Alcoa Corporation, Ball Corporation and Unilever PLC have announced the first use of ELYSIS® carbon-free smelting technology in personal and home care packaging. The announcement comes ahead of COP30, where global leaders will gather to advance collaborative climate action.
The partnership marks the first commercial application of aluminium produced using ELYSIS technology — an innovation that eliminates direct greenhouse gas emissions from the smelting process, generating oxygen instead of carbon dioxide. The resulting aerosol can, made with 50% ELYSIS primary aluminium and 50% post-consumer recycled content, represents one of the lowest-carbon packaging solutions currently available.
The initiative demonstrates how cross-sector collaboration can drive scalable low-carbon innovation across industrial supply chains, aligning with global decarbonisation goals and growing consumer demand for sustainable products.
“Through this collaboration with Ball and Unilever, we’re helping bring low-carbon aluminium into everyday products and showing how material innovation can deliver real sustainability benefits,” said Renato Bacchi, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at Alcoa.
“This project combines higher recycled content and low-carbon primary aluminium — both essential to decarbonising aluminium packaging and the sector as a whole,” added Ramon Arratia, Chief Sustainability Officer and Vice President, Public Affairs at Ball Corporation.
The debut of ELYSIS aluminium in consumer packaging marks a significant milestone for the aluminium and consumer goods industries, demonstrating how technological breakthroughs and collaboration can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and redefine sustainable manufacturing.
