Our sustainability journey started with a single innovation designed to extend the shelf life of beverages and reduce waste. More than 125 years later, our product portfolio, geographic footprint and employee base have expanded significantly, but our core principles and commitment to sustainability have been steadfast.

We have been formally reporting on our sustainability performance on a biennial basis since 2011. In this section of our website, you can access our current and past sustainability reports, get insight into how we calculate our data and to which global initiatives we report our data.

Measuring and Monitoring 

To drive the implementation and success of the Twentyby30 program, KPIs have been developed for each goal and we have implemented the equipment, processes and capabilities needed to capture data and monitor our performance on an ongoing basis. We are also creating a culture of sustainability data governance within our organization. Plants are required to measure and report on their consumption of water, fuel and electricity, discharge of wastewater, the amount of waste generated and disposed and other parameters. 

Utilizing the operational data, we have created internal monthly corporate scorecards where overall performance for each sustainability goal is reported and best practices and opportunities for improvement are highlighted. This deep insight into our operations will ultimately enable us to innovate and offer resources and best practices that help improve sustainability performance across the Company.

Reporting

We are committed to identifying and reporting on the most material, business-specific, sustainability risks and opportunities and elaborating on how they are managed. Additionally, we have disclosed KPI’s for each Twentyby30 program goal and will verify our performance against them. 

2019 Sustainability Report – ‘Building a Sustainable Roadmap’

View our latest Sustainability Report to learn more about the progress we have made on our sustainability journey and where we are headed next.

Previous Reports

Calculating Our Data and Tracking Our Progress Toward 2020 Goals

Since we manufacture a variety of containers in different sizes, using different metals and glass, and serving different markets, along with ends, vacuum closures and crowns, we developed a set of conversion factors to transform these container and closure production volumes into 12oz. (Ø211) aluminum beverage can equivalent volumes, or “units.” This modification more accurately represents our efforts to conserve raw material use and reduce emissions over time. 

In our early Sustainability Reports, we used a three-factor conversion to recast our entire production into a standard 12oz. aluminum beverage can. In those reports, the conversion of Type of Metal was used to convert steel beverage cans into the standard aluminum material type. Since our 2013 Sustainability Report, our production of steel beverage cans has decreased and is no longer material to our overall production. Therefore, we no longer needed to include this conversion. 

Starting with our 2017 report, we have used a two-factor conversion to represent our entire production into standard 12oz. aluminum beverage can units. Our 2017 report was also the first summary to include glass bottle production, which was gained through the acquisition of EMPAQUE. For the purpose of calculating standard production units, glass bottles will only factor in the container capacity, as the bottles we manufacture are solely for the purpose of bottling beverages. For emission data in our reports, glass bottle manufacturing is separated from metal manufacturing. This separation is consistent with other multi-material packaging companies and allows the different manufacturing process to be evaluated separately.

The two conversion factors we are still employing are explained in more detail below.

  1. Product functional requirements: This factor adjusts for the fact that different market applications (e.g. beverage cans, food cans and aerosol cans) use different amounts of metal for the same sized can due to very different requirements such as pressure performance. These values were determined by comparing the amount of metal required for an approximately 355ml container across different applications. For beverage cans, the value is 1.0; for food cans, the value is 1.5; and for aerosol containers, the value is 2.0.
  2. Container capacity (fluid volume): We used three different approaches to correct for the extra raw materials required for different sized containers/closures:
  • For a 2-piece container, we used the weight of different sized containers. This is because height changes have a relatively smaller impact on metal utilization for such containers, as the thinnest part of the container is expanded or reduced to change size, with little change to the top and bottom of the containers.
  • For draw/redraw and 3-piece containers, we simply used the volumetric capacity of the container to determine the conversion factor.
  • For our metal (vacuum) closures, we determined the correction factor directly from the weight of the closure derived from our cut edge and thickness data.

Some illustrative examples, representing some of our more significant production volumes, are provided below:

  • A single 16oz. (Ø211) aluminum beverage container would be converted into 1.33 standard "units."
  • A Ø300 x 409 steel food can would be converted into 2.685 standard "units" (1.79 due to volume times 1.5 due to the functionality).
  • A Ø57x164 aerosol can would be converted into 2.36 standard "units" (1.18 due to volume times 2.0 due to the functionality).
  • A single 8oz glass bottle container would be converted into 0.67 standard “units.”

The functionality factor was validated by comparing typical weights as per example:

Container Size Brim-full Gauge Weight (g) Ratio
3-piece food can 65x112 355 0.14 body/0.17 NEO 32.14 1.48
3-piece aerosol can 65/60/63x112 355 0.20 body / 0.30 bottom 44.86 2.07


Given the large range of containers we produce, we needed to make some simplifying assumptions. In all cases, these assumptions will not have a material effect on the outcome.

  1. For every 2-piece container, we produce one end and for every 3-piece container, we produce two ends. This is a very good approximation as it is very nearly the case, but is not exactly true in all circumstances.
  2. We have eliminated the number of unit containers sold data from our Promotional Packaging Business Unit as it represents < 5% of our total revenues. We have done this since the types and volumes of products in this business segment vary greatly, from very small ~10 milliliter containers to 20 liter containers, and because the product mix can vary dramatically from year to year.

In recognition that this normalization methodology is unfamiliar to those outside of Crown, we have obtained third-party validation for the approach. 

Meeting Global Standards

Our sustainability reports currently meet the reporting standards from the following organizations:

Our performance is also scored by ESG ratings providers including:

  • Sustainalytics
  • Dow Jones Sustainability Index

Our future sustainability reports will aim to use standards from the following organizations:

  • Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)

Global Industry Classification Standard

As the leader in metal and transit packaging technology, our GICS (Global Industry Classification Standard) code, managed by MSCI and S&P Global, is 15103010 – Materials, Containers and Packaging. Per GCIS, “the Materials sector includes companies that manufacture chemicals, construction materials, glass, paper, forest products and related packaging products, and metals, minerals and mining companies, including producers of steel.” As this is a wide description of manufacturing activities it’s important to elaborate on what manufacturing activities Crown engages in and those which we do not.

What we do:

  • Manufacture rigid metal packaging
  • Manufacture glass packaging 
  • Manufacture machinery for the metal can manufacturing
  • Manufacture equipment for transit packaging application
  • Employ over 33,000 men and women in 47 countries 
  • Manufacture transit packaging using paper, plastic and steel 
  • Improve our employees’ workplace safety through the adoption of the ISO 18001 or 45001 occupational health and safety management system. The percentage of our operations certified to OHSAS 18001 is 29% and counting
  • Minimize environmental damage in our operations through the adoption of the ISO 14001 environmental management system  
  • Monitor our suppliers’ ISO 14001 environmental management system adoption rate, which at is 73% and counting
  • Monitor our primary raw suppliers’ (value denotes all aluminum and steel suppliers) ISO 14001 environmental management system adoption rate, which is at 91%
  • Monitor any incidents of significant spills for which the Company is legally responsible, whose value was two for the year 2020*, remediate and take action to prevent any future incidents (*value includes any spills required to be reported per local, state or national law and/or those which exceed 200 liters)
  • Focus on waste reduction; view our waste data
  • Complementing our Zero Waste by 2030 goal, Crown has a company-wide hazardous waste disposal program. The goal of this program is to direct all hazardous waste to proper disposal routes.
  • Complementing our Zero Waste by 2030 goal, Crown has a business waste management program including the recycling of business or office waste, including paper and other office items.

What we don’t do:

  • Manufacture chemicals
  • Manufacture construction materials 
  • Mine metals and/or minerals 
  • Produce steel or aluminum 
  • Operate in such a manner as to create tailing ponds or underground reinjection
  • Operate in such a manner as to require disturbance or reclamation of disturbed lands