Investing in Better

Adam Elman, Sustainability Director

We’ve reached a new milestone at kp and I am proud that we have recently launched our new sustainability strategy, Investing in Better, our sustainability roadmap for 2021 and years to come. With it, we are putting our words into action – strengthening our commitment to sustainability and to becoming one of the most sustainable companies in the plastic packaging industry.

This new strategy is inextricably linked to kp’s purpose, the sustainable protection of everyday needs. Sustainability has been a core value at kp for many years. Launched in 2018, the ‘Positive Plastics Pledge’ initiative helped advance the company’s sustainability agenda and it has proven that the plastics industry has a leading role to play in championing a circular plastics economy, whilst providing education on plastic’s significant role, particularly in the safety and protection of food and medicines. However, we realise that the environmental and social challenges of today call for more urgent action. We’ve developed a broader plan to go beyond recycling, building on the progress we’ve already made and extending our remit to take in the long-term needs of our people, our communities and our planet.

With the new ‘Investing in Better’ sustainability strategy, we have set ourselves ten clear ambitious long-term targets grouped under three key objectives: Close the Loop, which commits kp to using more recycled material, closing the packaging loop and taking every opportunity to make packaging recyclable. Work Smarter encompasses targets that focus on using less energy, cutting carbon emissions and ending landfill. And Act Responsibly, builds on the cornerstone of the kp culture of continuous improvement in the areas of employee engagement and safety, and will enable us to become a more diverse and inclusive company.

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Close the loop – reduce waste, and do more with less

Recycled PET has been our recycled material of choice for two decades: it enables us to produce high quality products while meeting all-important global safety standards.

Globally, only about 14% of plastic packaging is recycled. There’s so much more to do and we understand that recycling on its own is not enough. The products we make, must contribute to a truly circular economy. We also have a responsibility to support our customers, who share our level of ambition to achieve their own sustainability targets. ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ is not just a slogan for us, it is a fundamental part of how we do things.

Recycled PET has been our recycled material of choice for two decades: it enables us to produce high quality products while meeting all-important global safety standards. This year we will proudly continue leading the charge in this area by increasing the amount of products which consist of post-consumer recycled materials - so that by the end of 2025, we will be using at least 30% in our packaging. We’ve already executed a multi-million dollar expansion across three locations in North America; this will increase our capacity to develop post-consumer recycled PET plastic.

kp’s packaging innovation is also driving us yet one step further. Our ground-breaking Tray2Tray™ programme offers a greater opportunity to recover more post-consumer tray packaging which can thenbe recycled and transformed into new and fully recyclable products, allowing us to ‘close the loop’ for trays and rigid films. By the end of 2025, we are aiming for at least 30% of recycled material in our packaging will include this unique ‘Tray2Tray™’ material.

We believe we have an important role to play at the forefront of transformation, as well as taking tangible action for our industry and have made the commitment that 100% of our packaging will be recyclable by 2025. This is a very challenging goal, particularly due to the high barrier protection that our products need to offer and the fact that it will require major changes globally to build up the infrastructure required to collect, sort and recycle plastics. But we’re serious about making it happen and partnering with others to achieve this change.

Work Smarter – using as few resources as possible, efficiently as possible

Limiting the effects of global warming is a challenge for every business but we are determined to use less energy, shift to renewables, source less carbon intensive materials and cut waste.

In 2020, our Global Energy Task Force drove us forward, using technology and process changes to drive efficiencies and save energy at every opportunity. This task force draws on cross functional expertise from within kp and they have a clear mandate from the executive team, to ensure we increase our energy efficiency by 17% by the end of 2025.

Ambitiously, we plan to halve our scope 1 & 2 carbon emissions by the end of 2025, and by 2030, we will reduce scope 3 emissions by 20% per tonne of product sold – renewable energy and most sustainable materials will be key to achieving these goals. Even closer on the horizon is our goal to slash our landfill contributions to zero by the end of 2022.

Act Responsibly – a cornerstone of our culture

More broadly, the term sustainability places an emphasis on meeting the needs of the present as well as investing in and setting the required standards, innovations and environment to sustain the needs of the future.

For us, being a future-proof business needs to go beyond protecting the environment and limiting our impact as a business. It’s also about protecting our people and our communities. In fact, we’ve already adopted the Behavioural Based Safety approach to ensuring the physical protection of our people globally and all our contract suppliers are aligned with us on our health and safety processes. By the end of 2025, we will reduce our lost time accident rate to zero, and we have a clear commitment from executive management to ensure all resources are readily available to achieve this.

Our people are the lifeblood of our business; our annual employee engagement survey has been a truly effective way of gaining an understanding of their needs. But the work doesn’t stop there: we currently have over 200 employee co-developed action plans addressing direct employee feedback. By the end of 2025, we plan to increase our employee engagement score to over 80%. We want our people to feel proud of, motivated and inspired by their workplace.

A more diverse workforce makes us stronger and more equipped to act upon our business strategy. As we work towards increasing the percentage of women in management roles to 30% by the end of 2025. We are in the process of actively gathering further regional data to inform our overarching company diversity and inclusion strategy. This will enable us to identify clear actions we can take to support our people, as our diversity and inclusion strategy grows and evolves to include every intersection of our people.

For decades we've been taking action to support the communities where we trade, whether that involves volunteering, supporting educational programmes in schools on recycling, or more recently in providing PPE equipment to retirement homes and medical staff. We believe it's time to be more aggressive and will ensure that every one of our plants undertakes a significant and impactful community project each year, aiming to double this by the end of 2025.

Moving forward together

Building on our industry-leading commitment to sustainability isn’t something we will do alone. We’re working with our entire value chain, investing our time into relationships with recycling companies, suppliers and customers to ensure a constant supply of post-consumer recycled plastic.

Collaborating with organisations like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the Circular Plastics Alliance and Plastics Europe supports our mission to reduce our global impact. The sharing of industry specific knowledge is key. That’s why we’re a part of many trade associations and collaborative working groups across the world.

I’m immensely proud of what we have achieved so far, and whilst we don’t yet have all the solutions, I have every confidence in our global team and the strong partners we have supporting us to drive the progress towards our ambitious goals.