CCL Label joins HolyGrail 2.0

Under the auspices of AIM, the European Brands Association, more than 85 companies and organizations from the complete packaging value chain have joined forces with the ambitious goal to assess whether a pioneering digital technology can enable better sorting and higher-quality recycling rates for packaging in the EU, to drive closing the loop and paving the way for a truly circular economy.

‘CCL Label has been pioneering digital watermarking solutions such as Digimarc for several years, many of our food and beverage, home and personal care production sites are licensed partners,’ says Marika Knorr, head of sustainability and communication at CCL Label. ‘As the Digimarc platform has been chosen as the principal technology of the cross-value chain initiative HolyGrail 2.0, it is time for us to take the next step and support the initiative to improve sortation and higher-quality recycling rates for packaging with our expertise in label and sleeve technology. This is another milestone in our journey towards closing the loop.’

Digital watermarks are imperceptible codes, the size of a postage stamp, covering the surface of a consumer goods packaging and carrying a wide range of attributes. The aim is that once the packaging has entered into a waste sorting facility, the digital watermark can be detected and decoded by a standard high-resolution camera on the sorting line, which then – based on the transferred attributes – is able to sort the packaging in corresponding streams.

Digimarc was the technology ultimately chosen at the conclusion of the highly publicized HolyGrail 1.0 initiative under the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy, which included 29 corporations and was led by Procter & Gamble. Now, under HolyGrail 2.0, the leadership team includes world-leading brands P&G, Nestle, PepsiCo and Danone.