O-I’s multi-award winning Lean+Green? lightweight wine bottles have won two more significant honours, this time at the 2009 Australian Packaging Awards in Melbourne.
Lean+Green? won gold in the Carter Holt Harvey Sustainability Award, edging out packaging from confectioner Cadbury.
The award applauds packaging that has been reinvented or created to demonstrate a significant advance in environmental considerations and provides a benchmark for its product or market segment. Lean+Green? also took out the Packaging Council of Australia’s (PCA) Best of Show Award.
The Best of Show Award goes to the entry that represents the greatest overall achievement in its category and is selected from the event’s nine gold winning entries.
"The judges specifically applaud the impact of the lightweight wine bottle range as a supplier initiative that benefits both customers and the industry as a whole," PCA judges said.
"This innovation comes at a time when there is a confluence of imperatives at play. Issues of sustainability, emissions, energy and moderation of packaging and resources are paramount, but so are matters of domestic manufacturing, economic viability and exports, and all are addressed through this solution.
"The saving of almost 20,000 tonnes of glass packaging a year has a massive flow-on benefit for industry and the environment. The reduction in cost, weight, energy and water usage from each bottle is staggering.
"The advances can potentially be applied to other products and, due to the sheer volume of the application, this design solution has the capacity to impact on millions of products worldwide," the judges concluded.
This latest recognition for Lean+Green? comes after two awards at the 2009 Packaging Evolution Awards in Sydney in August, taking the product’s total number of awards to four.
O-I Asia Pacific President Greg Ridder says the 2009 Australian Packaging Awards are prestigious and reinforce the value of sustainable innovation for O-I and its customers.
"Lean+Green? has really struck a chord with retailers, customers and the Australian wine industry," Mr Ridder says.
"We are now seeing brands like Banrock Station and Eighty Acres communicating the sustainability benefits of lighter weight bottles.
"They are not just buying packaging but they are also attaching the positive attributes of the packaging to their brands.
"One of the real benefits of Lean+Green? is that customers can gain a number of sustainability and economic wins but the look and feel of their bottles has been retained.
"I think the great thing about initiatives like Lean+Green? is that we’re seeing the market uptake, the flow of benefits through the supply chain to consumers and the return to O-I Australia through the recycling loop."
Mr Ridder says Lean+Green? is a key method of partnering the Australian wine industry to retain its premium image and help prevent bottling occurring away from source.
Launched in Australia and the United Kingdom in May, Lean+Green? wine bottles are between 18 and 28% lighter than their predecessors.
New narrow neck press and blow (NNPB) technology at O-I’s Adelaide plant delivers the substantially lighter-weight and more environmentally friendly bottles that will immediately save almost 20,000 tonnes of glass packaging a year.
O-I anticipates this figure could treble inside two years as the Australian wine industry embraces the product and O-I adds more NNPB capability to its facilities.
Following initial market success, the range has already grown from French Green to include four new colours - Antique Green, Classic Green, Flint and Arctic Blue.
Bottles in the new colours will be brought into production through the balance of 2009. In addition to less glass, the production process for the lighter-weight bottles provides strong environmental benefits such as:
A 20% reduction in energy use to produce the same number of bottles;
A carbon dioxide saving of more than 11,130 tonnes of CO2 per annum – or the equivalent of 4120 less 4-cylinder cars on Australian roads each year*;
An average 12% drop in water usage per container;
Overall water savings of 4720kL or the equivalent of 6.3 Olympic swimming pools a year; and
840 more bottles packed into a 20ft shipping container (an increase of 6.25%).