Our Sustainability Pillars
At WestRock, we imagine and deliver on the promise of a sustainable future: Innovating to Serve Our Customers and Their Customers, Bettering the Planet and Supporting People and Communities.
Our vision to be the best paper and packaging company in the world drives everything we do. We’re innovating to help our customers reach their sustainability goals and win in the market. Setting science-based goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Stewarding natural resources. Working toward 100% safety. Becoming an employer of choice.
Through these and many other efforts, we aim to help our business, our customers, our team members, our investors and our communities realize the promise of a sustainable future.
A Message From Our CEO
WestRock is proud of its long heritage of sustainability. We create fiber-based paper and packaging from a renewable resource, putting circularity at the core of our business.
We believe our greatest business opportunity lies at the intersection of innovation and sustainability. Our customers are working hard to make their businesses more sustainable, and we encourage them to bring us their greatest challenges.
Sincerely,
David Sewell, Chief Executive Officer
Our Sustainability Pillars
Supporting People and Communities
Supporting People and Communities
We support our team members’ success through programs, practices and policies that promote their safety and growth, and give back to the communities where we operate.
In fiscal year 2022, WestRock:
- Spent more than $1 billion with diverse vendors, exceeding our goal
- Used our Human Operational Performance (HOP) based safety system, which helped reduce the number of life-changing events down to two
Bettering the Planet
Bettering the Planet
We believe that sustainable environmental practices are sustainable business practices. We embrace our responsibility to promote the health of the environment for future generations and we seek to enhance the circularity of our business.
We advanced our environmental sustainability strategy by:
- Reducing our scope 1 and scope 2 carbon emissions by 5.6% from a 2019 baseline in pursuit of our validated Science-Based Target (SBT) for 2030
- Reducing our total energy use by 5.8% since 2015, including a 42.6% reduction in the use of coal
Innovating to Serve Our Customers and Their Customers
Innovating to Serve Our Customers and Their Customers
We partner with our customers to help them meet their customers’ demands and their own ambitious sustainability goals. Being a valued partner takes the expertise and creativity to develop new ideas and the willingness to pursue them. It takes innovation.
We co-innovated with customers including:
- Niagara Orchard, replacing plastic containers with WestRock’s sustainable EverGrow® packaging
- Ska Brewing, installing CanCollar® CorsairTM to replace plastic multipack rings with a fiber-based solution
- Swiss Chalet, developing an award-winning, grease-resistant, fiber-based takeout container using EnShield®
Data and Resource Center
Data and Resource Center
Review year-over-year ESG performance data, reports and other resources about sustainability at WestRock.
Our Sustainability Pillars
At WestRock, we imagine and deliver on the promise of a sustainable future: Innovating to Serve Our Customers and Their Customers, Bettering the Planet and Supporting People and Communities.
Circularity at WestRock
Our fiber-based packaging solutions have a continuous lifecycle beyond the shelf.
Virgin fiber from responsibly managed forests
We source from responsibly managed forests and have created one of the industry's largest independently audited certification systems for tracking harvest compliance.
Manufacturing facilities
We recirculate water, reuse chemicals, and recycle or reuse many byproducts.
Converting facilities
We convert responsibly sourced/produced paper into innovative packaging solutions for our customers to help advance circularity, drive plastic reduction and support sustainability goals.
Customers
We produce machinery that facilitates packaging optimization, increased run speeds and waste reduction. We also work with customers to increase efficiency in transportation and distribution and educate consumers about recycling.
Fiber Degradation
Some fiber leaves the cycle due to fiber degradation.
Recycling
We recover and recycle fiber to supply WestRock mills and other producers, invest in single-stream recycling to enable processing of mixed-use paper and coordinate fiber take-back with customers.
Sustainable Development Goals
WestRock’s sustainability targets contribute toward these Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To learn more about the specific SDG targets we support, see our 2022 Sustainability Report.
Sustainability in Action
Asahi Breweries First Japanese User of WestRock CanCollar Eco Packaging
Asahi Breweries, Ltd. announced that it will be the first user1 of CanCollar® Eco Plus technology in the Japanese market, resulting in up to 81% material reduction
The Secret to a Sustainable E-commerce Business: Automated Packaging
WestRock is dedicated to developing and implementing the right solution that meets your supply chain needs and manufacturing system to drive increased productivity
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Swiss Chalet Partners with WestRock to Launch Recyclable Paperboard Packaging
This dramatic material change is an important step by restaurant parent company, Recipe Unlimited, towards sustainability goals
The Collaborative Journey Toward a More Circular Economy
WestRock is driving the journey to a more circular economy through innovative and sustainable products
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