In this SDG Awards 2017 entry:
Voting Category: Large Organization
SDG Action
Kruger Products is committed to help achieve the following SDGs:
- SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
- SDG 13: Climate Action
- SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Kruger Products is Canada’s largest tissue manufacturer and offers one of North America’s largest portfolios of third-party certified tissue products. The organization’s first sustainability program, Sustainability 2015, launched in 2010 and has allowed the company to significantly reduce its water consumption, packaging, energy use and Greenhouse gas emissions.
Kruger Products was also the first Canadian company in its category to obtain FSC® certification in 2011 and has been recognized as a Canadian leader in sustainability by organizations like Corporate Knights – one of the world’s leading editorial sources for clean capitalism.
Sustainability is a core business pillar for Kruger Products and, later this year, the company will be releasing their latest sustainability goals for Sustainability 2020. The new targets are a culmination of success to-date, areas for improvement following the Sustainability 2015 results and a vision for a sustainable tissue industry
SDG Impact
Since setting the baseline targets for the sustainability program in 2009, Kruger Products now manufactures all products using 100% third-party certified fiber. This practice ensures that the fibre comes only from sustainably harvested forests and/or recycled material.
Furthermore, Kruger Products invested $4.8 million in new heat recovery technology at its Crabtree, QC mill to reduce energy by 8.5%, $14.5 million in a state-of-the-art biomass gasification system to lower GHG by 50% in New Westminster, BC and $500 million in new technology at its Memphis, TN mill, resulting in a 66% water reduction.
Additional sustainability highlights include: Recycled over 110,000 tonnes of paper annually, diverting 16,000 garbage trucks from landfills and preserving over 1.7 million trees; reduced packaging material by 13.5% and water consumption by 18.8% since 2009; reduced its energy consumption in Canada by 11.3% and reduced GHG emissions in Canada by over 25.7% since 2009.
Future Plans
The next evolution of the program, Sustainability 2020, pushes the company to further shrink its environmental footprint and continue delivering on business targets. By the end of 2020, the company intends to reduce energy by 15%, GHG emissions by 27% and water by 35% versus 2009 and to improve employee safety by 50% versus 2015.
Future Plans
Kruger Products also recognizes that without collaboration and partnerships, sustainability cannot scale to the full potential of the business.
As a tissue manufacturer, one of the most important purchases Kruger Products can make is the market pulp utilized to manufacture its tissue products. The company was the first in its industry to become certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and this partnership has brought a level of transparency that Kruger Products could not have achieved alone. The FSC certification ensures that products are coming from responsibly managed forests and accountability from forest to shelf.
In partnership with Canadian Grocer, Kruger Products also launched Leaders in Sustainable Thinking in 2012. The roundtable series invites top companies from the Consumer Package Goods industry, including Loblaws, Unilever, Walmart Coca-Cola, Canadian Tire, Maple Leaf Foods, among others, to share best practices and collaborate on collective initiatives. In addition to bring together companies that can drive impact, Leaders in Sustainable Thinking also hosts experts on the topic of sustainability to share global insight and context. Each year, Kruger Products will capture the information shared at the event and produce content to ensure that Canadians have access to the information from the invite-only conference.