Natural and Renewable

 

Beverage cartons are made from, on average, 75% wood fibre, a natural renewable resource. In addition to timber planks and boards, just one tree can provide wood fibre for 1,500 one litre cartons.

Growing more trees

In forests with good management practices, trees grow without depleting natural resources. The trees used for beverage cartons come from forests where typically three to five new trees are planted, or grow naturally, for every tree harvested. Two to four of these trees are harvested after 25 years, due to clearing and thinning of the forest, and one is left to grow to full maturity at 75 years.

In Sweden and Finland, where most of the wood fibre for beverage cartons destined for the European market originates, forests are expanding. In Sweden 85 million m³ of wood is harvested annually, while the annual growth is around 114 million m³. Similarly in Finland, industrial logging is only around two thirds (60 million m³) of annual growth (100 million m³).

Responsible sourcing

When sourcing wood certification of the wood fibre demonstrates that required standards of forest management are met and traceability demonstrates that all wood can be traced back to where it came from.

Certification

All mills producing liquid carton paperboard in Europe are subject to independent annually audited certification, including auditing by national forestry standard schemes, as well as Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest certification (PEFC) standards. This ensures that the wood comes from controlled and acceptable sources. Their respective national governments, industry and organisations such as Greenpeace and WWF work together on standards for better forest management

Traceability

The paperboard in all beverage cartons produced by ACE members is traceable to acceptable and legal sources of wood. These traceability systems are independently verified and certified annually according to 'chain of custody' standards set by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and/or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). These standards set out basic requirements to demonstrate the sources are:

• controlled and do not include wood harvested illegally or in violation of civil rights;
• not in forests in which high conservation values are threatened;
• not from forests that are being converted to non-forest uses;
• not from areas where genetically-modified trees are planted.

100% of the paperboard produced in Europe for beverage cartons comes from independently certified chain of custody mills. ACE beverage carton manufacturer members have committed to work with their suppliers beyond Europe to have full traceability (chain-of-custody) independently certified by 2015.

In addition, ACE beverage carton manufacturers have also committed to 100% chain of custody certification of their plants that produce packaging material by 2018.

Cartons are a low carbon packaging choice