«The quality of our product, Smeraldina mineral water, is due most of all to the uncontaminated territory from which it originates, Tempio Pausania, in Sardinia.
Respect for the environment is, therefore, a priority for ALB which, also for this reason, supports awareness projects aimed, in particular, at young people and schools. We are also involved in numerous initiatives to promote the recycling of PET bottles and paper-based poly-laminate containers, as well as the use of returnable bottles.
Smeraldina’s products stand out for the high quality, not only of the water, but also of their containers and packaging, designed to be robust, protective and ergonomic, besides being aesthetically original and elegant.
The packaging materials (glass-preforms-caps-labels-film) are supplied by leading Italian and European producers, and their quality is rigorously certified.
We pay maximum attention to the environment also in the production phases: for example, before filling we rinse the bottles with a natural solution of ozone created from water itself and then we rinse with mineral water at high pressure, and we use vegetable-based glues to apply the labels.
In addition, in the production process nothing is wasted thanks to the quality management system, and to lengthen the life of the returnable glass containers we have adopted a bottle anti-abrasion system on the fillers, minimizing environmental impact also in this way.
It’s no coincidence that our corporate colour has always been green.

Packaging has changed form and function over time: from a useful means for transporting products and distributing them in ever more distant markets, it has today become a system able to communicate the difference and value of a brand.
This, however, has perhaps led to underestimating that its dissemination has a cost in terms of natural resources and impact on the environment.
Today we have to ask ourselves if mono-use is really necessary, and if it is advantageous to continue to use materials of fossil origin …
Science tells us that ethylene, from which polyethylene is obtained by polymerization, used, among other things, in paper-based laminates, can be derived from sugar cane waste, obtaining plastic from renewable sources.
Specifically, the residue of the process is then used to fertilise the same fields of sugar cane, in this way achieving a proper circular economy model.
Let’s look more closely at the case of PET bottles: they are an asset, being 100% recyclable, and so are able to give rise to new bottles, but also new products.

They are exceptional because they are practically eternal; it is precisely for this reason, however, that they can be a problem for the environment – not being either biodegradable or degradable in the short-term – unless their end-of-life is treated correctly.
Similarly, we could say about paper that, in order to be sustainable, it needs to come from an FSC-certified forest, that is, managed in a responsible way.
In short, we can affirm that packaging is not good or bad, as it all depends on the use that you make of it.
It’s for this reason that I would like to emphasise how the Ethical Packaging Charter is a necessity, a sort of Bible with its 10 commandments, which I hope can help in reflecting on how much material we are releasing into the environment, and how to recover and recycle it.

What we have to do is, first of all, better inform consumers in order to foster in them greater awareness of the values of packaging.
Starting from the people that are nearest to us – our employees – we therefore try to make them understand that every action has an impact on the environment, in this way helping them to make reasoned choices.
We also try to motivate the consumers of our products to make a correct separate collection of waste also outside their usual place of residence … on holiday, in woods, on the beach… also in the absence of a correct organisation of a sorted collection of different materials.
As a company, we are convinced that we have to play our part better if we want to construct a sustainable tomorrow.
To give a clear example, we try to favour the consumption of mineral water in returnable bottles, in our opinion a virtuous choice not only for the environment, but also from the point of view of educating for responsible consumption.
In addition, in partnership with logistics operators on the island, we are working to encourage the use of electric means of transport. But that’s not all.

To reduce the environmental impact of means of transport, we are also finalising an agreement with a platform able to provide us with a service in the territory for the storage of empty returnable glass bottles, so as to saturate the load capacity of the vehicles returning to the factory.
We have also purchased machines to reduce in size and press the waste from plastic production, to then recuperate a recovered material, much appreciated by recyclers.
With regards to the self-production of electricity, today we cover only 18% of our requirement, but we are planning new investments to rah at least at 50%: it’s not a problem for us that this choice will be more costly, because for us, besides profit, it is important to be perceived as a model of environmental education.
We have planned improvement measures also on the thermal power station, which will allow us to reduce by 30% the consumption of diesel necessary to produce the steam used in the plant for washing returnable bottles.

Well, as we have said, we have taken action to improve packaging and process technology. On a completely different front, however, we have made sure to implement a corporate welfare system that includes medical insurance, accident contributions and more besides.
We would like to ensure that employees feel first and foremost people to whom Smeraldina dedicates attention and care.
Today real marketing is not showing off the goodness of the product or the beauty of the functional attributes of the packaging, but exploiting the company’s values and its ethical commitments.
Ultimately, we are convinced that it is necessary to consider not only profit, but also responsible actions with respect to the environment, future generations and all the stakeholders, including suppliers and employees.
The time has come, in other words, to rethink the business model in order to develop a sustainable tomorrow in terms of production, distribution and consumption. ALB is making these changes, planting, for example, 56,000 trees and becoming in this way, “Carbon positive”, but also transforming itself, by 2024, into a Benefit corporation, introducing a dual object into its articles of association, demonstrating the fact that companies are the people that work in them and the environment that accommodates them».