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S1 www.fortune.com/adsections

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While few corporate executives would argue that sustain-

able business practices have become an important aspect of operating around the globe, it might be surprising to learn that U.S. packaging companies have made sustainable processes and products an essential part of the industry’s corporate culture.

Why packaging? For start-ers, there is a link between the point of production and the point of consumption for billions of consumers. The packaging industry’s role in recycling, reus-ing production components, and reducing the national carbon footprint is enormous.

According to U.S. Environ-

mental Protection Agency esti-mates, packaging and containers make up more than 30% of the total waste in the country, the largest single component of municipal solid waste. At the same time, packaging possesses the highest level of recyclabil-ity—accounting for 48.5% of all materials recycled.

Given those numbers, more and more packaging companies are realizing an added upside to being socially and environmen-tally responsible. There’s great value—and virtue—in using fewer materials and less energy, reusing packaging components, recycling materials, and reusing energy to produce lighter, stron-ger products that can, in turn, be recycled and reused.

Packaging SolutionsWhat makes all of this attractive for packaging companies and their customers is the intersec-tion of sustainability and profit-ability. A recent survey found that “sustainability” will replace “cost” as the most important

factor in the packaging industry within 10 years as consumers demand more eco-friendly solu-tions. But for now and the imme-diate future, the bottom line still appears to be the main issue for packagers’ major customers.

“Customers certainly desire sustainability, but they still view a lower system cost as a priority,” says Scott Daniel, president of Hexacomb, a division of Boise Inc. and the leading international producer of custom honeycomb packaging solutions. “The biggest challenge we face is being able to meet both lower system costs and sustainability initiatives.”

The company, which serves customers in over 30 industries as diverse as appliances, auto-motive, and food and beverage, appears to be achieving both. Hexacomb produces packaging made from paper linerboard, a renewable resource. Substituting this naturally strong, lightweight, honeycomb product for other materials reduces the prod-uct’s weight, and subsequently reduces shipping costs, lessens fuel consumption, and reduces consumption of fossil fuels.

Hexacomb’s solution-based approach to packaging enables the company to customize

Ahead of the Pack

© 2013 Bemis Company, Inc.

A d v a n c i n g S u s t a i n a b l e P a c k a g i n g i n A l l D i r e c t i o n s

We at Bemis Company, Inc., believe the best way

to create a more sustainable package—one that

delivers maximum effectiveness with minimum

environmental impact—is to design for the entire

value chain.

That’s why Bemis leverages material science

to deliver sustainable packaging solutions that

preserve freshness, extend shelf life, improve food

safety, maintain sterility and maximize throughput.

All, while efficiently—and responsibly—managing

the resources we use.

It’s a balanced approach that advances society,

the package and the customers Bemis serves.

Visit bemis.com to learn more about

our economic, social and environmental

commitments. Or connect at

ContactBemis@bemis.com.

BemisAd_FNL.indd 1 5/3/13 10:53 AM

An emphasis on sustainability is helping the packaging industry become more eco-friendly and profitable.

In partnership with:

Hexacomb provides custom packaging

solutions for a variety of applications, includ-

ing automotive parts.

Photo b

y Hexa

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© 2013 Bemis Company, Inc.

A d v a n c i n g S u s t a i n a b l e P a c k a g i n g i n A l l D i r e c t i o n s

We at Bemis Company, Inc., believe the best way

to create a more sustainable package—one that

delivers maximum effectiveness with minimum

environmental impact—is to design for the entire

value chain.

That’s why Bemis leverages material science

to deliver sustainable packaging solutions that

preserve freshness, extend shelf life, improve food

safety, maintain sterility and maximize throughput.

All, while efficiently—and responsibly—managing

the resources we use.

It’s a balanced approach that advances society,

the package and the customers Bemis serves.

Visit bemis.com to learn more about

our economic, social and environmental

commitments. Or connect at

ContactBemis@bemis.com.

BemisAd_FNL.indd 1 5/3/13 10:53 AM

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Pratt IndustrIes’ CEO Brian McPheely is bullish on sustainability for two reasons: It makes sense and it makes money. Here, he explains the company’s long-term strategy for recycling and

resource efficiency and his goal of getting Pratt facilities “off the grid.”

Pratt INDUStrIES haS loNg ProfItED from PractIcINg SUStaINabIlIty. WhErE Do thE tWo INtErSEct?I think you’ve first got to define “sustainability.” We look at it as a way to make money, which comes down to recycling. It’s what we do every day. Sustainability is also how we run our mills—

with fewer chemicals, with less water, and with less fiber. It’s a way to use fewer resources to get the same quality products.

hoW Do yoU EmbED that vIEW INto thE corPoratE cUltUrE?You have to live it, and you have to make people accountable for the results. We do that by setting goals across all aspects of the company and by measuring the usage of everything—water, electricity, fiber, and gas. We then review those numbers and measure them monthly against the goals set for the various individuals and depart-ments responsible for them. We’ve made sustain-ability a part of life because we know it’s a way to save money and make money.

a UNIqUE aSPEct of Pratt’S oPEratIoNS lIES IN What yoU call “harvEStINg thE UrbaN forESt.” hoW DoES It Work?Paper mills tend to be in the forest, where the trees are, but we realized the need to be close to metropolitan areas where there are a lot of people who consume products and therefore generate a lot of waste. We figured if we could divert that waste from landfills, we could produce a quality product by recycling. We thought, “How can we corral all the paper in the streets, which used to go to the Fresh Kills Landfill on [New York City’s] Staten Island, and make it into a use-ful product?” We have a long-term contract with New York City to turn as much fiber as we can into a high-performance linerboard that we ship to different box plants around the country.

What challENgES IS Pratt facINg IN thE comINg yEar?Right now we’re trying to go even further back in the waste stream because there are still recyclables that are going to landfills. We’re try-ing to divert and capture more fiber and other materials to be recycled—steel cans, plastics, aluminum, and, of course, paper—for their BTU value. We built our first gasifier in our Conyers, Ga., facility in 2009. It produces 100% of the steam for our mill and our corrugator opera-tion and between seven and eight megawatts of the electricity, which is about 40% of our mill’s energy use. We want to continue our sustainable footprint, get off natural gas, and get off the grid. We’re not 100% of the way there, but it’s a great first step for us.

Profiting from Sustainability

S3

Brian McPheelyCEO, Pratt Industries

In a previous life,

I was a moving box.

Before that, I was a cereal box.

Once, I may have even been a fOrtune® magazine.

now, I’ve just delivered dinner.

PRATT INDUSTRIES

We believe today’s waste is tomorrow’s opportunity.

Every day, we save approximately 51,000 trees, 21 million gallons of water and

3,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Some companies do the green thing.

Others do the profitable thing. To us, they’re the same thing.

Sustainable Corrugated Packaging & Display Solutionswww.prattindustries.com

FORTUNE® is a registered trademark of Time Inc. used with permission. FORTUNE® is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, products or services of Pratt Industries.

In a previous life,

I was a moving box.

Before that, I was a cereal box.

Once, I may have even been a fOrtune® magazine.

now, I’ve just delivered dinner.

PRATT INDUSTRIES

We believe today’s waste is tomorrow’s opportunity.

Every day, we save approximately 51,000 trees, 21 million gallons of water and

3,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Some companies do the green thing.

Others do the profitable thing. To us, they’re the same thing.

Sustainable Corrugated Packaging & Display Solutionswww.prattindustries.com

FORTUNE® is a registered trademark of Time Inc. used with permission. FORTUNE® is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, products or services of Pratt Industries.

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products that meet customer needs. For example, designers at one of Hexacomb’s six design centers in the U.S. and Europe developed a replacement for foam packaging that cushions glass bottles of hazardous chem-icals. The switch to the honey-comb solution reduced breakage while providing the customer with a recyclable packaging option.

Says Daniel: “We help our customers meet their sus-tainability goals by providing a paper-based solution in a custom design that results in reduced freight and reduced ma-terial consumption, at ultimately a lower total system cost.”

Taking the InitiativeGovernment and industry organi-zations, of course, have driven a number of certification programs and sustainability initiatives, such as the Food Safety Moderniza-tion Act. Some companies with long-standing social responsibility programs, however, foresaw the wisdom of sustainability early on—and on their own.

For many years, Pratt Indus-tries has adopted the triple bot-tom line philosophy, a framework that measures success across a spectrum of values: economic, ecological, and social. “I’ve been asked when we adopted the triple bottom line philosophy, but I’m not sure we knew what that was when we started doing it,” says Brian McPheely, Pratt’s CEO. “We just made it a part of life here because we knew that it was a way to make quality products, and to save resources and make money.” (See Q&A on page S3.)

The fifth-largest box manu-facturer in the country and the largest, privately-held 100% recycled paper and packaging company in the world, Pratt operates three modern 100% recycled paper mills in Georgia, Louisiana, and—of all places—New York City. There it runs a program called “harvesting the urban forest,” which collects some 360,000 tons of paper and other materials annually from city buildings and streets and turns it into 100% recycled pa-

per and corrugated packaging.At the same time, industry

attention is moving from a focus on reducing package size and weight to a larger, longer view of the life cycle of products.

“In the past, the conversation was all about packaging reduction because it’s visible,” says Nina Goodrich, executive director of GreenBlue, a nonprofit that works to provide businesses with the resources to make their products more sustainable. “But the con-versation has shifted to optimiza-tion. If you reduce the package to the point where it’s not doing its job, then you end up with un-intended consequences, such as damage or shorter shelf life. It’s important to view the product and the package as a system to avoid unintended consequences. Life-cycle thinking provides insight into the full set of benefits and impacts. Using life-cycle thinking, packaging sustainability can be optimized through sustainable sourcing, efficient material use, and design for recovery.”

At Bemis Company Inc., a multinational supplier of flexible packaging for food, consumer, medical, and pharmaceutical products, engineers are involved in working closely with customers to develop new sustainable ma-terials and enhanced protective

Packaging companies are realizing an added upside to being environmentally responsible.

Pratt Industries converts recycled paper into

corrugated boxes at its Valparaiso, Ind., plant.

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packaging. The goal is to extend product life, minimize manufac-turing waste, and reduce waste in the food distribution chain.

Wayne Wegner, director of sustainability at Bemis, is a 35-year veteran of the industry, giving him a rare overview of sustainability. “From a big-picture look, product safety and sustainability best go together by understanding what our customers value,” he says. “We work with our customers to optimize the package itself, both from the standpoint of ef-fectively ensuring that products are transported and stored for security and freshness and used as intended, as well as using packaging materials to minimize resource consumption.”

The company currently recy-cles the majority of its manufac-turing waste and has set a goal of

zero waste to landfills by 2020. Bemis also drives sustainability by using the latest polymers and other materials for lightness, strength, and safety. Wegner and his fellow engineers are working with private companies and trade groups on new technologies, including using materials made from renewable sources, such as corn and sugar cane.

“Most flexible packaging ends up in landfills,” he admits. “But there are technologies, slowly becoming commercial, that will take flexible plastic packaging and turn it back into the crude oil that it came from.” Once converted, the crude can be reused as fuel or in petro-chemical manufacturing.

The future of packaging is likely to see even more innova-tion in the years ahead. Beyond looking at a life-cycle approach

to packaging and recycling, we could be watching a true green-ing of the American landscape. •To advertise in our Sustainability sections, contact Debbie Linehan at 212.522.0767. For more on GreenBlue, visit greenblue.org

When considering options for environmentally-responsible packaging solutions, look

to Hexacomb. We design custom, paper-based product protection solutions that can

positively impact your package weight transport fuel consumption and overall carbon

footprint. Hexacomb’s high-performance materials deliver an ideal combination of

strength and weight to meet demanding product protection needs. Our national design

and manufacturing network means we can support you as your needs evolve.

Hexacomb, the fi rst choice for environmentally-responsible

protective packaging solutions.

Leading the way in sustainable paper-based packaging solutions

www.hexacomb.com

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Bemis liner film and shelf-stable pouches are taking over for conventional packag-ing materials.

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