Africa

LONDON and ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands, Oct. 27, 2020 (Press Release) -Unilever, owner of brands including Dove, Seventh Generation and Magnum, continues to make progress towards its ambitious commitments for a waste-free world, despite the challenging environment created by Covid-19. Unilever’s commitments remain unchanged and the company has significantly stepped up its use of recycled plastic.

Last year, Unilever became the first major consumer goods company to commit to an absolute plastic reduction across its portfolio. By 2025, the company confirmed it will halve its use of virgin plastic by reducing its use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes and accelerating its use of recycled plastic. One year on, Unilever shares an update on its progress; it has:

• Stepped up its use of post-consumer recycled plastic (PCR) to around 75,000 tonnes*, which is over 10% of Unilever’s plastic footprint. A significant increase from 2019, and solid progress towards its goal to use at least 25% PCR by 2025. Unilever expects its use of PCR to double in the next 12 months.
• Launched new innovations to reduce its absolute use of plastic, such as recyclable paper-based ice cream tubs which will save about 4,500 tonnes of plastic.
• Continued to ‘test, learn and refine’ new business models linked to reusable and refillable packaging, and now has dedicated teams to scale work in this space. Today, Unilever shares its learnings on refill and reuse models.
• Developed country-specific roadmaps to achieve its goal to help collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells.

As a result of these actions, Unilever is on track to reduce its use of virgin plastic packaging since it made its new commitments.

Alan Jope, Unilever’s CEO says: “Throwaway culture and throwaway business models continue to dominate our lives and damage our planet. Despite challenging conditions, we must not turn our backs on plastic pollution. It is crucial that we – and the rest of the industry – stay the course, cut the amount of plastic we use, and rapidly transition to a circular economy.”

Rethinking plastic packaging

Unilever continues to explore new ways of delivering products through its ‘Less, Better, No’ plastic framework.

• Through ‘Less Plastic’ Unilever has explored new packaging formats, including recyclable Carte d’Or ice cream tubs made from paper, and Comfort expanded its ultra-concentrated fabric conditioner which has a 57% smaller dosage than any other product on the market. It requires less water to produce and needs less packaging, thereby saving resources and waste. In France, Signal has launched a toothbrush with a replaceable head. It uses a metal handle, PCR material in the replaceable heads and reduces virgin plastic by 95%. Love, Beauty and Planet has launched concentrated shampoo and conditioners which provide the same number of uses as a regular sized bottle and use 50% less plastic.
• ‘Better plastic’ has led to one of the world’s biggest beauty brands, Dove, move to 100% recycled plastic bottles where technically feasible in North America and Europe. Other brands which use 100% recycled plastic include: Hellmann's recycled plastic jars and bottles in North America, pioneer sweet soy sauce Bango in Indonesia, and Sunlight Dishwashing Liquid in South Africa, Italy, Argentina, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. In Germany, Seventh Generation has launched bottles made from locally-sourced recycled plastic from Hamburg, where they are sold. In addition, Magnum will roll out 7 million ice-cream tubs made with food grade recycled plastic. OMO (Persil) is re-launching its liquid detergent with changes to its packaging and formulation to significantly reduce the environmental impact of the product. The new bottle is 100% recyclable, made using 50% recycled plastic. This launch is part of Unilever’s new ‘Clean Future’ commitment to lower the carbon footprint of their cleaning and laundry products.
• As part of ‘No Plastic’, Seventh Generation has launched a zero-plastic range and PG Tips will remove the plastic film on boxes in 2021, having already launched fully biodegradable teabags. In Chile, Unilever has partnered with Algramo on an app-powered, intelligent dispensing system which has thrived during lockdown thanks to its tricycle distribution system across Santiago.

Unilever continues to work with many partners to help collect and process plastic packaging, with programmes in multiple countries, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States. This includes direct investments and partnerships in waste collection and processing, building capacity by buying recycled plastics, and through supporting well-designed extended producer responsibility schemes in which Unilever directly pays for the collection of its packaging.

In India, Unilever has partnered with the United Nations Development Programme to protect the livelihoods of informal waste collectors, and to help segregate, collect and recycle packaging. The partnership has reached over 33,000 households and collected 2,500 tonnes of plastic waste. The project will be scaled to include more households in the coming years.

In Indonesia, Unilever has already helped communities in 18 cities develop systems where they can collect and sell waste. Unilever is using ‘Google My Business’, a platform which enables consumers to access the location of nearby waste banks directly on Google Maps. Currently, 424 waste banks are searchable on the digital tool, and the aim is to make 2,000 waste banks available through Google Maps by the end of 2020.

A refill and reuse revolution

As part of today’s update, Unilever shares its learnings on refill and reuse models. Unilever has had success with concentrated refill at home innovations from OMO and Cif. OMO Concentrate became Unilever’s first dilute-at-home laundry detergent. It was launched in Brazil in 2019 and has seen great success, shifting 30% of OMO 3L consumers in Brazil to the refill at home format.

In the 12 months since its UK launch, Cif Ecorefills have saved 171 tonnes of plastic and empowered hundreds of thousands of customers to reuse spray bottles rather than buy new ones.

Unilever continues to experiment in the area of in-store refills, even in a Covid-19 environment and has further pilots planned globally. This month in the UK, Unilever launched its largest in-store refill trial in Europe across some of its laundry, personal care and tea brands.

From the learnings, Unilever favours simple systems that minimise barriers to entry, provide an additional benefit and limit the consumer behaviour shift. To accelerate the transition to a circular economy and further reduce the use of virgin plastic, Unilever now has dedicated teams looking at scaling new business models.

Richard Slater, Unilever’s Chief R&D Officer says: “To tackle the root causes of plastic waste we need to think differently about packaging. We need bold innovations that challenge existing designs, materials and business models. Our priority is to fundamentally rethink our approach to packaging, and pave the way for new solutions such as reusable and refillable formats.

“By adopting a ‘test, learn and refine’ mentality, we’ve developed innovative solutions that will help people cut their use of plastic for good. One product doing just that is our ultra-concentrated formula for OMO which is diluted at home and uses 72% less plastic. After a successful launch in Brazil, we’re now rolling this out in other countries across Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, our Cif Ecorefill started out as a pilot in the UK and has since been rolled out across Europe, Canada and Australia.

“It’s still early days. But by making refill and reuse formats more widely available, accessible, and affordable, we hope to use our scale and reach to drive lasting change.”

* For the period 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020.

Further updates on Unilever’s sustainable packaging goals will be published in its Annual Report and Accounts (March 2021).

By 2025, we will:

• Halve our use of virgin plastic, by reducing our absolute use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes.
• Help collect and process more plastic packaging than we sell.
• Ensure that 100% of our plastic packaging is designed to be fully reusable, recyclable or compostable.
• Increase the use of post-consumer recycled plastic material in our packaging to at least 25%.

We are transforming our approach to plastic packing through our ‘Less plastic. Better plastic. No plastic.’ internal framework. The framework – which we implemented in 2017 – outlines our approach to how we will achieve our commitments and guides our innovation.

• ‘Less plastic' is about cutting down how much we use in the first place.
• ‘Better plastic' is about making our products recyclable and eliminating problematic materials. Specifically, it’s about how we get recycled content into our packaging.
• And ‘no plastic' is about thinking differently – using alternative materials such as aluminum, glass, paper and board where possible and removing plastic where it is not necessary.

LUCCA, ITALY, Oct. 15, 2020 (Press Release) -Toscotec will rebuild two tissue machines in Western Europe and Africa for a leading tissue manufacturer that remains confidential. The projects are on a turnkey basis and are scheduled for completion in 2021.

For the project in Europe, Toscotec will supply the tissue machine’s broke line and pope reel section, and its newly designed OPTIMA slitter rewinder, which ensures the preservation of tissue quality and high winding efficiency.

The supply of the project in Africa includes a modification into crescent former configuration, which will replace the existing machine’s forming and felt sections.

The provision of engineering design, dismantling operations, erection, commissioning, start-up, and training services, ensures a full-on turnkey supply for the rebuilds.

Toscotec further strengthens its position as leading supplier of tissue rebuilds, building on its substantial expertise in customizing its design to the mill’s requirements, supplying turnkey packages, and delivering on the tight schedule of machine shutdown periods.

Gabriele Romanini, Toscotec Sales Manager, comments: “The rebuild market is key to Toscotec, because it allows us to do what we do best, that is tailoring the machine configuration and our entire design to the specific needs of the customer, optimize their production to achieve the maximum possible capacity and energy efficiency. These new projects are no exception. Today, we are still seeing an untapped potential for rebuilds, with producers looking into increasing the efficiency of their older machines.”

JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 17, 2020 (Press Release) -Sappi has joined businesses around the world in calling for ambitious, collective action for nature. Covid-19 is causing societies, businesses and governments around the world to focus on ways to emerge more economically resilient from the crisis. With nature at a tipping point – nearly one million species are at risk because of human activity – we also need to focus on how to reverse nature loss.

With this in mind, Sappi Limited has signed up to Business for Nature’s Call to Action, a global coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and business groups including the International Chamber of Commerce, WWF, We Mean Business, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Business for Nature's campaign 'Nature Is Everyone's Business' has particular relevance for Sappi, given that our business is dependent on sustainably sourced woodfibre. We recognise that nature underpins our prosperity and wellbeing by providing economic value and security, supporting human development and equality and increasing our resilience to climate change.

Graeme Wild, Group Head: Investor Relations and Sustainability commented: “The key is action. Taking action means doing something with meaningful benefits for the natural world.

Our foundation is built on responsible manufacturing and responsible forest management. We act for nature in all regions where we operate and look forward to new opportunities to work together to protect, restore and sustainably use natural resources.”

In South Africa Sappi owns and leases 390,000 hectares (ha) of land of which 135,000ha is unplanted with 101,000ha comprising natural vegetation, 14,000ha under restoration and the remainder comprising roads and other infrastructure.  The areas under restoration are sites from which forestry operations plantations have been withdrawn, mainly to limit impacts on streamflow and restore natural habitat. Using systematic conservation planning, we have identified seven areas of national and international importance that have been formally declared as Nature Reserves.  Another 166 sites have been classified as Important Conservation Areas and receive special management according to management plans that have been drawn up using specialist conservation advice.

Globally, we also enhance sound forestry management practices by utilising credible, third-party-verified forest certification schemes. We neither harvest nor buy woodfibre which originates from tropical natural forests and our wood sourcing causes zero deforestation. Our commitment to zero deforestation means knowing the source of woodfibre; ensuring that suppliers implement practices to promptly regenerate forests post-harvest, which is required under the global forest certification standards that Sappi is committed to upholding.

Together with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)17: Partnerships for the Goals, we have identified SDG15: Life on Land as one of our global priority areas. Accordingly, within Sappi´s new 2025 Sustainability Targets, we have made further commitments to biodiversity conservation and will be enhancing the way we measure and report on our restoration work.

About Sappi

Sappi is a leading global provider of powerful everyday materials made from woodfibre-based renewable resources. Together with our partners, we are quickly moving toward a more circular economy.

As a diversified, innovative and trusted leader focused on sustainable processes and solutions, Sappi is powered by the expertise of more than 12,000 people worldwide; with headquarters in four key regions: South Africa, Europe, North America and Asia.

Our raw material offerings (such as dissolving pulp, wood pulp and biomaterials) and end-use products (packaging and specialities papers, graphic papers, casting and release papers and forestry products) are manufactured from woodfibre sourced from sustainably managed forests and plantations, in production facilities powered, in many cases, with bio-energy from steam and existing waste streams. Many of our operations are energy self-sufficient.

Sappi works to build a thriving world by acting boldly to support the planet, people and prosperity.