ProAmpac.

Sal Pellingra

Sustainability and innovation seem to fill our days with both internal and external developments. It seems every conversation includes one or both. How can we develop new products and packaging that differentiates and sets us and our customers apart and how do we ensure sustainability is part of that? Many customers will not move forward with a new development unless it meets current or targeted sustainable claims. In the same way, ProAmpac is constantly working to ensure the development of our new products are leaving less of a footprint in the environment than products of the past. This goes for the products themselves as well as our local sites and resources to produce those products. 

So often people associate innovation and sustainability only with products however sustainability and innovation are core values and a mindset that permeates a company committed to excellence. Social sustainability is key. How do we take care of our teammates and partner with our neighbors where we have facilities? Is there a focus on safety? Are we caring for our teammate’s overall welfare? In the same way we innovate our products our human resources provide a focus on our team members welfare with a focus on health and safety. We partner in local communities to support meaningful causes. We have waste reduction and water management initiatives in all our sites. We even have wind power providing energy to one of our sites! A key is keeping in mind how to make less of an environmental impact where we do business and how to improve our impact where our products are used.

On the product front we are ahead of the curve in developing products toward the circular economy. The goal here is to minimize the impact of products on the environment and meet our customers sustainable commitments as well. We are constantly introducing and redesigning products for recyclability, to include PIR and PCR, post industrial and post consumer recycled content, to add renewable content and design for compost. Our target is that any of these should run at the same efficiencies as current products, and we have been achieving just that. 

"The biggest impact we can have on the environment is reduce. Reduce the amount of materials produced and reduce the impact on the environment to manufacture, use and dispose"

The biggest impact we can have on the environment is reduce. Reduce the amount of materials produced and reduce the impact on the environment to manufacture, use and dispose. It’s common sense thinking about it. Carrying a bed down a flight of stairs takes a lot of work and energy. Carrying a pillow not so much. No different for manufacturing and distributing products and packaging. Flexible packaging helps do just that. Ships more product with less packaging and uses less resources in the entire chain of use. The next step is to begin converting these to materials that are compatible with the circular economy. And the biggest innovation is to do that while still designing in functionality and excellent graphics. Products still need to meet marketing goals and consumer functionality and convenience.

So, innovation and sustainability need to be part of our core values and need to impact not just our products, but our people, the areas where we work and the broader geographies where our products are used. Innovative processes, programs and products that impact the environment around us. Less of an impact on the environment, more of an impact on people.The people we work with, people in our communities, and the people that interact with our products. With today’s employment challenges focusing on people is more and more important and it’s proven when people are taken care of and happy, productivity increases. Innovation and sustainability when done right ultimately impacts the bottom line because itsmakes products more efficient and desirable. Sounds fluffy but its real. Cheers to ProAmpac for being a company that focuses on this and cheers to all the other similar companies doing the same and more to impact people and products while minimizing the impact on the environment.