Food processing and packaging solutions provider Tetra Pak has released its Sustainability Report 2021, reinforcing its ambitions and its commitment to protect food, people and the planet.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe and put food supply chains under difficulties. Tetra Pak worked in partnership with customers to guarantee continuity of supplies, equipment and needed technical assistance to ensure customers' operations throughout the pandemic. In 2020 alone, over 77 billion litres of products have been sold in Tetra Pak packages globally.

In Viet Nam, Tetra Pak worked with F&B manufacturers to provide more than 1.71 billion litres of safe and nutritious drinks to Vietnamese consumers, according to the report.

The report said that Tetra Pak pursued a high level of worker safety and promoted mental wellbeing of all colleagues throughout the pandemic. The company received “Great Place to Work” certification and was ranked leader by the global environmental non-profit charity CDP for the fifth year running for environmental transparency and action.

As initiatives in response to the fight against COVID-19 in Viet Nam, Tetra Pak donated PCR test kits worth 80,000 euro, equivalent to VND2 billion, to the Centre for Disease Control of Ha Nam Province and donated a respirator system worth 10,000 euro, equivalent to VND250 million, to the Tuoi tre (Youth) Newspaper’s charity programme.

Tetra Pak Vietnam also provided the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) in which employees and their family members are given counselling services, and other information on personal and work-related issues 24/7. The company supported employees who have children with childcare costs via the Daycare of Children programme during the COVID-19 outbreak.

In Viet Nam, 98 per cent of Tetra Pak carton packages have FSC-certified labels. Tetra Pak Binh Duong was the first of its kind in Viet Nam to achieve the latest and most-demanding LEED Version 4 Gold Certification, helping to save 17.6 million litres of water a year, recycling or salvaging 65 per cent of generated construction waste and decreasing 4,000 tons of CO2 emissions.

Tetra Pak Vietnam has been pioneering a wide range of initiatives towards carton recycling, such as developing 45 drop-off stations in public places across Ha Noi and HCM City to help the community with better access to carton collection.

The company also worked with municipal authorities to collect and recycle used carton packages from more than 1,600 schools in Ha Noi and HCM City, thereby educating children about waste segregation and beverage carton collecting and recycling; and collecting more than 632 tonnes of used beverage cartons from local communities over the past three years. — VNS