefore want more transparency about where the products they buy come from and how they were made. Regulations are changing and environmental labeling is emerging, because guaranteeing a responsible product for the end consumer means being able to evaluate and prove in complete transparency.
To provide assurance that their products are responsible, brands need to be able to rely on responsible suppliers who can support them with these ambitious transparency processes. This is the very definition of due diligence for companies seeking to prevent environmental, human rights and corruption risks within their own activities, as well as among their subcontractors and suppliers, whether in France or abroad. In turn, these suppliers should then demand this from their own suppliers.
For Albéa, the current situation presents a historic opportunity to reinvent a value chain that is both transparent and virtuous. The company is therefore working towards building a recognized, strategic and above all united cosmetics industry by collaborating with partners and customers and engaging in several sustainability initiatives.
Responsibility requires solidarity
A virtuous packaging needs the involvement of everyone. This is why the company puts transparency, i.e. the CSR commitment of all the players in the value chain, at the heart of its efforts – and at the heart of its new CSR Report. This fourth report showcases how the teams, the customers, the suppliers and all the stakeholders are joining forces to build a more cohesive industry, design a transparent and virtuous value chain that meets the challenges of society, rethink packaging to make it circular – and all this while addressing the biggest issue of all times: climate change.
Download Albéa’s CSR report:
https://www.albea-group.com/article/albea-publishes-4th-sustainable-development-report