DS Smith updated its three-year-old sustainability strategy with new targets to accelerate its decarbonization and product circularity.
The updates are intended to ramp up the London-based paper and packaging company’s Now & Next Sustainability Strategy that it launched in 2020. The plan contains short- and long-term targets around designing products to eliminate waste and pollution, and decarbonizing its operations and value chain.
Newly added targets include:
- By 2025: Test up to five reuse pilot programs
- By 2030: Reduce scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 46% compared with 2019-2020 levels
- By 2030: Reduce mills’ water withdrawal intensity by 10%, compared with 2019 levels, for those “at risk of water stress”
- By 2050: Achieve net-zero GHG emissions
The updated plan also includes targets to strengthen the company’s engagement with its workers and communities, such as strengthening gender diversity within senior leadership to 40% by 2030. In addition, DS Smith added goals such aiming to “measure and improve” biodiversity in its forests by 2025 and taking a science-based approach to developing targets to “regenerate nature.”
While the company has made progress achieving the goals in its sustainability strategy, “the world around us demands that we all do more,” CEO Miles Roberts said in a news release.
DS Smith says it has already met some of the existing targets in the strategy, including:
- 100% of packaging is recyclable or reusable
- 100% of the paper used in manufacturing is recycled or “chain of custody certified”
- All facilities in high water-stress areas have a water mitigation plan
During an earnings call last month for the fiscal year that ended April 30, DS Smith executives discussed how innovation is one of the company’s core investment areas, as are sustainability and carbon footprint reduction strategies. Sustainability is a priority area for the innovation, and the executives highlighted significant efforts to help customers replace plastic products with fiber. “We don’t have plastic anywhere in our portfolio,” Roberts said.
DS Smith’s recently released its 2023 sustainability report, covering May 2022 through April 2023, which quantifies the plastic displacement: The company replaced 297 million units of plastic that year for a total of 762 million units since 2020-2021. It also reduced total scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions 10% compared with the previous year and 15% compared with 2019-2020 levels, which it says equates to 7.39 million metric tons CO2e.
