OCEAN SPRAY SELECTS BALL CORPORATION FOR SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR SUSTAINABILITY AWARD

Ball Corporation has received Ocean Spray's Supplier of the Year Award for sustainability. Ocean Spray chose Ball for the company's "overall commitment to environmental sustainability, long-running efforts in packaging reduction and light-weighting and the spirit of transparency" regarding Ball's sustainability initiatives. 

For Ball, sustainability is a systematic way of thinking about the things we do every day as a global company and how our activities interact with our world. The award is part of Ocean Spray's 2010 Strategic Supplier Partnership Awards. Ball supplies recyclable aluminum cans for a variety of Ocean Spray beverages. Ocean Spray noted examples of Ball's recent sustainability success, including:

• Decreasing energy usage by 11 percent from 2007 to 2009 and increasing energy efficiency (energy used per 1,000 units produced) by 9 percent during the same period.
• Achieving a 13 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2009 compared to a 2002 baseline
• Decreasing absolute corporate water usage by 8.6 percent from 2007 to 2009
• Converting to a new beverage can end that uses more than 10 percent less aluminum 

Ball Corporation’s long-term direction is to develop the lightest weight, most recycled, consumer preferred packaging for the markets in which it competes. Ball’s focus has been to produce packaging that minimizes environmental impacts while meeting the requirements of its customers and consumers. Ball’s primary effort has been to provide increasingly lighter weight, recyclable packaging that contains recycled material when feasible.

Ball Corporation is a supplier of high-quality packaging for beverage, food and household products customers, and of aerospace and other technologies and services, primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ more than 14,000 people worldwide and reported 2009 sales of more than $7.3 billion including discontinued operations.