Forest+

We aim to create more thriving forests than it takes to make our products.

The world’s forests play a critical role in regulating the climate as well as supporting biodiversity, ecosystem functions and communities. They can provide a wealth of resources and materials that can be continually renewed – including the wood fibres used to produce the liquid packaging board that makes up an average of 75% (and up to 82%) of SIG’s carton packs, as well as the polymers used to link some of our SIGNATURE solutions to up to 100% renewable materials.¹

Forestry operations must be managed sustainably to protect biodiversity, maintain ecosystem services and carbon storage, avoid forest degradation or deforestation, respect the rights of workers, local communities and indigenous peoples, and ensure a sustainable supply of raw materials now and in the future.

Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™) certification assures us and our customers that all the liquid packaging board we use in our carton packs comes from sustainably managed forests and other controlled sources. The FSC™ label, which can be included on all SIG cartons, enables customers to confidently communicate to consumers that the board used in their packaging contains material from forests that are continually regrown.

Our ambitious commitments to protect and regenerate our planet’s forests contribute to wider global goals – reinforced at the COP15 biodiversity conference in 2022 – to conserve, protect, restore and sustainably manage biodiversity and ecosystems for the next decade.

Our commitment

We are committed to protecting 100% of the sustainable forests we source from by purchasing all our liquid packaging board with FSC™ certification. We maintain our Chain of Custody certification at all our carton production sites and sales offices to enable the board used in our packs to be traced through the supply chain to sustainably managed forests.

On top of this, for every hectare that we sourced from in 2020, we will create, restore, protect or improve management of an additional hectare of healthy forest by 2030. That’s an additional 650,000 hectares of thriving forest by 2030 – the equivalent forest area needed to continually generate the wood needed to produce all the packs we made in 2020 all over again.

This commitment is based on the area of FSC™-certified forest (in hectares²) that would be needed to regrow the estimated 2 million m³ of wood that it took to produce the 400,000 tonnes³ of liquid packaging board we used to make our packs in the year that we set the commitment (2020). WWF has confirmed that this is a rigorous commitment and rationale.

We will achieve the 650,000 hectare commitment by partnering with NGOs, such as WWF and Brainforest, to identify and deliver forestry projects, and by seeking opportunities to undertake joint projects with our suppliers and customers. Support from expert agricultural scientists, botanists and foresters will help to ensure this work is grounded in science.

In addition, we will continue to empower and encourage our customers to put the FSC™ label on any SIG carton pack to champion packaging that helps create more thriving forests and raise consumer awareness of sustainable forestry.

We also aim to reduce pressure on forest resources by designing our packs to minimise use of materials, and by fostering recycling of beverage cartons after use to reclaim the fibres so they can be used again to create new paper and board products (see Resource+).

In 2022, we began using the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework to inform our assessment of risks and opportunities for our business. We also updated our policies on Responsible Sourcing, Environment, Health and Safety, and Product Stewardship to better reflect our commitment to uphold biodiversity.

Our targets

Our progress

We continued to purchase 100% of the liquid packaging board for our aseptic cartons with FSC™ certification – an industry first – and sold more than 42 billion FSC™-labelled packs in 2022. We launched a major new partnership with WWF Switzerland to directly invest in projects designed to protect, restore or improve thousands of hectares of forests, starting with a project in Mexico to secure critical habitat for jaguars. We also joined WWF’s Forests Forward programme and made a series of public commitments to drive progress towards our Forest+ ambitions and directly contribute to global goals on restoration of forests and biodiversity.

Championing sustainable forestry at the FSC™ General Assembly

SIG was the top ‘Green Sponsor’ of the FSC™ General Assembly in 2022, reinforcing our longstanding partnership with the FSC™ and our commitment to its rigorous certification standard.

Our sponsorship helped ensure diverse social, environmental and economic interests were represented in critical discussions on forest management and sustainability by enabling FSC™ members who would otherwise lack sufficient resources to attend.

During the General Assembly, we announced our partnership with WWF Switzerland to directly invest in projects that will protect, restore or improve thousands of hectares of forest (see Creating more thriving forests).

Performance in 2022

Sourcing FSC™-certified board

• We continued to purchase 100% of the liquid packaging board for our aseptic cartons with FSC™ certification – first achieved in January 2021. SIG is the only beverage carton producer to have achieved this.
• More than 42 billion (99%) of the aseptic carton packs we sold in 2022 carried the FSC™ label, raising awareness of certified sustainable forest management by bringing the FSC™ label to consumers around the world. To close the remaining gap to our target of 100%, we are continuing to promote the benefits of FSC™ labelling and encouraging our customers to include the FSC™ label in décor designs for new products. This year, we conducted an analysis of which existing customer product décors do not yet include the FSC™ label and we plan to work with the relevant customers to integrate the label in their next planned design change to avoid unnecessary waste of printing cylinders.
• We maintained FSC™ certification across SIG aseptic carton production sites, and added our newly acquired chilled carton production sites in China, South Korea and Taiwan to the SIG FSC™ multi-site certificate.
• Building on our longstanding work with the FSC™ to develop the certification scheme, we sponsored its 2022 General Assembly, an event that sets the direction of the organisation for the coming years (see case study above).
• We are working with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IFEU) on a project to measure the impact of sourcing FSC™-certified raw materials using life-cycle assessment techniques focusing on carbon and biodiversity. This year, we worked together to refine our approach and agreed a plan to help develop a methodology.

Partnering to expand sustainable forestry

• We launched a five-year partnership with WWF Switzerland to directly invest in projects designed to protect, restore or improve thousands of hectares of forests. The first joint project on the ground aims to improve forest management of 100,000 hectares and restore a further 750 hectares of forest to secure a landscape in Mexico that serves as a critical jaguar habitat. Read more about our partnership with WWF in Creating more thriving forests.
• Through our partnership with WWF Switzerland, we joined WWF’s Forests Forward programme, which brings together businesses, local communities and other key forest stakeholders to transform the way forests are valued, managed, protected and restored for the benefit of nature, people and climate. As a member of the programme, we have made a series of public commitments (see box below) that are designed to contribute to specific UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as supporting our own Forest+ ambitions.
• We began engaging with customers and suppliers to explore the potential to amplify our positive impact by working together on joint forest projects, including inviting them to join our partnership with WWF Switzerland. We also partnered with Brainforest – a Swiss for-impact venture studio for forests and climate, co-founded by WWF Switzerland and made possible by the Migros Pioneer Fund – and its venture Xilva AG to help us identify projects that would be suitable for SIG to undertake jointly with customers or suppliers. We are looking for science-based projects that are designed to create resilient forest ecosystems to improve biodiversity and store carbon to unlock the full climate potential of forests.
• Following our Way Beyond Good Champions’ Forest+ campaign in 2021, some of our local teams continued to support efforts on the ground to restore or create forests in their communities this year. In Switzerland, a group of SIG volunteers planted around 230 saplings to restore parts of the forest near our Neuhausen site that had been destroyed by bark beetle. In Romania, almost 100 colleagues from our Cluj site planted an “SIG forest” of around 1,200 trees on a hill near the city in a teambuilding event organised in partnership with a local NGO. In Germany, new trainees joining our team at Wittenberg were introduced to The Way Beyond Good and our focus on Forest+ through a trip to the Mittlere Elbe biosphere reserve, where they learned about nature conservation and helped out with tree protection measures.

Our Forests Forward commitments

1 Polymers are linked to wood residues from paper making via an independently certified mass balance system.

2 Based on 1 hectare of Swedish FSC™-certified forest (where SIG mainly sources from) producing an estimated 3 m³ of wood.

3 Based on an estimated 5 m³ of wood to make 1 tonne of liquid packaging board.