Carlsberg announced in 2015 that it had partnered with Danish Danish packaging company EcoXpac in a three-year project to to develop a beer bottle made from sustainably sourced wood fibre.
In late September, at the Sustainable Brands 2016 Copenhagen conference, the company recently revealed what this bottle could look like when it hits the market in 2018.
The new design of the beer bottle was developed with Carlsberg’s partners in the Carlsberg Circular Community as well as CP+B Copenhagen and Kilo, a Danish industrial design studio.
“The new bottle is a great milestone in the project, as having a physical prototype makes it easier for us to explain the new packaging format to consumers and colleagues. I think the new bottle looks great and shows how we can use innovation and design to help shape products for a better tomorrow,” says Simon Boas Hoffmeyer, Sustainability Director.
“The bottle has been created with input from some of the leading packaging specialists in the world, who are very excited to participate in the project. Though we still have technical challenges to overcome, we're on track on the project,” says Håkon Langen, Packaging Innovation Director.
According to Carlsberg, the 'Green Fiber Bottle' will be a landmark in sustainable innovation. Its fibres will come from responsibly managed sources, with trees replanted at the same rate that they are harvested. While the bottle will degrade into environmentally non-harmful materials if discarded randomly, the intention is that it will form part of a proper waste management system, just like today’s bottles and cans, the company says.
The three-year project is supported by Innovation Fund Denmark and the Technical University of Denmark. The Green Fiber Bottle is scheduled to be test-launched in a pilot market in 2018.
