All aboard the Positivity Train - 29 September 2011

It’s not often that a company will share with you the processes that it is undergoing to make it more sustainable. It’s easier, more traditional and less risky, to share the successful transition once it has been completed! Sappi Fine Paper Europe is taking a different approach. Not only is the company underlining the point that sustainability is more than just about being green, it is also sharing and bringing all its stakeholders aboard its sustainability journey, in caring for the Planet, its People and their Prosperity (3Ps). The objective of the recently launched Positivity Campaign will be to capture all the positive things that have been happening, and continue to happen, throughout Sappi, under the 3P pillars in the form of stories contributed by Sappi employees themselves.

 

Eric Van den Bruel, Marketing and Product Development Director is very excited to be embarking on this collective journey: “Each story is like a piece of a puzzle, containing fascinating information about what our company, and more importantly, our people are doing in order to make Sappi and our world a better place. I think it’s going to be impossible to complete the full puzzle, because new story pieces are being uncovered every day, but one thing is for sure, if we do complete it, it’s going to be a very big picture! Each story is a concrete example of what we are doing, and step by step we can help to make a real difference, just like the saying - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

All stories are centralised on a dedicated website (www.sappi.com/positivity) where Sappi’s creative 3P videos can also be viewed, introducing you to the personalities behind the initiative and the company. It’s going to be an interesting and challenging journey, and we hope that you come aboard and join us.

 

Additional Information for the media

The Positivity Campaign Website (www.sappi.com/positivity) collates all our stories, organised by category (People, Planet Prosperity). For each story there are several images available and it is possible to obtain further information about the people and the initiatives.

Below are 3 examples of stories to whet your appetite reflecting the 3Ps – People, Planet and Prosperity:

Positive story #11 [People]
How some sheets of paper can support an entire school 
Good ideas can make all the difference. That’s why we thought we’d scribble down this one. Throughout the last decade, Sappi has spent US$ 1 million every year on Ideas That Matter. An initiative in which hundreds of designers pencilled out ideas to support good causes in Europe, the U.S. and South Africa. Last year, a donation of 1€ for every tonne of paper sold during one month in Europe helped the “Stichting naar School in Haiti” Foundation to build school premises in Haiti. Now local schoolchildren have the chance to sketch out a better future for themselves. What a difference teachers, textbooks, pencils, hot meals and clean water can make.
That’s Sappi positivity, more than just green.

 

Positive story #26 [Planet]
Why our choice for train affects your future
One simple choice can have truly amazing consequences. Sometimes it only takes one simple action to rub out a significant part of your CO2 emissions. Take Sappi’s decision to eliminate road transport and replace it with rail transport whenever possible. In one single move, 5,000 truck deliveries a year are wiped out. When trains use hydroelectricity from their own hydro power plants, it represents a CO2 reduction of 30,339 tonnes a year. 
That’s Sappi positivity, more than just green.

 

Positive story #36 (Prosperity]
How paper can become almost as digital as digital itself
The digital revolution has made content delivery continuous and personalisation dead easy. How can printers ever compete? The answer is now clear - by also going digital. First with their presses, and now with Sappi digital papers such as Top and the Jaz™ range. Top is a quality brand that maximises digital printing capacity. It reduces maintenance costs and downtime and offers flawless runnability. With Top, printers can deliver more content in a shorter time frame. The Jaz™ range, whether coated or natural, enables highly personalised offers on all kinds of documents. Its high opacity and full colour inkjet functionality makes it the ideal choice for extremely sharp and precise variable data printing. Otherwise said, personalisation of the highest order. That’s Sappi positivity, more than just green.

 

ENDS

 

More information about Sappi

 

Sappi Fine Paper Europe is the leading European producer of coated fine paper used in premium magazines, catalogues, books and high-end print advertising. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, Sappi Fine Paper Europe is recognised for innovation and quality. Its brands include Galerie, Royal, Magno, Tempo, Quatro, Furioso, HannoArt, Mega, Allegro, EuroArt Plus, EuroBulk, as well as Tauro for the uncoated graphic papers. Algro, Fusion, Leine and Parade are the brands for speciality labelling, topliner, packaging papers and boards. Top and Jaz are the paper brands for digital printing.

Sappi papers are produced in mills accredited with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification and EMAS registration for all our mills in the EU. SFPE’s mills hold chain-of-custody certification under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and/or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) schemes.

Sappi Fine Paper Europe is a division of Sappi Limited (NYSE, JSE), a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with over 17,000 employees and manufacturing operations on four continents in 9 countries, sales offices in 50 countries, and customers in over 100 countries around the world. Learn more about Sappi at www.sappi.com.

 

ENDS

For further information or visuals, please visit www.sappi.com or contact:

Elsa Mouillé
Press & Media Relations Coordinator
Tel: +32 2 676 97 25
Mobile: +32 479 588 009
Elsa.mouille@sappi.com 

Sophie de Guignard
Marketing Initiatives Team Leader
Tel: +32 2 676 97 35
Mobile: +33 6 0725 1414
Sophie.de.Guignard@sappi.com