Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)

ESG Metrics

57% of chief financial officers in a 2021 Q3 CFO Grant Thornton LLP survey have made it a priority to invest in ESG efforts since the start of 2020.

The financial aspect of ESG is a set of standards for company operations that helps investors make strategic and socially conscious decisions about where to put their money. According to Investopedia, using ESG criteria is an increasingly popular way for investors to evaluate companies in which they might want to invest. And it helps them strategically assess companies that could pose greater financial risk due to their ESG practices.

Climate risk, regulatory pressures, data security and consumers wanting to buy from companies that share their values are all reasons to begin tackling ESG at your company. On top of that, your customers may be asking you to reveal environmental impacts.

ESG and the Corrugated Packaging Industry

Many companies in the corrugated packaging industry have created sustainable business principles to guide their approach to ESG efforts.

We also use Product Category Rules (PCRs), Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to tell us about the environmental costs of extracting resources and the actual cost of creating a product for use in our everyday lives. These tools give us the knowledge for steps we can take to make greener, more sustainable products.

As the public becomes aware of the environmental impact that packaging and other single-use products have on our health and the health of ecological systems, tools like EPDs and LCAs, and the PCRs they're built from are telling a vital story. We are learning what works for reducing emissions and gaining knowledge on reducing our footprints. For the corrugated industry, these tools tell a story about a renewable resource, the ease at which it is recycled on a large scale or composted, and how we continuously work to make the process even more sustainable.

Our industry uses a renewable resource to create our products, has been working to reduce greenhouse gas emission, and creates a product made from recycled material that is then encouraged to be recycled again and again. Also, companies in our industry are heavily involved in philanthropic efforts and community engagement. Our industry has valued our employees and environmental impact from the beginning.