We’re kicking off Earth Week 2019 on April 22, which is International Earth Day. While we incorporate sustainability into all parts of our business every day, we are excited to have a whole week dedicated to enhancing nature’s gifts and improving life in our communities.
Colleagues and, at many sites, their family members and friends will raise sustainability awareness through volunteering, learning and playing in the world around us.
EarthChoice Ambassadors
As part of our caring values, we regularly give to educational initiatives, sustainability programs and efforts to improve the health and wellness of our neighbors. Our EarthChoice Ambassador program further reinforces this concept.
EarthChoice Ambassadors (ECAs) are Domtar employees who volunteer their time and energy to promote sustainable practices that focus on our customers, employees, company, and community. By identifying and sharing innovative manufacturing methods, educating and encouraging sustainable habits, and leading by example, ECAs embody our sustainability message throughout the organization.
Heather Stowe, Domtar’s corporate social responsibility manager and mother of the ECA program, describes the program simply: “All EarthChoice Ambassadors across the company are just that: ambassadors of making and teaching good earth choices. An EarthChoice is any act that benefits the planet or your community.”
Earth Week 2019
This year, during Earth Week 2019, more than two dozen ECA teams in North America and Europe are getting together to make hundreds of EarthChoices at work or at home. Events planned for Earth Week 2019 include:
Planting trees and gardening in community gardens and parks
Holding recycling drives
Hosting lunch-and-learn events focused on debunking agriculture and recycling myths
Providing families in need with resources to grow vegetables at home
Teaching students about papermaking and recycling
Creating a monarch butterfly habitat
Conducting reading events at schools in coordination with First Book
How will you celebrate Earth Week 2019? Will you be collecting rainwater, planting trees or participating in a community clean-up event? Share your EarthChoice by tweeting us at DomtarEveryday.
Learn more about our commitment to sustainability in the communities where we work, live and play:
PEFC-certified cardboard has replaced plastic packaging around the cider can packs by UK cider maker Thatchers, significantly reducing the company’s use of plastic. Thatchers has introduced PEFC-certified board for its four and ten-can packs of ciders. Using certified cardboard for packaging is one more important step in Thatchers’ commitment to the environment. The company first started its ground-breaking initiative five years ago, introducing new duo-wing cardboard packs for its best-selling ciders. Around 100 tonnes of plastic have been saved during this time. Through this innovation, Thatchers has also been able to wipe out its use of the much-maligned plastic rings. In the last twelve months, Thatchers has saved around 20 million plastic rings from being discarded, eliminating their potential harm to the environment.
Stakeholders from around the world are invited to give feedback on the Guyanese Forest Certification Scheme. Deadline for comments is 28 July. Give your feedback. This is the first time the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC), the PEFC national member for Guyana, has submitted its national system to PEFC for endorsement. See all system assessment details at: https://pefc.org/discover-pefc/our-pefc-members/national-members/guyana-forestry-commission-gfc
Global pressure sensitive label material supplier UPM Raflatac is pleased to announce it has made great progress toward a more circular economy for plastics and a future beyond fossils. This progress is detailed in the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment 2020 Progress Report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the UN Environment Programme. UPM Raflatac is the only pressure sensitive labeling company to have announced targets for reducing unnecessary plastic packaging as a signatory of the Global Commitment. As highlighted in the report, UPM Raflatac has continued to develop new sustainable label solutions that focus on more resource-efficient materials, including certified papers, recycled content, solvent-free adhesives, and wash-off and fossil-free solutions. One major step in this direction was the debut of UPM Raflatac Forest Film™ in 2019, the industry's first commercially available polypropylene and polyethylene plastic labeling material derived from wood-based sources.
