Our Sustainable Packaging Approach

Packaging plays a critical role in delivering our products safely, fresh and ready to enjoy. We are improving packaging sustainability to limit environmental impacts and increase packaging recovery and recycling, while safeguarding product integrity.

Targets and Ambition
Progress and Impact
Industry Collaboration

Sustainable Packaging in Practice

Well-designed packaging is essential to deliver dairy nutrition. It preserves product quality, protects consumer health and safety, maintains shelf life, enables secure transport, supports accessibility, and meets regulatory requirements across different markets.

While delivering products safely remains our top priority, we are also focused on reducing the environmental impact of how those products reach our consumers.

Our approach to sustainable packaging balances these considerations through practical, measurable improvements across the full packaging system from material choices to end-of-life outcomes, to labelling that supports correct disposal.

Our product packaging portfolio

Selecting the right packaging for our products is complex. Each product has unique requirements for safety, consumer use, freshness, and shelf life, which means we use a mix of materials across our portfolio.

Today, our primary packaging includes steel cans, high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic milk bottles, liquid paperboard milk cartons, and cardboard shipping boxes.

The a2 Milk Company works collaboratively across its value chain to improve how packaging is designed, used, recovered and disposed of. We are focused on increasing recycled content and designing packaging that supports a circular economy for all the materials used in our packaging portfolio.

Steel cans are the most significant primary packaging material used by The a2 Milk Company, including for all infant milk formula products. Steel cans provide excellent product safety and shelf-life, and they are also highly recyclable as a valuable material in our consumer markets.

Where plastic (HDPE) bottles and liquid paperboard cartons are used, we seek to support recycling programmes and effective consumer labelling to drive recovery through these programmes and recycling systems.

From Design to Disposal: Targets Across the Packaging Lifecycle

Our approach to sustainable packaging addresses three priorities:

Reducing material use to optimise packaging whilst maintaining product integrity
Designing packaging for recovery and recycling
Increasing the use of recycled material in packaging to drive the circular economy

Targets and commitments:

Phase-out of single-use and problematic plastics
50% recycled content across our packaging portfolio
100% of packaging recyclable by our consumers in local markets
Drive packaging recovery through consumer messaging

Packaging metrics are calculated based on the volume (by weight) of packaging placed on the market, determined by the number of sales units per year.

Progress and Performance Against Targets

Clear, measurable targets allow us to track performance over time and understand where our efforts make the most impact. Details and latest data can be found in the ESG reporting library.

Phase-out of Single-use and Problematic Plastics

We have phased out problematic and unnecessary single-use plastics across our packaging, reducing material waste and lowering the risk of unnecessary plastic entering the environment.

Target
STATUS
Phase-out single use and problematic plastics
Complete
As at 30 June 2025

Increasing Recycled Content - Driving the Circular Economy

We are working with our packaging suppliers to reduce reliance on virgin materials and utilise recycled content where it is safe and practical to do so. One example of progress is the use of 20% recycled HDPE in our 2-litre, 3-litre and 3.5-litre fresh milk bottles produced at our Smeaton Grange facility in New South Wales, delivering the same food safety and performance with less new plastic.

While we know steel cans contain recycled content, validating the levels of recycled material is an industry-wide challenge and is something we continue to work towards.

Target
STATUS
50% Recycled content across portfolio
Progressing
As at 30 June 2025

Packaging Design for Recycling

We design packaging with end-of-life in mind, so it can be recovered and recycled through existing systems where our products are sold. Market-specific assessments across Australia, New Zealand, China and the United States allow us to understand local recycling capabilities and adjust packaging where appropriate. The vast majority of consumers can recycle our packaging using their existing local systems.

Target
STATUS
100% of packaging recyclable by our consumers in their local market
On Track
As at 30 June 2025

Supporting Correct Disposal

Recyclability works best when consumers know how to dispose of packaging correctly. We are ensuring there are clear, consistent messages on our packages that guide and encourage responsible disposal.

Target
STATUS
Drive recovery through consumer messaging
On Track
As at 30 June 2025

Industry Collaboration

Improving packaging sustainability is a shared responsibility across industry and government.

The a2 Milk Company is a member of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), a product steward responsible for leading the transition to a circular packaging economy.

APCO has recognised The a2 Milk Company at the highest performance level, ‘Beyond Best Practice’, reflecting our progress and leadership in sustainable packaging and circularity.

We are also members of the New Zealand Packaging Forum and contribute to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes in Oregon and Colorado to support producer-led responsibility for packaging recovery and recycling in the United States and continuously monitor other applicable schemes for the markets in which our products are sold.

The ESG reporting library contains all voluntary and mandatory climate and ESG disclosures, performance updates and detailed sustainability data.

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