Sustainability in Sappi group

Engaging with stakeholders is the basis of our licence to trade. To build a sustainable business, we have to understand our stakeholders’ concerns, expectations and priorities and engage with them on an ongoing basis through a structured, inclusive, transparent process.

We use natural resources like woodfibre and water to create products that support society’s needs. To ensure the ongoing viability of these resources, we strive to achieve the highest standards of environmental performance.

Responsible corporate citizenship not only enhances our reputation, it also helps promote financial success in the following ways: Engaging with stakeholders helps to increase employee motivation and productivity, and enhances customer satisfaction and community relations, while environmental initiatives drive direct savings in energy and materials.

Focusing on sustainability only makes business sense if doing so adds value. As our Sustainability Charter commitments help us extract strategic value, we view them as a business imperative and a way of honing our competitive advantage. Meeting our Charter commitments is essential to our sustainability as an organisation, but so, too, is balancing these commitments. The issues that affect us and our stakeholders are constantly evolving and shifting in importance. Being sensitive to these developments means balancing and adjusting our energies and capital expenditure in terms of the commitments while maintaining our core values of Integrity, Courage, Smartness and Speed.