Berry Global Group Inc. recently announced the approval of projects that will help it achieve its new milestone goal to eliminate 100 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity from its operations. Berry surpassed its initial target to eliminate 1 million kWh from its operations in 2020 and is leveraging that success to reach its 100 million kWh goal. With an original deadline of September 2021, Berry is ahead of schedule in achieving these project approvals.

Through the sharing of best practices, Berry team members collaborated across 324 energy-saving projects to achieve record energy reduction. In addition, 5 million kWh were saved through improvements that did not require capital investment. These reductions in energy directly reduce Berry’s scope 1 and 2 emissions, which inherently reduce customers’ scope 3 emissions. The emissions saved from this reduction in energy are equal to the CO₂ emissions to power over 8,500 homes for one year, charge 8.6 billion smartphones, and greenhouse gas emissions of 15,000 passenger vehicles for one year.

“In line with our Science-Based Targets to minimize our environmental impacts, we are closely evaluating our energy usage as an important step toward a net-zero economy. Achieving a goal such as this requires the collective expertise of team members at all of our 285 facilities working toward the same goal of lower carbon emissions,” said Tom Salmon, chairman and CEO.

Accomplished through hundreds of small projects, team members from around the world led initiatives to decrease energy use in Berry’s facilities. Just one example can be seen in Berry’s Terno d’Isola, Italy, facility, where team members implemented programming to automatically shut off equipment when not needed, eliminating 70 min of energy every day. Through the implementation of the Terno d’Isola’s energy project, the site saved a total of 45,000 kWh, equaling a total of 31.9 MT in carbon emissions, or enough energy to fuel seven cars for one year.

“The one million kWh challenge was just a reminder of the little things we can all do in our plants and offices to reduce kWh consumption, like turning off the lights, turning off conveyors, and taking advantage of free cooling, but the transition to the 100 million kWh challenge in 2021 was an effort to highlight the results we can realize when we work together with the specific purpose of reducing energy consumption,” said Rodgers Greenawalt, executive vice president of Operations for Berry Global.

Learn more about Berry Global Group Inc. at www.berryglobal.com.