WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--evian today announces that it will make all of its plastic bottles from 100% recycled plastic by 2025, a move that will see the natural spring water brand adopt a ‘circular approach’ to its plastic usage, where plastic is kept within the economy and out of nature. Working in close relationship with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to define this roadmap, evian will move from a linear model to a circular one, where all bottles will be made from recycled plastic without the need for any virgin plastics. This will enable plastic to evolve from potential waste to become a valuable resource.
evian plans to achieve this through pioneering partnerships to redesign its packaging, accelerate recycling initiatives and remove plastic waste from nature.
Redesigning packaging
Today, evian bottles are recyclable and globally contain on average across the range 25% recycled plastic (rPET).
In order to achieve its 2025 ambition, evian is partnering with breakthrough technology companies, one of which is Loop Industries. Loop Industries has developed a technology that enables a continuous loop for recycling at large scale, transforming all types of PET plastic waste into the high-quality plastic required by evian.
Accelerating recycling initiatives
evian is collaborating globally with governments, recycling industry partners such as Veolia and consumers in the markets where it operates to increase collection and recycling rates of waste plastic bottles. evian will keep identifying and supporting recycling solutions to ensure bottles are recycled properly, reducing dependency on newly created plastic while generating a reliable supply of high-quality recycled plastic from which evian can draw to produce plastic bottles from 100% recycled plastic.
evian is determined to leverage its global voice to drive consumer behavior change around plastic waste and recycling. evian #herothezero initiative will start to drive the awareness of the need for change in early 2018, raising consumer knowledge about circularity as a way to change how we think about plastic usage and waste. To help drive this initiative, evian will also create educational documentaries with VICE Impact.
Removing plastic waste from nature
Since 2009, through the Danone Ecosystem Fund, Danone supports long-term, locally led collection initiatives with positive social, environmental and business impacts, from reverse vending machines to inclusive recycling programs. evian seeks to help reduce the amount of plastic waste in the environment. To do that, evian, through its parent company Danone, will take part in a research mission with The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch non-profit start up that has developed scalable advanced technologies to help rid the oceans of plastic.
evian global brand Director, Patricia Oliva commented, “Rooted in its pioneering spirit and long-lasting commitment towards sustainability, evian will drive a step change to address the critical issue of plastic. We want to use the power of our global brand to take a leadership position, drive collaboration across the industry and, together with partners, transform our approach to plastic.”
Calling for collaboration with partners
To drive the step change required today, evian, calls for partnership and collaboration across industries and beyond to achieve a sustainable, large-scale change in plastic usage and waste management. Therefore, evian is partnering with Mission 2020 to inspire others in this move at the World Economic Forum in Davos and other international events in 2018.
Christiana Figueres, convener of Mission 2020 and former Executive Secretary for the United Nations Framework on Climate Change is confident we can make progress; she said, “for the first time ever we’re the generation that has the knowledge and the technology to stem the rise in global temperatures but we need to move faster. Brands taking bold steps such as evian will help shift the needle and bend the emissions curve.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
About evian®
evian natural spring water comes from the heart of the French Alps, a unique geological site in the world. For more than 15 years, it travels through the rocks, where it is enriched with naturally occurring electrolytes and minerals. The brand has been working for over 25 years to preserve natural surroundings of the source, in an effort to preserve evian natural spring water’s exceptional quality for generations to come. Naturally pure and neutrally balanced pH 7.2, evian natural spring water is a healthy choice throughout the day.
evian, a Danone brand, embraces the company’s One Planet. One Health vision that the health of the people and the health of the planet are interconnected and therefore seeks to protect and nourish both.
About the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation was created in 2009 to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. The Foundation works across five areas: insight and analysis, business and government, education and training, systemic initiatives, and communication. With its Knowledge Partners (Arup, IDEO, McKinsey & Company, and SYSTEMIQ), and supported by Core Philanthropic Funder (SUN), the Foundation works to quantify the economic opportunity of a more circular model and to develop approaches for capturing its value. The Foundation collaborates with its Global Partners (Danone, Google, H&M, Intesa Sanpaolo, NIKE, Inc., Philips, Renault, Solvay and Unilever), and its CE100 network (businesses, universities, emerging innovators, governments, cities, and affiliate organisations), to build capacity, explore collaboration opportunities and to develop circular business initiatives. The Foundation has created global teaching, learning and training platforms on the circular economy, encompassing work with leading universities, schools and colleges, and online events such as the Disruptive Innovation Festival. By establishing platforms such as the New Plastics Economy initiative, the Foundation works to transform key material flows, applying a global, cross-sectoral, cross value chain approach that aims to effect systems change. The Foundation promotes the idea of a circular economy via research reports, case studies and books series, using multiple channels, web and social media platforms, including circulatenews.org which provides a leading online source for circular economy news and insight.
Further information: ellenmacarthurfoundation.org | @circulareconomy
About Loop Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ: LOOP)
Loop’s mission is to accelerate the world’s shift toward sustainable plastic and away from our dependence on fossil fuels. Loop has created a revolutionary technology poised to disrupt the global plastics industry. This ground-breaking technology decouples plastic from fossil fuels by depolymerising waste PET plastic and Polyester fiber to its base building blocks. The monomers are then repolymerised to create virgin-quality PET plastic that is FDA approved for use in food-grade packaging. Loop™ branded PET resin allows consumer goods companies to meet and exceed their stated sustainability goals and circular ambitions. loopindustries.com
About Veolia
Veolia group is the global leader in optimized resource management. With over 163 000 employees worldwide, the Group designs and provides water, waste and energy management solutions that contribute to the sustainable development of communities and industries. Through its three complementary business activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, preserve available resources, and to replenish them.
In 2016, the Veolia group supplied 100 million people with drinking water and 61 million people with wastewater service, produced 54 million megawatt hours of energy and converted 30 million metric tons of waste into new materials and energy.
Veolia Environnement (listed on Paris Euronext: VIE) recorded consolidated revenue of €24.39 billion in 2016.
About The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup develops advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic.
Founded in 2013 by then 18-year-old Boyan Slat, The Ocean Cleanup now employs approximately 75 engineers and researchers. The foundation is headquartered in Delft, The Netherlands.
Instead of going after plastic debris with vessels and nets – which would take many thousands of years and billions of dollars to complete – The Ocean Cleanup is designing a network of extremely long floating screens that will remain in the water to act like an artificial coastline, enabling the ocean to concentrate the plastic using its own currents.
In preparation for full-scale deployment, The Ocean Cleanup organized several expeditions to map the plastic pollution problem in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with unprecedented detail. Meanwhile, the team has advanced its design through a series of rapid iteration scaling-up tests. After years of reconnaissance research, scale model testing and the deployment of prototypes on the North Sea, the first full-scale cleanup system is currently in production. It is set to be deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by mid-2018.
About Vice Impact
VICE Impact is VICE Media’s advocacy channel dedicated to connecting content with action. With compelling documentary series, investigative editorial and mobilizing advocacy campaigns VICE Impact presents the facts, curates public conversations and is committed to being part of the solution. With VICE’s global distribution, our increasingly socially conscious audience and collaboration with leading brands, foundations, organizations, and activists, we are uniquely positioned to make an impact on communities around the world.
About Mission 2020
Mission 2020 is a global campaign, convened by Christiana Figueres to accelerate action on climate change so we can reach a turning point in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
Christiana's dedicated team are delivering breakthroughs in 6 milestone areas between now and 2020 in collaboration with a wide variety of partners across the NGO and non-state actor space.