Ball Corporation Q&A: Decarbonising the Aluminium Industry

Reducing consumption and prioritising reuse are two key ways that consumer behaviour – driven by corporations – can support the global mission to reduce waste and the manufacturing of non-recyclable materials.  

However, it is not always possible, so more sustainable alternatives to plastics are on the rise. For example, there is a global demand for aluminium which is predicted to increase 40% by 2030.

Ball Corporation is the world’s leading provider of innovative, sustainable aluminium packaging for beverage, personal and home care products.

Predrag Ozmo, Sustainability Director at Ball Corporation, is working within the company to support the need for the aluminium sector to adapt to meet global demand as consumers place more and more importance on sustainability.

Predrag leads sustainability engagement with Ball’s global Beverage and Aerosol key accounts and is also in charge of the overall sustainability strategy of the Aerosol division.

He is advising global commercial teams on the development of sustainability-based business strategies and contributing to the development of Ball’s overarching sustainability strategy. As part of this, he is involved in various projects around aluminium packaging optimisation, carbon footprint reduction, sustainable material sourcing, recycling and circularity.

Here, he shares his expertise with Sustainability Magazine. 

Why is aluminium an important place to focus decarbonisation efforts, both on a large scale and for Ball Corporation specifically?

As a whole, the aluminium industry emits more than 1 billion tons of CO₂ a year, and global demand for the material is only expected to grow, with an increase of almost 40% expected by 2030.

With consumers placing more and more importance on sustainability, and legislation requiring businesses to take greater accountability for their environmental impact, Ball has a unique opportunity to lead the way on decarbonisation for the sector and beyond, leveraging the inherent properties of aluminium to meet growing demand while also prioritising sustainability. 

What is Ball's approach to decarbonisation?

First and foremost, we focus on leveraging aluminium’s inherent properties to decarbonise our own business and pave the way for sustainable solutions for our customers. 

Ball’s approach to decarbonisation is defined by our 1.5°C-aligned Climate Transition Plan (CTP), which we released in 2023, outlining the pathway for transforming into a fully circular and decarbonised business. Our strategy revolves around harnessing transparent data, proven technologies and partnerships to achieve circularity, with minimal reliance on offsetting.

Our 2023 Combined Report, published in March 2024, highlights progress against the CTP to date, including significant year-over-year reductions – 29% – in absolute greenhouse gas emissions across Scopes 1, 2 and 3. This progress is driven by increased renewable electricity coverage, with 58% of global electricity usage coming from renewable sources for the first time, higher recycled content and various other dynamics. 

It’s been fantastic to see the CTP receive highly positive feedback from Ball’s customers, who are committed to working together to meet sustainability goals and future-proof the industry. 

What is Ball's approach to aluminium decarbonisation?

A key part of our decarbonisation plan is to achieve 90% recycling rates and with that enable 85% recycled content by 2030 in aluminium beverage cans, bottles and cups across the markets where we operate – something that is entirely feasible with current technologies and by leveraging policies already implemented in many countries around the world.

Ball is also a strong advocate for public-private collaboration across the entire value chain as a catalyst for change at scale. For example, we co-founded the First Movers Coalition (FMC), a global initiative harnessing the purchasing power of companies to decarbonise seven hard to abate industrial sectors, including aluminium.

The aluminium branch of the FMC is aiming for at least 10% of their annual primary aluminium to be classed as very low-carbon by 2030 (below 3 t CO2e per ton of aluminium produced) and we hope to see more of this kind of collaboration across the upstream and downstream value chain as industry-wide decarbonisation efforts gain momentum.

What is the importance of maximising secondary aluminium production and the inclusion of recycled content in aluminium products? 

With recycling requiring only 5% of the energy needed to produce primary aluminium, maximising secondary aluminium production and the inclusion of recycled content in aluminium products will be critical to decarbonising the supply chain.   

We want beverage cans to be recycled into new beverage cans rather than aluminium becoming trapped in products with a longer lifecycle, such as cars or planes. Advancing closed loop recycling, where the recycled material is used to create a new version of the same product, will ensure recycled aluminium from packaging remains in circulation, thereby enabling the packaging industry to rely less heavily on primary aluminium.

With recycling infrastructure varying considerably across different geographies, deposit return schemes represent a quick and efficient way to increase recycling rates of packaging. They provide consumers with an incentive to recycle, while investment in reuse and refill projects, such as the Boomerang bottling system, also forms an important part of our future strategy.   

It’s worth noting that even as the demand and availability of recycled aluminium grows, there will never be enough to displace the need for primary aluminium. This is why we need to decarbonise primary aluminium production in tandem with maximising secondary production.  

Why is engaging the upstream value chain key to reducing the carbon footprint of primary aluminium, in order to achieve a 1.5°C-aligned aluminium sector?

While it’s important for individual companies to take accountability for their footprint, even the biggest players will struggle to bring about transformation at scale and speed if they’re acting alone. Industry collaboration both up and down the value chain is therefore the first step to achieving a 1.5°C-aligned aluminium sector. 

With aluminium demand set to rise, working with upstream value chain partners to strike the right balance between the supply of primary and secondary aluminium is just one example of how we can improve as an industry when there’s good collaboration and shared goals.

At Ball, we’re seeing encouraging levels of engagement from our upstream and downstream partners; the task now is making sure we capture this motivation and keep making progress towards common targets. 

How can we overcome obstacles to decarbonisation, including access to low-carbon power across different geographies, and the challenges and opportunities around reducing and removing in-process emissions from aluminium production?

Reducing and removing in-process emissions from aluminium production is a key priority, including addressing the smelting process itself. 

Carbon-free smelting, which relies on replacing existing anodes with inert materials in order to emit only oxygen instead of CO₂, is an invaluable new technology. 

However, given the extreme difficulty and high cost of retrofitting existing smelters, we will need to see steady demand for this technology to be scaled globally, while other promising solutions are currently in development and not yet available at commercial scale.  

We also need to focus on reducing energy-related emissions, which is challenging given disparate access to low-carbon power across different geographies. For example, hydropower is a feasible option in Scandinavia, but doesn’t necessarily represent a current solution for other regions.  

What is your vision for primary aluminium production?

The opportunities, cohesion and expertise necessary for deep decarbonisation of the industry are there, but collaboration across the entire value chain will be crucial to achieve impact at scale. 

Through harnessing the combined power of the sector through cooperation, knowledge-sharing and expanding partnerships such as the First Movers Coalition, we can accelerate progress towards net zero, setting a leading example for other industrial sectors to follow. 

Our vision is therefore for cross-industry collaboration on sustainable aluminium packaging solutions to ensure our actions today pave the way for a better tomorrow.

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