Strategy
Our vision is to become the leading supplier of sustainable packaging solutions. We plan to succeed through offering great service, quality, innovation and environmental solutions to our customers.
Our Values
- Be caring: We take pride in what we do and care about our customers, our people and the world around us.
- Be trusted: We can always be trusted to deliver on our promises.
- Be challenging: We are not afraid to constructively challenge each other and ourselves to find a better way forward.
- Be responsive: We seek new ideas and understanding and are quick to react to opportunities.
- Be tenacious: We get things done.
Strategic Goals
DS Smith aims to be the leading supplier of sustainable packaging solutions. We want to become a trusted and strategic partner to our customers, providing innovative packaging solutions for all their needs.
By focusing on our strategic aims we will deliver attractive, sustainable returns to our shareholders and meet the needs of all our stakeholders. We have set the following aims and our promises on how to reach them.
To delight our customers
In 2021/22 we:
- Supported our customers throughout the pandemic by maintaining our continuity of service
- Strengthened our value proposition and helped customers better position themselves for a more circular economy
- Accelerated innovation programmes, including plastic replacement
- Flexibility and agility in our co-operation with customers
In 2022/23 we will:
- Drive circularity and continue to deliver market-leading sustainable solutions
- Accelerate our leadership on e-commerce
- Continue to scale up innovations
- Drive improvement of service levels
To realise the potential of our people
In 2021/22 we:
- Conducted a global engagement survey to understand what is working and areas to improve; to listen, respond and act
- Continued celebrating the contribution and success of employees with our second Smithies awards event held virtually
- Provided managers with a set of tools to drive high levels of health and safety and wellbeing engagement
- Continued to develop our leadership pipeline from early talent through to mid and senior leadership
- Provided more opportunities for employees to develop by offering new ways of accessing learning
- Accelerated our diversity and inclusion ambition by increasing diverse senior leadership hires, continuing to raise awareness and activating employee resource groups
- Implemented functional talent meetings with diversity data to support career coaching and accelerated development of diverse talents
In 2022/23 we will:
- Run listening groups to drive action as part of our engagement evolution with regular pulse surveys and feedback
- Continue to recognise the contribution of our employees through the Smithies recognition programme
- Consolidate our employee feedback to develop a compelling proposition that describes how people can thrive at DS Smith
- Embed the health and safety and wellbeing culture through our local site networks
- Continue to invest in the capability of our managers and leaders to support our employees
- Provide consistent training to develop our technical and operational capability using new immersive learning technology
- Review the ongoing success of widening opportunities for employees to access development
- Focus on embedding diversity and inclusion by expanding employee resource groups, local networks and roundtables
- Continue to scale functional and cross-divisional talent meetings and support the development of diverse talents through our leadership programmes
To lead the way in sustainability
In 2021/22 we:
- Set our 1.5°C science-based target to reduce Scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions by 46 per cent by 2030 compared to 2019 and reach Net Zero emissions by 2050
- Delivered progress on our Now and Next Sustainability Strategy; achieving our targets to manufacture 100 per cent recyclable or reusable packaging and to fund 100 biodiversity projects across Europe and North America ahead of our plans
- Placed on the prestigious ‘A List’ for CDP Water Security, increased our CDP Climate Change score to A- and earned EcoVadis ‘Platinum’ rating
- Played our part at COP26, with a sustainable packaging installation at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Café in the New York Times Climate Hub where we launched our Circular Economy Lesson Plan as part of our goal to engage five million people on the circular economy and circular lifestyles by 2030
In 2022/23 we will:
- Drive our circular design and innovation agenda to maintain that all of our packaging is reusable or recyclable, replace problem plastics and optimise
solutions to ensure that we use no more natural resources than necessary - Deliver further progress on our Now and Next Sustainability Strategy
To double the size and profitability of the business
In 2021/22 we delivered:
- 5.4 per cent like-for-like corrugated box volume growth
- 29 per cent growth in adjusted EBITA
- 7 per cent growth in free cash flow, with net debt: EBITDA at 1.6 times
In 2022/23 we will:
- Continue to drive volume growth of 2-4 per cent
- Continue to manage costs in an inflationary environment
- Invest in growth, innovation and environmental efficiency
Measuring our progress
Our strategy is balanced across our four key strategic priorities: to delight our costumers, to realise the potential of our people, to double our size and profitability and to lead the way in sustainibility