Sonoco Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions

HARTSVILLE, S.C.—Sonoco announced that it is voluntarily working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from its manufacturing plants in the United States and Canada by 15 percent during the next five years.

“Building on the substantial work already undertaken, we have set new environmental targets aimed at voluntarily reducing our environmental footprint by cutting GHG emissions from our manufacturing facilities. We also remain focused on further voluntary reductions in overall energy use along with other air emissions, water usage, and landfill use,” says president, chairman, and CEO Harris E. Deloach, Jr.

To meet the emission reduction goal, Sonoco expects to reduce energy usage at its uncoated recycled paperboard mills by maximizing energy efficiency efforts and by changing process steam production at some of its mills to renewable sources and other less carbon-intensive fuels.

“While our goals currently target our North American operations, where approximately 72 percent of our revenues are derived, we have established measurement tools for our international manufacturing operations and have begun compiling GHG emissions data in 2009 to establish a baseline from which we can develop other voluntary emission reduction goals in coming years,” said DeLoach.

For more information, visit www.sonoco.com.