PLASTICS PACKAGE: Are new spirit bottles Virgin on greenwashing?

This month we say ‘eau no’ to water in a can, chew over the latest fibre-based NPD, and reveal a bitter twist in aviation’s aluminium bottle race. By David Burrows.

“Drinking canned water is a way to lead a life of self-optimisation while still retaining a countercultural spirit,” said Joanna Lowry, head of strategy at Protein, a brand agency – in what represents the most brand agency thing that someone from a brand agency has ever said. Ever

Lowry was speaking to the FT’s How to Spend It magazine, which was featuring the “radical rebranding of water”. We can’t just drink H2O, so now there is a boom in beverages that are water – but as not as we know it. Think the canned water craze post BBC Blue Planet, but on steroids. Or rather seltzers and electrolytes. This single-serve water-ish market is worth $34.4bn (£27bn) in the US, boasting brands like Liquid Death and Not Beer.

The former, which launched here in the UK last year, has become a billion-dollar brand in almost the blink of an eye. “Liquid Death makes a heaven out of its (endlessly recyclable) metallic packaging, and a hell out of polluting plastic bottled water rivals,” noted The Grocer in a recent ode to its success. The editor of the grocery sector’s bible did however wonder whether the sustainability claims of a brand that relies on single-use packaging to sell water will eventually come out in the wash.

The fact this ‘NPD’ is readily available from taps in the US and UK doesn’t turn investors off, it seems. Fellow canned water brand Not Beer is actually marketed as a “zero-taste beer”. Really. Which has seen me pop a label on the taps at home – ‘zero taste fizzy pop’ – and save £50 on an AirUp (don’t get me started on what that craze is fuelling in our kids).

Alu-minimum transparency

On the subject of aluminium, we have to mention the miniatures that seem crazily popular among spirits brands currently. Virgin Atlantic and easyJet have both bought into the concept, which is lighter than glass 5cl bottles. It’s also not plastic (see Packages down the ages for more on that front). 

There has been a bit of a race to get these bottles onto the market first – both among the drinks suppliers and the airlines. Virgin Atlantic claimed victory with an “aviation first” in March, according to its Instagram. Working with BCorp Sapling Spirits it launched a “low carbon aluminium 5cl to replace plastic spirit bottles on board”. This time last year Sapling closed a seven-figure fundraising round to accelerate its work “leading the way in sustainable spirits”. The company’s strapline is: “Spirits that leave a good taste in your mouth.”

But that Virgin announcement had others choking on their slice and ice. How had Sapling so quickly managed to design the bottles and then secure a steady supply of recycled aluminium to make enough of them for Branson’s behemoth? Well, turns out they hadn’t. After some to-ing and fro-ing, co-founder Ed Faulker (eventually) fessed up and told The Package that the first batch of bottles was made from virgin aluminium. 

And that’s important because the carbon footprint of recycled aluminium is only a fraction of that for virgin (around 5% according to Carbon Cloud data). Sapling, as Faulker explained, didn’t mention the bottles were made from recycled aluminium in any press materials, so this isn’t an obvious case of greenwashing. But the fact this was virgin aluminium wasn’t mentioned either. There is therefore a debate to be had around the “lower carbon” claim made (and picked up by multiple press outlets). 

Faulkner said: “While the first batch was not made from 100% recycled materials, all subsequent products are made from 100% recycled materials. Transparency is vital to us, which is why we publish all product footprints on our website.” 

It’s, errr, Virgin on greenwashing. Suffice to say Sapling will think twice before jumping first next time. Faulkner said: “It is crucial that this misunderstanding does not negatively impact the perception of our commitment to environmental responsibility, something we have spent five years building through transparency, direct environmental action, and community engagement.” The company offsets its carbon to make carbon neutral claims and has been active in pushing reuse models. Go square that circle. 

Holy Fail?

New packaging concepts can rise up and quickly take over these days. Which brings us (in what now appears to be a drinks special) to paper bottles. 

The likes of Diageo, Pepsi and Pernod Ricard are agonisingly close to this apparent Holy Grail of beverage packaging, reported the Wall Street Journal last month in a worthwhile read about the 100-year quest to make a paper bottle. “But putting liquids in paper is inherently challenging,” the author warned (no doubt with one eyebrow raised and a wink, we assume). 

Indeed, the paper bottle Diageo promised in 2021 for Johnnie Walker whisky has yet to hit shelves, for example. Others are basically a plastic bag in a bottle-shaped box (the paper-based bottle launched by Absolut Vodka 12 months ago was 57% paper and 43% plastic). And yet still they try. 

Summer is a good time for it, with festivals and the like. Diageo has for example been trialling paper-based packaging for Baileys in Spain recently. The dry moulded fibre bottle is 90% paper, with a thin plastic liner and a foil seal. The liner is “so thin that consumers can put it in their usual paper recycling stream and don’t need to separate the bottle from the liner”, explained Ewan Andrew, president, global supply chain and procurement and chief sustainability officer at Diageo. 

That’s different to Aldi’s paper wine bottle, which is made from 94% recycled paperboard and must be separated from the plastic liner. A consumer test of two by online platform Watch Me Think, suggests it’s not difficult to prise the paper and plastic apart. 

The Paboco initiative, of which Coca-Cola and Carlsberg are a part, has produced paper bottles for beer if you recall – which could bring down emissions (and reportedly boost sales among female drinkers). Global packaging firm Alpla is now the major shareholder at Paboco and is thinking big: there is a new manufacturing site in Slangerup, Denmark, that will aim to deliver over 20 million paper bottles by the end of next year. The next-gen container, available in 500ml and 330ml, is reportedly 85% paper (14g) and 15% HDPE barrier (2.6g). 

Glass’s reflection

Alpla also just launched a 750ml PET plastic bottle that weighs 50g. It has a 38% lower footprint than glass, according to Alpla (we can’t see the full life cycle assessment published anywhere), which is further lowered if recycled PET (rPET) is used. Chuck in 30% rPET and 42% CO2e is saved compared to glass; while for 100% rPET it’s a saving of 50%. How does it compare to paper, we wonder? Or a reusable bottle?

Those invested in glass are certainly facing some tough decisions. Glass is heavy and that pumps up emissions when it’s shipped or trucked. Diageo is trialling lightweighting of glass bottles using a novel coating developed by Exxergy that helps maintain bottle strength. The drinks giant has just invested in the second round of lab testing. 

But plastic, paper and aluminium are all vying for glass’s share of the single-use drinks packaging pie in the name of net-zero. As Amcor Rigid Packaging public affairs expert Chris Kozak puts it: “The environmental advantages of PET plastic wine bottles is causing an industry with centuries of tradition to re-evaluate how they do things.” 

We’d argue that it wouldn’t hurt for those companies with just a few months of tradition do the same thing: and to stop and think things through. Single-use, whatever the material, is often so convenient and so integral to our current economy that it doesn’t allow the time and space to do that. Which reminds me it’s time for my coffee break.


  1. Charles Turner avatar

    I can confirm that we did use recycled aluminium. Happy to share our raw material certificates with anyone. We are certainly not perfect but we do know how damaging virgin aluminium is to the planet and to the concept that we are trying to create. To get consumers to change habits is bloody hard and confusion just makes the task harder.