The UPS Foundation, which leads global citizenship and philanthropy programs for UPS, announced it will award nearly $2.7 million in grants to preeminent environmental organizations worldwide. The missions of these organizations align with The UPS Foundation and the company’s environmental sustainability goals, which address creation of global standards and best practices as well as other issues such as renewable energy sources and reducing its absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from global ground operations. This announcement comes after The UPS Foundation recently awarded $10 million in grants to 44 organizations that advance diversity and inclusion around the world. The most significant grants will advance The UPS Foundation’s commitment to fund the planting of “15 Million Trees By 2020” in urban and rural areas around the globe. Last year, the program funded the planting of more than 2.7 million trees, bringing the number of total trees planted to over 12.5 million - 84% to its goal. Click Read More below for additional information.

Editor’s note: Arbor Day, which falls on April 28 this year, was established in the United States in 1872 as a day to plant and care for trees. To mark the event, Gary M. Scott, chair of the Paper and Bioprocess Engineering Department at SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry, answers five questions about the pulp and paper industry – a major consumer of trees. 1. Does paper manufacturing contribute to deforestation? Pulp and paper companies often are accused of cutting down trees to make paper. However, 39 percent of the fiber used for papermaking comes from recycled paper. Most of the remaining wood is obtained either through forest thinning (removing slow-growing or defective trees) or from lumber milling residues – materials that otherwise would go unused. Only 36 percent of timber harvested in the United States is used directly to make paper and paperboard. Each year the amount of wood harvested from U.S. forests is much less than annual forest growth. Land covered by forests in the United States increased by 4.5 percent between 1997 and 2012, even as suburban development expanded. click Read More below for more of the story

Sonoco announced the expansion of its environmental and social stewardship initiatives to include commitments to achieve greater packaging sustainability and recycling in support the food industry’s efforts to reduce global food waste. These new time-based commitments, along with an update of the Company’s ongoing efforts to improve environmental, governance and social measure, are highlighted in its 2017-18 Corporate Responsibility Report, entitled Better Packaging, Better Life – for a Better World, which is available on the Company’s website at www.sonoco.com/sustainability. Specifically, Sonoco set out key commitments for more sustainable use and increased recyclability of packaging by 2025, including: •Sonoco will increase the equivalent by weight, the amount it recycles, or causes to be recycled, from 75 percent to 85 percent, relative to the volume of packaging it places into to the global market place. •Sonoco is committed to increasing the use of post-consumer recycled resins in its plastic packaging from 19 percent to 25 percent. •Sonoco will ensure that approximately 75 percent of its rigid plastic packaging can carry the relevant on-package recyclable claim. Click Read More below for additional information.