Working towards Environmental Sustainability at Yakult

Posted on December 1 2022. Written by Yakult.

In the recent years, the environment has become an important topic all over the world. With an increasing awareness around its importance, many companies have incorporated positive changes in order to be more environmentally friendly. The main ways that we look after the environment are by saving electricity, saving water, composting and even changing the material of the grocery bags we use!

Another way to improve the environment is to look towards recycling. The benefits of recycling include lowering greenhouse gas emissions. This is because it requires more energy to produce new products compared to producing products from recycled material. Benefits of recycling also decreases the amount of waste in the limited spaced landfills which overtime can create liquid toxins poisonous to the lakes and rivers.

Globally, the Yakult company recognises the importance of recycling. This is embedded in their corporate slogan and environmental vision that states “In order for people to be healthy, everything around them must also be healthy.” This emphasises the importance of having clean water, air and the soil to live off.

The Yakult global team has three areas of corporate social responsibility (CSR) which include the environment, health and local communities. Each area relates to one or more of the 12 sustainable development goals (SDG’s). Through the 6 SDG’s related to the environment, Yakult is committed to:

Realising a low carbon society by actively working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Using resources effectively by applying the 3R’s (reduce, reuse and recycle)
Preserving biodiversity by reviewing our impact on the environment at each stage in our business activities.

The Yakult Group has set a goal to reduce its single use plastic by 30% by 2030 (compared to 2018). The following examples below state how we are working towards our goal:

The only factory for Yakult Europe is in Netherlands. This factory produces bottles for 13 countries in Europe including Italy, Denmark, Germany and more. In 2019, Yakult Europe changed its polypropylene packing to cardboard packaging. This action has decreased the use of plastic film by approximately 12,441 kilograms per year.

In 2020, Yakult Australia made the decision to remove the single use plastic straws in the Yakult Original 10 pack. Instead, changes were made to the size of the foil cap and adhesive used to make them easier to open. Yakult Australia also uses a soft scrunch-able plastic for the outer packaging that can be possible to recycle in the soft plastic recycling deposits found in many large supermarkets. At the Dandenong factory, we also get our plastic bottles picked up by companies who then recycle our bottles into other goods.

Yakult Japan has recycled the bottles to create other goods! In 2008 Yakult Japan created bottle openers and in 2014 the company created rulers that were distributed free of charge to people participating in tours and environmental events.

For our future, we are looking to change our packaging with the aim of becoming more environmentally friendly. Work is in progress, as Yakult aims to consider and investigate potential materials in cooperation with not only national and local governments but internationally as well.

So, watch this space!

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