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Get a Green Grip Steve Waygood, Head of Quality and Product Design, explains how <strong>the</strong> cardboard Green Grip became a reality, replacing plastic hi-cones and meeting our target to remove customer-facing plastic. Stephen Waygood Head of Quality and Product Design Aim to remain as carbon neutral as possible Finding a sustainable replacement for plastic hi-cone rings has been an exciting and fast paced project to work on. Tesco, one of our biggest customers, had an ambition of having no customer-facing plastic by early 2020 – which drove our timeline faster. We went with <strong>the</strong> innovative, minimalist design of Green Grip ra<strong>the</strong>r than <strong>the</strong> easier option of conventional packaging, such as cardboard boxes, to keep our carbon footprint as low as possible. It’s no good finding an alternative to plastic that actually adds to our carbon footprint. Hitting our targets In <strong>the</strong> breweries, we’ve phased out four plastic ring machines and have just one left to go. In Tadcaster, we’ve installed a sleever as an interim measure, but will remove this and install Green Grip in 2022. Our overall target is to eliminate 500 tonnes of plastic from <strong>the</strong> market through <strong>the</strong> introduction of <strong>the</strong> Green Grip. To date, through installing <strong>the</strong> three Green Grip machines and <strong>the</strong> sleever we’ve dispensed with 50 million plastic rings, and we’ve done away with 100 tonnes of plastic. COVID didn’t stop us Kudos to everyone involved – from suppliers to engineers – for getting this done. We collaborated with production teams across <strong>the</strong> UK, <strong>the</strong> Innovation team in <strong>the</strong> Ne<strong>the</strong>rlands, cardboard suppliers in Spain and machine suppliers in Italy. When COVID hit and international travel was restricted, this meant a lot of <strong>the</strong> work had to be done remotely. This made getting <strong>the</strong> machines manufactured, signed off, imported, installed, and commissioned very complicated – but we didn’t let that stop us! Plastic’s durability is one of its better attributes, and so replacing it with cardboard that is not as strong, has resulted in some instances where <strong>the</strong> packs have broken in store, in part due to <strong>the</strong> different handling requirements compared to <strong>the</strong> plastic rings. And so we’re currently looking at how we can enhance <strong>the</strong> design of <strong>the</strong> Green Grip to maximise its strength and minimise any damaged in store Bringing customers & consumers on <strong>the</strong> journey We’re closely monitoring how Green Grip performs in trade – we appreciate that it’s quite a shift for our customers. The old plastic rings were very robust, so we need to ensure we’re bringing our customers with us on our sustainability journey, providing <strong>the</strong>m with engaging communications which detail <strong>the</strong> environmental benefits. From a consumer point of view, I’m pleased to say that our sales reflect consumers’ willingness to change <strong>the</strong>ir habits for a greener alternative. Steve says: Thanks, Grazie, Gracias, Danke… The delivery has required a lot of trust between <strong>the</strong> production teams, global production and international suppliers, and has required <strong>the</strong> involvement of teams from across HEINEKEN UK. I thank <strong>the</strong>m all. 23