United States. Sun Chemical released its thirteenth sustainability report, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to sustainability and social responsibility in all aspects of its business.
As part of Sun Chemical's ongoing process to achieve its goals of reducing CO2 levels by at least 50% by 2030 and becoming net carbon neutral by 2050, the company's latest sustainability report highlights initiatives and results based on three pillars of its business: operations, products and services, and partnerships.
To guide its sustainability practices and roadmaps across each of the three pillars, Sun Chemical follows a strategic framework called the "five R's"—reuse, reduce, renew, recycle, and redesign—that supports a circular economy and carbon footprint reductions.
The operations section of the report shows how Sun Chemical's recent acquisitions and additional manufacturing facilities affected overall energy and water consumption. The data highlights that, despite procurement, the quantities of waste incinerated without energy recovery and waste in landfills continued to decrease since the last report.
"Sun Chemical's continued efforts to strive to continuously improve results in waste, water and energy reduction drive decisions and actions across our operations," said Gary Andrzejewski, Sun Chemical's corporate vice president of environmental affairs.
"Our focus on decreasing energy use, which last year included investment in solar panels and heat recovery systems, is a key sustainable strategy that is especially important as we integrate acquisitions into our operations."
The products and services section of the report describes Sun Chemical's sustainable development process, which includes designing products or processes that reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to climate change, conserve virgin resources and/or reduce waste accumulation compared to conventional products or processes.
"Sustainability is top of mind for many converters and brand owners and they are looking for products that enable them to achieve sustainability goals," said Michael Simoni, Sun Chemical's director of global sustainability.
"Because Sun Chemical's sustainability efforts in product research and development are rooted in our '5R' framework, we develop a wide variety of bio-renewable, compost-compatible and recyclable product lines across our portfolio."
Collaborations and partnerships play an essential role in Sun Chemical's sustainability efforts, especially in shaping the future of a circular economy and strengthening sustainable value chains.
To measure the sustainability performance of its suppliers, Sun Chemical uses the EcoVadis scoring platform. The report shows that more than 85% of Sun Chemical's suppliers participating in the EcoVadis system have achieved a Corporate Social Responsibility score above 45/100, Sun Chemical's acceptable threshold.
