What it means to go Way Beyond Good

The world is facing a crunch as growing demand increases pressure on depleting natural resources. We want to play our part in meeting this challenge through our ambition to go Way Beyond Good

A bold ambition

Our ambition is to partner to create a net positive food supply system that will nourish a growing global population while putting more into society and the environment than it takes out.

We set out to become a net positive company three years ago and we have already achieved some significant milestones on this journey.

Our latest Corporate Responsibility Report highlights the progress we’ve made towards this bold ambition – and explores what this means for the environment, society and our business.

Way Beyond Good for the environment

Our aseptic carton packaging solutions have a significantly lower environmental footprint than other comparable alternatives, such as bottles or cans. And we’re innovating all the time to cut their impacts further, resulting in a host of industry firsts.

We were the first to enable customers to include the Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™) label on any of our packs and by the end of 2018, 96% of SIG packs carried the FSC™ logo (licence code: FSC™ C020428). With this little label, we’re helping forests and communities thrive, and tackling some of the biggest global challenges.

Our SIGNATURE PACK 100 is the world’s first aseptic carton linked to 100% renewable plant-based materials and has a 58% lower life-cycle carbon footprint than our standard packs. It builds on our 82% plant-based EcoPlus solution which has a 28% lower carbon footprint than our standard packs.

We’re also reducing the climate impact of our operations by sourcing all the energy we use to make our packs from renewable sources. We’re the first in the industry to do so. We’re also the first to achieve certification to the new Aluminium Stewardship Initiative standard that aims to enhance responsibility in the aluminium supply chain.

Our new paper straw solution – the first market ready alternative to plastic straws for use with aseptic carton packs – is helping customers address growing concerns about the impact of plastic straws on the environment and particularly on the world’s oceans.

Way Beyond Good for society

We joined the UN Global Compact in 2016 to signify our commitment to upholding human rights and we’re determined to play our part in supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to contribute to tackling global societal challenges. 

Working in partnership with others is a big part of our approach and our people are also getting involved by volunteering to make a positive impact in their communities. They have helped us more than double the impact of our community programmes since 2016.

We aim to amplify our impact through our newly formed Way Beyond Good Foundation. It will initially focus on our flagship Cartons for Good project, which is empowering communities to reduce food loss, support farmers’ livelihoods, and promote children’s nutrition and education.

We recently celebrated the launch of Cartons for Good in Bangladesh, where our unique mobile filling machine is helping communities preserve surplus food to provide nutritious school meals that can make a huge difference to the children’s lives.

We believe this innovative model has enormous potential to deliver real, scalable benefits to society. Find out more on our Cartons for Good website.

Way Beyond Good for our business

Our Way Beyond Good ambition is helping our business too, by enabling us to respond to customer needs and capture more opportunities to grow.

Our commitment to corporate responsibility has long been important in demonstrating that we meet customers environmental and social requirements. Achieving the EcoVadis Gold rating ranks us in the top 1% of around 30,000 participating companies for environment, social, ethical and supply chain policies and performance.

As interest in sustainability grows among our customers and consumers, the environmental credentials of our solutions are becoming increasingly central to our selling. More of our customers are taking up solutions like Ecoplus and SIGNATURE PACK, and our paper straw solution is helping them meet an urgent demand from stakeholders to cut out plastic straws.

For every product in our portfolio, we’re now offering customers a menu of features to choose from that can enhance the credentials of their packaging in the eyes of consumers – from FSC^TM labelling to polymers linked to 100% forest-based materials. This green product portfolio is designed to increase sales of our most sustainable products in future.

Our Way Beyond Good commitment will ultimately help us get closer to our dream for every consumer in the world to have an SIG pack in their hand and a smile on their face, every single day.

Next steps on the journey

We’re making great progress towards our roadmap of targets for 2020 and we’ve set some big ambitions for 2030 and beyond – including science-based targets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

But we know this doesn’t yet tell the whole story. Over the coming years, we’ll be developing new targets to drive further progress. Input from our external Responsibility Advisory Group and our participation in the Net Positive Project will help us address emerging issues and explore ways to enhance our contribution to the wider net positive agenda.

Our net positive ambition is built into our company strategy and we’re making this an integral part of every aspect of the business as we strive to go Way Beyond Good.

Find out more on our approach and performance in our Corporate Responsibility Report 2018.