The UK’s beverage carton manufacturers are making ‘significant progress’ in ensuring that the wood fibre they use is traceable to ‘legal and acceptable sources’, a new report has found.

According to Proforest, an independent verifier of natural resource management, 88 per cent of wood fibre purchased globally by members of the UK Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE UK) in 2012 was ‘either FSC certified or originated from FSC controlled wood’. This signals an increase from the 85 per cent reported for 2011.

Well Managed Forests

The main raw material for the production of cartons is wood fibre, but due to a historical problem with traceability, oftentimes, this fibre comes from unsustainable sources.

To counter this, in 2007 ACE UK members (namely, Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc) made a Chain of Custody (CoC) commitment which specified that 100 per cent of the wood fibre used in cartons would be traceable to ‘legal and acceptable sources’ by 2015.

According to ACE UK, wood fibres that are deemed as ‘unacceptable’ are those that are:

• illegally harvested;
• harvested in violation of traditional and civil rights;
• harvested in forests in which high conservation values are threatened;
• harvested from areas being converted from forests to non-forest uses; or
• from areas where genetically modified trees are planted.

However, according to Proforest, the majority of wood fibre for European beverage cartons now originates from sustainable forests, largely in Sweden and Finland, where ’year-on-year annual growth actually exceeds cuttings’.

The report also found that 43 (81 per cent) of the 53 converting plants owned by ACE UK beverage carton producers are now FSC Chain of Custody certified, up from 74 per cent in 2011.

This leaves only 10 more plants needing certification before ACE UK meets its target of having all beverage carton manufacturing plants CoC certified by 2018.

Speaking of the report findings, Richard Hands, Chief Executive of ACE UK UK, said: “It is great to see that, as Proforest have stated in their report, significant progress has been made by our members towards achieving the stretching targets set in 2007.

“Traceability is one of our industry’s most important strategies to combat illegal logging, and is equally important in avoiding socially and environmentally unacceptable sources of wood.”

Adding that it was ‘good news’ that only 10 more plants needed to be certified before reaching the 2018 target, Hands concluded: “With 75 per cent of a beverage carton, on average, being made from this natural renewable material, ACE UK members have a clear interest in ensuring that forests are responsibly managed.”

In September, ACE UK and paper and packaging producer Sonoco Alcore, opened the UK’s only dedicated beverage carton recycling plant near Halifax, West Yorkshire. The plant has the capacity to process 25,000 tonnes (around 40 per cent) of the 60,000 tonnes of cartons that are placed on the UK market each year, equivalent to 1.25 billion cartons.

Read the sixth annual report from Proforest or find out more about the UK’s beverage carton recycling plant.