Planet Positive

The public debate on sustainability had reached an all-time high, with headlines about shifting global warming targets and images of packaging littered on beaches.

Tetra Pak had long been committed to sustainability, with a founding principle that a package should save more than it costs, and its commitments demonstrated leadership on the topic.

But the conversation about packaging's role was focused on recycling, and competing formats like plastic and glass were winning that debate on the strength of better deposit schemes and circularity.

What the packaging debate missed was carbon. Plastic comes from non-renewable fossil fuels. Glass is carbon-heavy to make.

Tetra Pak's cartons come primarily from renewable materials, are more efficient to store and transport, and the company had a product roadmap full of sustainability innovations on the horizon.

Targeting influencers, policy-makers and customers, Tetra Pak introduced an ownable vision of the low-carbon circular economy: Planet Positive. The platform imagined a world where everything a business does makes a positive impact on the planet.

It launched alongside a policy whitepaper produced with Material Economics to give the argument credibility, and was carried into public conversation through a thought leadership programme and media partnerships with BBC and National Geographic.

The programme fed into European policy on single-use plastics. It made the case for how long innovation at that scale genuinely takes, and built enough trust that industry and legislators were understood to be heading in the same direction.

Planet Positive earned Tetra Pak a place in the conversations that matter most — sustainability, innovation and food systems — and outperformed its engagement targets.

Finalist, EMEA SABRE Awards, Corporate Social Responsibility.