Absolut Company to go fossil-fuel-free by 2025

Absolut’s scope 1 and 2 emissions for the last financial year were 847 tonnes of CO2e

The new ambition was announced in the company’s latest sustainability report. Absolut will eliminate the use of fossil fuel sources for the production of Absolut Vodka by 2025.

“Our ambition for Absolut Vodka is to produce a carbon-neutral product by 2030, so for us, this means achieving reductions in our Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions categories,” the report states.

“We’ve set interim targets to 2025 such as achieving 100% fossil-free production and reducing the carbon impact from wheat cultivation by 10%. These are stepping stones towards achieving our 2030 ambition.”

Scope 1 and 2 includes Absolut’s energy and production and Scope 3 covers wheat cultivation, packaging production and transportation of the final products.

Absolut’s scope 1 and 2 emissions for the last financial year were 847 tonnes of CO2e. While Absolut aims to use no offsetting by 2030, the company is currently investing in the climate project Scolel’te, a reforestation and forest management project in Mexico, certified by Plan Vivo, to offset unavoidable emissions.

Back in 2013, The Absolut Company achieved carbon-neutral certification for its distillery in the Swedish village of Ahus. Absolut’s director of sustainable performance Tina Robertsson spoke to edie about how the learnings from that site can be applied to the wider carbon-neutral ambition.

Circular economy

The report also details Absolut’s efforts to embrace the circular economy. The company is aiming to apply eco-design principles to reduce lifecycle emissions from 50% of its projects by 2021 and 100% of new projects by 2022.

To this end, the Absolut Company is trialling 2,000 paper-based bottle prototypes across Sweden and the UK this month, to test the viability of paper as an alternative to single-use plastics in beverage applications.

The Absolut Company will trial paper-based bottles across the Absolut Vodka and Absolut Mixt products. The prototypes will be made up of 100% recycled content, with 57% paper and 43% recycled plastic. The plastic is currently used to create a barrier layer for the bottle, but Absolut is working to progress towards 100% bio-organic materials.

Last year, Danish brewer Carlsberg unveiled prototypes of the world’s first beer bottles made from recyclable and bio-based materials. Carlsberg will test the barrier technology with the ambition of being able to commercialise a 100% bio-based bottle that doesn’t contain polymers.

The move kick-started the formation of Paboco, the Paper Bottle Company, which is a joint venture between renewables material company BillerudKorsnäs and plastic bottle manufacturing specialist Alpla.

On the day of its formation, Paboco launched a paper bottle community. The Absolut Company is one of the founding pioneers of this community and has been joined by The Coca-Cola Company, Carlsberg and L’Oréal.

Matt Mace