Sustainability Reporting
The 2018 Novolex Sustainability Report highlights our contributions to sustainability across our business. It is the company’s first compilation of enterprise-wide sustainability initiatives. The report tells the story of our growth and accomplishments and reflects the importance of sustainability to our many stakeholders. The report reviews programs that contribute to sustainability in operations and product design as well as initiatives that support our employees and communities. The report also establishes baselines for measuring our progress in the future.
Manufacturing Sustainability
We take pride in quality, innovative and sustainable manufacturing. Strategies include recycled content sourcing, pursuit of energy and logistics efficiencies, and safety initiatives that protect the well-being of our employees. Our 2018 Sustainability Report measures for the first time enterprise use of energy which is the biggest contributor to our operational carbon footprint. The report has enabled us to establish benchmarks for these programs and lay the foundation for improvements that can address contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, waste and more.
Product Sustainability
At Novolex, we strive to consider the entire lifecycle of packaging – reviewing sourcing, manufacturing and product disposal as key considerations in product sustainability. The use of recycled content in our products reduces our reliance on virgin materials. Novolex engineers work closely with our customers and evaluate our end markets to understand how to minimize the use of packaging and develop products that can be recycled or composted. As we have grown, the Novolex product portfolio has continually expanded to include a range of plastic (resin), paper (fiber) and other materials, each with their own sustainability attributes.
Working with Others
Sustainability is a shared responsibility. We work with our customers on product design and with leading industry organizations to develop and communicate programs that support consumer recycling and composting. We participate in industry associations that educate consumers about packaging reduction, recycling, composting and the importance of using recycled content. We also rely on recognized third party certifying bodies who review our products against compostability standards and validate our recycled content claims.
Some of our industry partnerships and certifying bodies include:
- Biodegradable Products Institute
- The Paper Recovery Alliance (PRA) and Plastics Recovery Group (PRG)
- Iowa State University Polymer and Food Protection Consortium
- Sustainable Packaging Coalition and the How2Recycle® program
- Flexible Packaging Association
- American Progressive Bag Alliance
- Forest Stewardship Council®
- Plastics Industry Association
- American Forest and Paper Association
- AMERIPEN
- U.S. Composting Council’s Target Organics Committee
- Compost Manufacturing Alliance
