Carlsberg has long been committed to a wide range of sustainability initiatives under the umbrella programme “Together Towards ZERO”. This includes ambitions of a zero carbon footprint, energy neutrality and zero water waste.

As more than 40% of the value chain carbon footprint comes from packaging, one of the fundamental ways to minimise environmental impact is by reducing the use of materials in plastic product packaging. The objective from the beginning of the project was to fundamentally improve Carlsberg’s design and packaging in a more sustainable way.

Carlsberg has always had a drive for betterments. When we say “probably the best beer in the world”, it is because we believe that we can always make improvements. And the search for perfection is never done. This is the mindset that led us to challenge the design of all Carlsberg’s beer cans.

Plastic shrink-wrapping and rings are used to hold together multipacks of canned drinks, particularly beers.

This has been an industry-wide standard packaging device for more than 50 years, but they have become an environmental scourge – contributing to the growing ocean plastic pollution and posing a threat to marine life and to the image of the world´s global brewers.

The Snap Pack design is a sustainable packaging solution that “sticks” the cans together in a multipack form - allowing users to easily “snap” them apart when required.

The final Snap Pack design, the result of years of product research and development in collaboration with KHS systems launched in September 2018 across three major markets, Denmark, Norway and in UK at the end of the year.

The design stripped away all superfluous shrink-wrap, reducing plastic packaging by 76%, and replacing the notorious environmentally harmful plastic six pack rings with tiny dots of glue. This new kind of six pack had a sleek, minimalistic design, and is set to reduce Carlsberg’s plastic waste by 1200 tonnes a year.

The new design was supported by various campaign materials and simple posters across airports and retail, with a simple philosophical thought: “Can we reduce plastic waste if we stick together? Probably.”

Aside from the substantial 1200 tonnes of plastic waste Carlsberg is set to reduce annually, the Snap Pack design has been a very visible and tangible spearhead of brands ongoing sustainability initiatives by putting their commitment in the hands of consumers.

The design and campaign have earned more than 1.5 billion earned media impressions and counting, with unanimously positive coverage across the globe from journalists at CNN, BBC, Forbes, The Guardian, The Independent and institutions like WWF and World Economic Forum.

Since the launch in Denmark, Carlsberg has seen a 19% increase in the sales of six packs. In the UK, the country’s largest retailer, TESCO, has now started selling Carlsberg, because of the packaging. Since launching the Snap Pack last year, Carlsberg has seen a 6% increase in global growth.

To date, Carlsberg has sold over 30 million litres of beer in Snap Packs.