Under its ‘evercan’ brand, the can body sheet produced by Novelis is certified 90% recycled content, compared to the global industry average of 50%.

Speaking about the company’s plans, Novelis president and chief executive Phil Martens said: “The transition to a low-carbon, circular economy requires innovation and disruption to create measurable impact.

“Our plan to produce only evercan body sheet by 2017 is a bold move that extends our leadership in sustainability and is an important part of our long-term strategy to increase the recycled content in our products to 90% by the end of the decade.”

Martens also said that Novelis will assist other aluminium manufacturers by sharing knowledge of the process to certify high-recycled content beverage sheet using the methodology of SCS Global Services, which certifies the evercan sheet.

‘Significant change for the industry’

He added: “We understand that the shift to a certified, high-recycled content aluminium beverage can sheet represents a significant change for the industry with far-reaching effects.

“Through an open-sourced platform, we are committed to working with beverage brands, can makers and other aluminium manufacturers to build the closed-loop, low-carbon economy of the future.

” Accomplishing this change is going to require all of these stakeholders to work together to make the use of recycled materials the standard for the beverage can industry and to increase recycling rates among consumers.”

Since 2011, Novelis has announced capital investments of close to $500m that will double the company’s global recycling capacity to 2.1m metric tons by 2015. Recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy and emissions associated with the production of primary metal, according to Novelis.

Last year, the aluminium giant announced that it was close to meeting another sustainability target. It said that it had reduced its water-use intensity by 16% from 2007-2009 average levels, putting it on track to achieve its 25% reduction target by 2020.

Liz Gyekye

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