Envases Europe, a global supplier of advanced packaging solutions, and Tata Steel Nederland, a major producer of premium steel, have entered into a strategic agreement to offer Carbon Lite steel to Envases customers. The mass-balance1 solution gives fillers and brand owners a credible way to reduce the CO₂e impact of the steel used in their packaging, while preserving established standards for quality, safety and performance.
Carbon Lite steel supports the companies’ common objective of helping customers deliver on their sustainability commitments. By adding mass-balanced Carbon Lite steel to its packaging range, Envases Europe is giving fillers and brands a practical option for addressing Scope 3 emissions. The solution also responds to wider food and beverage industry trends, including growing demand for food and drink sustainability across the supply chain.
A clear and accountable route to Scope 3 reductions
Tata Steel Nederland is advancing its Green Steel Project2, which is intended to transform steel production at IJmuiden over time. The programme includes the planned introduction of lower-impact steelmaking technologies designed to substantially cut direct CO₂ emissions, reduce environmental impacts in the surrounding area and increase the role of scrap in production. Tata Steel Nederland aims to reach net-zero steel production by 2045. In the meantime, it provides sustainability solutions based on mass balance, book-and-claim and embodied-emissions methodologies. These approaches help customers lower their carbon footprint and promote greater circularity throughout the steel value chain.
The Carbon Lite steel supplied through Envases incorporates CO₂e reductions generated by recent decarbonisation initiatives in Tata Steel Nederland’s packaging steel production process. DNV, an independent assurance and certification organisation, has verified these reductions. A certified mass-balance accounting system then assigns the reductions to defined quantities of steel. Envases Europe transfers the resulting third-party verified emission-reduction declarations to its customers, helping them include the information in corporate carbon accounting and GHG Protocol Scope 3 reporting.
“Bringing mass-balanced Carbon Lite steel to our customers is an important step in helping our partners navigate the challenge of reducing supply chain emissions,” said Rikke Helstrup, Head of Sustainability at Envases Europe. “Carbon Lite steel provides our clients with the third-party assured data they need for their corporate carbon accounting and Scope 3 reporting, ensuring full transparency to avoid double counting without compromising on packaging quality.”
Advancing value-chain transparency
The Envases Europe and Tata Steel Nederland agreement highlights how cooperation across the value chain can accelerate greenhouse-gas emissions reductions. Such collaboration is increasingly relevant to food manufacturing trends, food processing technology and food distribution trends, as companies assess the environmental performance of packaging alongside production and logistics.
“This partnership demonstrates how collaboration across the value chain can accelerate investment in further CO2e reduction projects at Tata Steel Nederland,” adds Dennis de Koe, Director Sales Packaging. “We are proud to work with Envases Europe to help also customers further down our value chain reduce their Scope 3 emissions.”
Steel remains the world’s most recycled material3 and can be processed repeatedly without compromising its quality. With an average recycling rate of 84%4, steel packaging ranks among Europe’s most recycled packaging formats and helps retain valuable materials within the circular economy. Its durability and recyclability also support evolving food and drink packaging requirements, alongside changing food and drink regulations, food and drink marketing priorities and food and drink consumer trends.
As food and drink industry innovation continues to influence packaging decisions, solutions such as Carbon Lite steel can help businesses address environmental targets without changing the material’s physical characteristics or packaging performance.
1 The mass-balance method uses a certified accounting system to assign verified emissions reductions to particular volumes of steel, while the physical properties of the steel itself remain unchanged.
2 Learn more here: Green Steel Project | Tata Steel
3 Source: World Steel Association. Approximately 680 million tonnes of steel were recycled in 2021.
4 Source: Steel for Packaging Europe, Steel packaging recycling rate reaches record high – Steel for packaging Europe
