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:
Grainger announced the launch of its 2021 Corporate Responsibility Report on www.GraingerESG.com. This marks Grainger's 10th consecutive year of publishing this report, continuing the company's commitment to addressing key environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and opportunities. Other report highlights include: *New one-page corporate responsibility program overview *ESG governance updates, including the Board's ESG oversight framework, and management's new ESG Leadership Council which is led by Macpherson *Expanded diversity, equity and inclusion content and a feature on Grainger Board members sharing insights with team members *New recycling and zero waste updates *Overview of Grainger's COVID-19 response and safe return-to-work facility plan
On a cool spring day in 2014, graphic designer Justin Ahrens and photographer Brian MacDonald found themselves clad in Spandex, knee-deep in a muddy pond outside of Sturbridge, MA, diving through the muck in a panic as a SteriPEN ever-so-slowly drifted out of sight. It was an unusual way for a designer and photographer to spend their day. But Ahrens and MacDonald are a little different.
The two were riding their bikes 1,200 miles from Boston to Chicago to raise funds for Lifewater International, which provides safe drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people throughout Africa. They dubbed the effort Wheels4Water.
Legislation aimed at creating extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs for packaging hit something of a speed bump in 2026. This year, lawmakers failed to pass packaging-focused EPR bills in six states—just one shy of the number of states that have EPR laws for packaging on their books.
That ought to come as a relief to printers and converters of labels and packaging, but in many cases it won’t. This is not because the news isn’t positive. It’s because all too often, printers and converters are only vaguely aware of what EPR is and how it could affect their relationships with customers to whom they supply packaging and labels.
Groups on both sides of the EPR debate want to raise the industry’s awareness: advocates by passing laws to impose EPR requirements that no one subject to them can afford to ignore; opponents by warning printers and converters of what the intended and unintended consequences of the EPR movement can be.
