CCL Announces Official Opening of Sustainable Sleeve Label Hub in Austria

• Move from former Hohenems plant to new home in Dornbirn completed in January 2024
• Modern production facility represents a €50 million investment, with expansion to 20,000 sqm site and installation of new production equipment
• Production of premium and sustainable shrink sleeves – featuring proven EcoFloat® decoration technology

Toronto, Canada – CCL Industries, a global leader in specialty label, security and packaging solutions, announced today that it has officially opened its new sustainable sleeve label hub in Dornbirn, Austria, completing the move from its former site in Hohenems.

The new facility represents a €50 million investment and more than doubles the size of the previous site. Nearly 10,000 square metres are dedicated to production and a fully automated warehouse, including intelligent computer-controlled software to optimise storage space management and automate intra-logistics.

“The move brings a lot of improvements. Not only is the building state of the art and provides a modern workplace for our employees, but the technology is also state of the art. The building has been designed according to modern sustainability aspects and with the long-term goal of further reducing our carbon footprint in production,” says Günther Birkner, member of the management team at CCL.

Sustainable Shrink Sleeve Hub

Shrink sleeves are an adhesive-free decoration technology for bottles and other containers. The labels are applied by heat and act like a second skin on even the most unusual container shapes.

At Dornbirn, we focus on the latest sustainable shrink sleeve technology – made from floatable low-density polyolefin material. The sleeves easily separate from the primary container in the sink/float process at the sorters and recyclers, ideally supporting material separation and efficient recycling.

“Our brand name for these sleeves is EcoFloat™ and they have become well known in the packaging industry,” explains General Manager Jens Winkler. “We are proud to serve our local and international customers from our new facility in Dornbirn, who appreciate our innovative spirit, investment in the latest technology and reliable technical service.” An example of EcoFloat® is the successful and award-winning implementation with several global brands, such as Henkel AG, to create future-proof packaging: Henkel and CCL win AWA Award for new sleeve technology.

Overall, CCL takes a holistic approach to sustainability, acting on the concept of “reduce, reuse, recycle” and even going one step further by actively supporting recycling with our solutions.

Green Building Features

Heating is provided entirely by recovering heat generated by production machinery, compressors and the thermal oxidation system for solvents. A central distribution centre manages the distribution of heating and cooling.

“There is also a PV system on the roof with more than 2,000 panels and a peak output of almost 900 kWp. The system produces the equivalent of 721,000 kWh per year, equivalent to the annual consumption of around 200 households. More than 80 per cent of the electricity we produce is used internally, which saves 338 tonnes of CO2 per year,” says Bernd Schmidle, Production Manager at CCL Dornbirn, who led the planning and construction of the new building and implemented the latest technology.

The new site is already ISO14001, ISO9001, BRC Packaging and DPG certified.

22nd February 2024