Sun Chemical Corporation’s Corporate Sustainability Report, which was released at the end of 2021, focuses on its commitment to a sustainability strategy comprising three key pillars: operations, products and services, and collaborations.
As part of its sustainability strategy, Parsippany, New Jersey-based Sun Chemical organized a Corporate Sustainability Committee in August 2020 composed of eight executive leaders. The committee is designed to guarantee companywide engagement in sustainability initiatives and to oversee the sustainability strategy. Under this committee, the company built a sustainable framework to guide future road maps in each of the strategy’s three pillars. Those frameworks are referred to as the “five Rs”—reuse, reduce, renew, recycle, and redesign.
This approach supports a circular economy and reductions in carbon footprint, which can be applied from either an operational or product-oriented point of view. Each of these steps enabled the company to align its sustainability goals with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The latest report shows that the company achieved its recent energy and water usage goals and outlines ambitious new initiatives that align with the three key pillars strategy and “five Rs” approach. Some of these initiatives include the following.
Operations
- The company set a long-term strategic target to reduce carbon dioxide levels by at least 50% by 2030, building on the company’s previous target of 30%.
- In 2020, it reduced water usage by 6% compared to 2019.
- The company also reduced overall waste sent to landfills by 6.5% compared to 2019.
Products and Services
- The company is developing products that decrease overall packaging weight or waste, such as the water-based SunVisto® AquaSafe direct-food-contact inks that enable packaging lightweighting by allowing for the removal of protective film layers.
- It manufactures products with biorenewable content, like the SunVisto® AquaGreen platform of high-biorenewable-content, water-based inks and coatings.
- It is formulating solutions that enhance recyclability, such as SunSpectro® SolvaWash FL washable/deink-able, flexo-printable, solvent-based inks that allow higher quality and yield of recycled PET from bottle recycling streams.
- And it is developing solutions that fundamentally rede-sign inks that can lead to increased recyclability.
Collaborations
“Consumers want brands to not only provide high-quality products made with minimal waste and biorenewable content but to utilize sustainable best practices during all stages of production, from manufacturing to distribution,” says Gary Andrzejewski, corporate vice president, environmental affairs, for Sun Chemical. “Sun Chemical’s strategic sustainability framework allows us to ensure the sustainability of end products by increasing biorenewable content, improving recyclability rates, and reducing waste.”
The Sun Chemical sustainability report is available to customers and can be requested at www.sunchemical.com/sustainability.
Heather Buchholz is global marketing communications manager at Sun Chemical Corporation, a member of the DIC Group. Combined, DIC and Sun Chemical have annual sales of more than $8.5 billion and more than 22,000 employees worldwide.
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