-10.26DS Smith shortlisted as Sustainable Business of the Year 2017
Hot on the heels of being highly commended as the Sustainability Team of the Year in the Ethical Corporation’s annual awards, DS Smith is delighted to have been shortlisted alongside sustainability leaders such as IKEA in edie’s Sustainable Business of the Year 2017 award.
This shortlisting reflects the fact that DS Smith is building an increasingly sustainable business, with sustainability and the circular economy right at the heart of our business growth strategy.
DS Smith is set apart from other organisations by the strength of our circular business model, which consistently demonstrates across our business that waste can be used as a resource.
Our Recycling Division is Europe’s leading recycler of corrugated and paper packaging, managing over 5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard every year. They collect enough to supply all our Paper Mills and sell excess to the market – a truly net-positive impact.
Our mills then manufacture recycled paper for our Packaging plants, which design and convert the paper into corrugated packaging for our customers, the largest FMCG brands in the world. Corrugated has the highest recycling rate of all packaging, and is circular by nature.
FEFCO estimates that over 88% of corrugated material used in Europe is from recycled sources. To make our story even more circular, our Packaging and Recycling Divisions often work together with our customers, creating neat closed-loop systems for their corrugated packaging and waste streams.
Circularity is also a key concept in our Plastics Division. Sites have recycling facilities where they re-grind pre- and post-consumer material, and provide take-back to customers. In the case of the beverage industry, we have developed 100% recyclable crates, which enable customers to decouple growth from raw material consumption.
The four divisions of DS Smith truly embrace the principles of the circular economy, and it is excellent to see these efforts recognised with this shortlisting.