Carlsberg Introduces World’s First Paper Beer Bottle

Denmark’s largest brewer, Carlsberg, has upped its commitment to sustainable packaging with new beer bottle designs made with recyclable wood fibers.

Announced as part of the Carlsberg’s Together Towards Zero initiative, which includes a commitment to reach zero carbon emissions and a 30% reduction in its carbon footprint by 2030, the company is currently exploring two prototypes for its green fiber beer bottles.

Both prototypes are made from sustainably-sourced, fully recyclable wood fiber that have an inner barrier to allow the bottles to contain beer. One prototype uses a thin recycled PET polymer film barrier, and the other a 100% bio-based PEF polymer film barrier.

These prototypes will be used to test the barrier technology (read paper bottles that won’t leak) with the goal of developing a 100% bio-based bottle without polymers which would serve the company’s commercial needs.

Carlsberg has been working on this project along with corporate innovators EcoXpac, BillerudKorsnäs and post-doctoral researchers from the Technical University of Denmark since 2015.

That collaboration has led to the creation of independent paper bottle company Paboco which has already attracted additional clients include Absolut, Coca-Cola and L’Oréal.

And Myriam Shingleton, Vice President Group Development at Carlsberg Group seemed positive about the company’s movement towards sustainable packaging and the world’s first paper beer bottle…

“We continue to innovate across all our packaging formats, and we are pleased with the progress we’ve made on the Green Fiber Bottle so far. While we are not completely there yet, the two prototypes are an important step towards realizing our ultimate ambition of bringing this breakthrough to market.

“Innovation takes time and we will continue to collaborate with leading experts in order to overcome remaining technical challenges, just as we did with our plastic-reducing Snap Pack.”

This week’s announcement is but the latest from a company that has been brewing beer since 1845…

In 2018, Carlsberg announced aggressive new sustainability strategies to achieve zero CO2 emissions, water waste and accidents by 2030.

And later that year the company teamed up with award winning architect to create the world’s first waterfall-powered pub that harnessed hydro and solar power technology, and was built using only sustainable materials.

The company is also moving away from traditional plastic rings to the Snap Pack packaging concept… Snap Pack holds Carlsberg cans together with small dots of glue, which can be easily snapped apart when required, but are robust enough to stand up to commercial handling.