Packaging Impressions’ Parlor: A Packaging Industry for the Environment, Communities, and Employees

Much of my job as a sustainability manager involves data tracking and modeling – reviewing water usage and emissions, for example, or OCC usage and paper recycling rates. The numbers tell how fiber-based packaging can drive circularity, minimize waste, and replace renewable resources, but it is all too easy to disassociate the data from the bigger picture of a circular economy and what it means for nature, people, and the communities we serve.

Fortunately, I can see the impact and importance in preserving nature firsthand in DS Smith’s timberland and forestry operation in coastal Georgia. Several of our industry’s packaging and paper operations rely on the Southeastern U.S. longleaf pine ecosystem. The 17,000-acre forestlands DS Smith owns near Savannah in Wayne County, Georgia, is home to an important ecosystem that we work to preserve and protect.

Working in partnership with the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia, our North American forestry team works to identify and measure threatened, endangered, and rare species within our forests. That longleaf pine ecosystem is home to many species of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and plants not found anywhere else, and at least 122 endangered or threatened animal and plant species. Not least of these is the threatened gopher tortoise – a so-called “keystone species” deemed essential to natural ecosystems because the burrows they dig provide shelter for hundreds of other animals.

The circular economy is regenerative by design, prioritizing keeping resources in use for longer and ensuring processes to extract resources leave room for nature to regenerate. By sourcing responsibly, managing our forests and operations sustainably, and working in partnership with our communities, we reduce our impact on nature and encourage biodiversity to thrive.

Zoom out further, beyond the forests essential to the corrugated packaging space, and you can look at ways packaging companies can and should be a positive influence from a people standpoint. Sustainable businesses can and should be a positive presence in the communities they operate in, representing the communities and customers they serve. By raising awareness, building skills, and committing to action, we enable our people to drive the transition to a circular economy.

Sustainability in mill communities

The trees from our timberlands operation are used to make paper at our mill in Riceboro, Georgia. The mill is a major employer in Liberty County, where Riceboro is located, and it was important to us share some of the deeper thinking and reasoning behind our circular business with the community. We developed a biodiversity lesson plan for K-5 schools that touches on core aspects of packaging and recyclability but, just as importantly, focuses on the delicate ecosystem the packaging industry needs to help preserve and protect.

Last summer, we had the great opportunity to take a little break from spreadsheets and graphs and visit a group of students in Liberty County to help them learn why wildlife preservation is important.

Our other U.S. paper mill could not be more different in terms of location. It is in an urban, industrial environment, in Reading, Pennsylvania, a world away from the pine forests that are so important to the U.S. packaging industry.

Credit: DS Smith

In 2020, we took steps to drive greater circularity and reduce carbon emissions in Reading by building a recycling plant nearby. We also found a way to bring a little more nature to this urban, industrial environment. One of our mill employees is also a beekeeper in his spare time, and in 2022, we allotted him space to bring four beehives to the site. That has since grown to 10 beehives located at the southwest corner of the property next to the Schuylkill River, and we’ve started growing wildflowers in the space to encourage pollinating bees with an abundance of food, as well as areas to take rest and shelter. We’re also working with the Reading staff and the local community to harvest honey from the bee colonies.

Being more engaged with our employees in any community starts with a commitment to keeping them safe. So, in a packaging industry where sustainability is front and center in terms of what we make and how we operate, it makes sense to also include goals centered around people and communities in our global sustainability strategy, which DS Smith calls Now & Next.

Better communication for safer manufacturing

Credit: DS Smith

The “People & Communities” goals created within Now & Next include our focus on reducing accident frequency rates year over year. The Reading mill has been a shining example of that effort: The facility recently celebrated going six years without a lost-time accident. Longer term, the strategy calls for us to strive to approach Vision Zero—no accidents and no harm across DS Smith’s manufacturing operations.

Achievements like lowering accident frequency rates come in places where we have diverse communities. Having bilingual Spanish/English supervisors in our Reading facilities and some other locations helps ensure a common understanding and buy-in from everyone working to move us safely to manufacturing and sustainability goals.

By next year, leadership teams at DS Smith sites worldwide will have completed inclusive leadership workshops. Our largest and most advanced U.S. site, DS Smith’s Lebanon, Indiana, packaging plant near Indianapolis, has already done this workshop training, and the site has a wonderful example of how to build a great workforce in sustainable packaging. The Indianapolis area is home to a large Hispanic population, and to make sure everyone is thoroughly trained, safe, and comfortable working with us, we created three full-time Spanish-to-English interpreter positions at the plant.

That’s been a big help in a large 200+ employee packaging plant in the middle of a large manufacturing industrial park in a county with very low unemployment. We’re filling open vacancies faster with the multicultural community we’ve created in Lebanon. Most important of all, the training conducted through interpreters works; the safety culture at the plant is stronger than ever. It is another excellent example of how people make for a safer, sustainable success in packaging.