Sappi North America Receives 2019 SEAL Business Sustainability Award

Company's Land Application Program in Cloquet, Minn. awarded for sustainable materials usage

BOSTON, Feb. 27, 2020 -- Sappi North America, Inc., a leading producer and supplier of diversified paper, packaging products and dissolving pulp, was named a winner in the 2019 SEAL Business Sustainability Awards for Environmental Leadership. The award honors companies for specific environmental and sustainability initiatives measured by key criteria including impact metrics, innovation, insights and investment efforts. Sappi is a recipient of this award for the Land Application Program at its Cloquet, Minn. mill and is among notable winners including Adidas, Disneyland Resorts, Tide Eco-Box and others.

The Cloquet mill's program began in 2004 in order to develop a solution to an impending challenge with landfill space. The Land Application Program repurposes boiler ash and lime mud byproducts into a sustainable agricultural fertilizer which is accessible to the local community at a minimal cost. Through the years, the program's dedication to waste reduction and efficiency have provided these natural byproducts to farmers, which reduces the commercial chemical products needed for high-quality growing conditions in the region. To date, Sappi North America has provided 200 tons of materials to 300 sites per year, with some farmers seeing a 30 percent increase in crop yield.

"Our investment in sustainable production and waste is a continued priority for the leadership team at Sappi and this award is a proud moment for the all the employees and community members involved," said Tom Radovich, Managing Director of Cloquet Mill, Sappi North America. "The accomplishments of this program are possible because of the combined efforts with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's ag-lime program and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, both of which we look forward to developing more opportunities with for waste repurposing and other sustainable benefits."

Sappi North America's Cloquet mill is the only current participant of the Land Application Program. Company leadership continues to develop similar programs to reduce waste effectively across other mills in the effort to reach the goal of zero-waste facilities.  

To see the full list of 2019 winners, please visit: https://sealawards.com/sustainability-award-2019.

To learn more about Sappi North America's sustainability efforts, please visit: https://www.sappi.com/sustainability-in-north-america-0.

About Sappi North America, Inc.

Sappi North America, Inc., headquartered in Boston, is a market leader in converting wood fiber into superior products that customers demand worldwide. The success of our four diversified businesses – high-quality Coated Graphic Papers, Dissolving Pulp, Packaging and Specialty Papers and Casting and Release Papers – is driven by strong customer relationships, best-in-class people and advantaged assets, products and services. Our high-quality Coated Graphic Papers, including McCoy, Opus, Somerset, and Flo, are the key platform for premium magazines, catalogs, books, direct mail and high-end print advertising. We are a leading manufacturer of Dissolving Pulp with our Verve brand, a sustainable fiber, which is used in a wide range of products, including textile fibers and household goods. We deliver sustainable Packaging and Specialty Papers for luxury packaging and folding carton applications with our single-ply packaging brands, Spectro and Proto, and for the food and label industries with our specialty papers, LusterPrint and LusterCote. We are also one of the world's leading suppliers of Casting and Release Papers with our Ultracast, PolyEx and Classics lines for the automotive, fashion and engineered films industries. Customers rely on Sappi for high technical, operational and market expertise; products and services delivered with consistently high quality and reliability; and, state-of-the-art and cost-competitive assets and innovative spirit.

Sappi North America is a subsidiary of Sappi Limited (JSE), a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with more than 12,000 employees and manufacturing operations on three continents in seven countries and customers in over 150 countries.