Sustainability

Inspiring young people to explore careers in the pulp and paper industry with Sappi is essential to achieve our sustainability goals. Our mills in Europe are leading the way with outreach to schools and a rewarding apprenticeship programme. 

Sappi believes that the future of our planet relies on a well-educated and environmentally conscious society to be wise stewards of the environment that sustains us all.

Our teams are passionate about harvesting the power in and beyond trees for decarbonisation and CoCreating solutions with partners who share our ambition. Papierholz Austria is one of those partners.

Kirkniemi Mill in Finland took a big leap forward in 2022 on the journey to decarbonisation by installing the equipment required to receive, store and handle biomass to power its multi-fuel boiler. During 2023 the mill should be able to finally exit coal and instead become powered by renewable bioenergy. 

The steam boilers that Sappi needs for paper production are increasingly part of the solution to climate change. Instead of relying on fossil fuels like gas, Maastricht Mill has installed an electronic or ‘e-boiler’ so that wind and solar can become part of the energy mix.

As an anchor tenant in the rural space in Southern Africa, Sappi is acutely aware of the crucial role that rural women play in the agricultural labour force.

With new state-of-the-art technology, boiler 11 at Gratkorn Mill is shifting from a coal boiler to a multi-fuel boiler in two phases. The goal is to finally use only sustainable and renewable fuels.

Sappi’s international Revolving Credit Facility (RCF) of EUR 515 million benefits from our newly developed Sustainable Financing Framework. This is more proof of our sustainability promise and contributions to the circular economy.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has approved our target to reduce carbon emissions 41.5% per ton of product by 2030, as well as our commitment that 44% of our suppliers by spend have science-based targets by 2026.

At Sappi, we’re not just talking about sustainability and our SDG commitments. We’re taking robust action and making measurable and continuous progress everywhere we operate. Progress that EcoVadis has now confirmed by awarding all three of our manufacturing regions platinum sustainability status for the third time. This achievement places Sappi in the top 1 per cent of companies the organisation reviewed in 2021.