Global drinks company Diageo wants to collaborate with innovators on the latest sustainable packaging technology.

The maker of Johnnie Walker, Guinness and Smirnoff said it wants to collaborate and develop the next generation of technology that will address sustainability challenges within the company’s supply chain.

The Diageo Sustainable Solutions programme gives innovators the opportunity to submit ideas for a number of key ‘challenges’ set by the drinks maker, the first round of which is now open in the areas of packaging circularity(glass bottles) as well as energy, water and agriculture.

The scheme aims to accelerate the development of big ideas and solutions that can make a step change in sustainable thinking, and to share powerful insights developed by the programme across industry.

Successful applications will be developed within collaborative pilot projects and participants given up to six months to develop their ideas and demonstrate proof of concept.

Diageo experts in each field will be on-hand to provide support, and successful schemes will be considered for scaling up beyond the initial pilot.

The drinks group is also pledging up to £100,000 worth of funding for each pilot project.

The first round of applications will close on December 16 and a second round of new challenges will open for submission in early 2021.