Forest+

Helping forests to thrive

The world’s forests are essential ecosystems for wildlife and for people. They play a critical role in regulating the climate and offer a wealth of natural resources that can be continually renewed. They also provide the raw materials for the paperboard that makes up most of our cartons¹ – and the wood residues from papermaking that link SIG Terra Forest-based polymers to 100% renewable materials.²

Through our engagement for thriving forests, SIG is contributing to healthy forest ecosystems and no-deforestation supply chains, while responsibly managed forests help to store carbon, regulate the climate and provide a renewable alternative to fossil-based feedstocks.

We strive to protect the continuity of the forest areas we source from through Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™)³ certification which assures us, our customers and consumers that the paperboard we use in our cartons comes from sustainably managed forests and other controlled sources.⁴

We are going further through partnerships to create, protect, restore or improve management of additional areas of forest beyond our value chain.

Through our Forest+ commitments, we are supporting global goals on climate and nature by tackling the forest loss and degradation that contribute to climate change and biodiversity loss.

We strive to reduce pressure on forest land and resources through our commitments to increase recycling of used cartons so that forest-based materials can be used again to create new paper and board products (see Resource+).

Our commitments

Sourcing from sustainably managed forests

Our commitment to sustainable forest management helps to maintain biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. We aim to ensure that responsible management practices exist across our value chain.

All the paperboard for our aseptic and chilled cartons is procured with FSC™ Mix invoice claim⁴ and we are committed to maintaining this achievement.

FSC™ certification ensures that forests are managed sustainably and are continually regrown – to avoid forest degradation or deforestation, maintain and improve biodiversity, maintain ecosystem services and carbon storage, and respect the rights of workers, local communities, and indigenous peoples.

We have led the industry in our commitment to FSC™ certification and partnership with the FSC™. We first achieved FSC™ Chain of Custody certification at all the paper mills we source from and all carton production sites and sales offices in 2009, enabling the board used in our cartons to be traced through the supply chain to sustainably managed forests.

Customers can include the FSC™ label⁵ on any of our cartons to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable sourcing and we encourage them to do so to raise consumer awareness that the carton is connected to sustainable forestry. 99.3% of the 47.1 billion aseptic carton packs we sold in 2024 carried the FSC™ label.

As a participant in WWF’s Forests Forward program, we have committed to a series of actions that go beyond FSC™ and are designed to scale up our impact by engaging with suppliers, customers, and others to boost the industry’s positive impact on sustainable forestry and contribute to global goals. SIG Group – Forests Forward – explorer.land

Our Forest Forward commitments

Our approach

Key strategic pillars

• Create, restore, protect or improve the management of 650,000 hectares of forest land in addition to the FSC™ certified forest area in our paperboard sourcing
• Enter into partnerships to expand our positive impact
• Contribute to global goals to reverse biodiversity loss

Partnering to expand our positive impact

We have a longstanding partnership with the FSC™ to support the development and implementation of its rigorous certification standard. This includes membership of FSC™ International.

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Through a five-year partnership with WWF Switzerland, we are investing directly in field projects to create, protect, restore, or improve the management of forest land, with a strong focus on biodiversity.

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We are a participant in Forests Forward, a signature WWF program for corporate action in benefit of nature, climate, and people. We are making good progress on the public commitments we have made through the program, including ambitious goals on responsible sourcing and investing in forest landscapes.

SIG participates in the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) Corporate Engagement Program, pledging alignment with the SBTN’s goals and vision, and contributing advice and end-user insights to the development of SBTN methods and tools.

We engage with suppliers and are implementing a due diligence system and processes to be compliant with the new EU Deforestation Free Regulation. As 100% of the paper board we use in our cartons is covered by the FSC™ certification,⁶ we regard the deforestation risk as low.

Our targets and performance

Targets, progress and performance

Progress in 2024

Working on our WWF Forests Forward targets

• Continuation of our landscape restoration project with WWF in Mexico
• Selection and commencement of the second landscape protection and restoration project with WWF in Malaysia
• Selection and commencement of the third landscape restoration project in Thailand
• Finalization of a concept to allow SIG customers to participate in the Forest+ ambition
• Discussions with paperboard suppliers on their contribution to our Forest+ ambition

KPIs

Outlook

We expect to achieve approximately 50% of our 650,000 hectare target through our partnership projects with WWF. The launch of two new projects in Malaysia and Thailand will contribute to this – see below. We aim to achieve the remaining 50% of the target through projects with our key paperboard suppliers. First letters of intent have been received.

WWF and SIG: a shared mission to preserve the natural ecosystem of forests

Forests are essential to life. Through our partnership with WWF Switzerland, we are together supporting projects on the ground that improve the sustainability, biodiversity, and resilience of forests.

Targeted support for at-risk forests

SIG joined forces with WWF Switzerland in October 2022 to support resilient forest ecosystems around the world through WWF’s Forests Forward program. As well as working on responsible sourcing in SIG’s value chain, the five-year partnership aims to deliver targeted support for at-risk forests in biodiversity hotspots and deforestation fronts.

First project in Mexico

The first project, launched in late 2022, helps protect and restore the Central Pacific Landscape in Mexico – a critical jaguar habitat. The project aims to improve the landscape management of 100,000 hectares of forest landscapes, and to reforest and restore a further 750 hectares of degraded land, in the Central Pacific landscape on Mexico’s western coast. In doing so it will support key ecosystems and help secure a critical corridor for jaguars to move across forest and mangrove habitats.

Second project in Malaysia

In August 2024, in partnership with WWF Switzerland and WWF Malaysia, we launched a three and a half-year forest landscape project in Malaysia’s Ulu Muda Forest Complex through WWF’s Forests Forward program. The project targets improved management of more than 170,000 hectares and will pilot the restoration of 25 hectares.

The project aims to strengthen the resilience of a landscape that can continue to provide vital ecosystem services for the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia – ensuring water security and enabling economic growth, as well as contributing to the nation’s food security. Empowering local communities to champion conservation is a key component of achieving this.

As one of the last remaining large intact lowland forests in Malaysia, Ulu Muda is a biodiversity hotspot. Located in the state of Kedah in the northwestern part of Peninsular Malaysia, it is home to a huge number of plants and animals, including a large population of endangered Asian elephants. It is the most important water catchment for the region and its dams meet significant domestic, industrial, and agricultural water needs. More than 4,900 people from neighboring villages depend on Ulu Muda for their livelihoods and wellbeing.

Third project in Thailand

In December 2024, SIG launched its third joint project with WWF Switzerland, this time focusing on protecting and connecting key forest landscapes in Thailand. This initiative aims to enhance forest management and connectivity in the Dawna Tenasserim, Lower Songkhram and Dong Phayayen landscapes, benefiting a total of 60,000 hectares of forests.

Thailand’s forests are part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, one of the most biologically rich regions on Earth. These forests are home to a vast array of species, including clouded leopards, tigers, Asian elephants, and various orchids, many of which are endangered. Deforestation and habitat fragmentation pose significant threats to this biodiversity.

The new joint project focuses on three main objectives:

• Securing corridors essential to forest ecosystem connectivity and integrity.
• Strengthening existing conservation lands and designating new protected areas.
• Fully engaging communities in conservation design, implementation, and monitoring, and providing alternative livelihood opportunities.

Activities planned to achieve these objectives include

• reconnecting forest complexes to create conditions for the return of big cats
• improving habitat connectivity to aid the spread of elephants into Khao Yai National Park
• restoring riparian forests
• designating protected areas
• securing land use rights for communities
• promoting agroforestry and ecotourism

Protecting nature and biodiversity

The world’s natural ecosystems are declining at unprecedented rates⁷ – driven by changes in land and water use, exploitation of natural resources, environmental pollution and climate change.

Since 1970, global wildlife populations have been decimated and one million species face extinction today.⁸ This is catastrophic not only for nature but also for people and businesses, with 50% of the global economy under threat from biodiversity loss.⁹

The Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at the COP15 summit in December 2022, has catalyzed efforts to tackle biodiversity loss and restore natural ecosystems with far-reaching global goals for 2030: These goals include:

• Conservation, management, and restoration of ecosystems
• Halving food waste
• Providing information to help consumers make sustainable choices
• Requiring companies to monitor, assess, and disclose biodiversity risks, dependencies, and impacts through the value chain.

The framework requires businesses to do their part, and stakeholders increasingly expect us to act. Regulations and reporting requirements are growing in this area. Biodiversity loss is second only to climate change on the list of environmental concerns for consumers globally – and tops the list in Brazil and China.¹⁰ Investors want companies to demonstrate that they are addressing nature-related financial risks and opportunities.

At COP16, held in Cali, Colombia in 2024, additional commitments were made to integrate biodiversity more deeply into business strategies, with a focus on accelerating private sector engagement. These efforts complement the COP15 outcomes by emphasizing the importance of nature-positive business models, where companies are not only expected to mitigate risks but also contribute to positive biodiversity outcomes.

Our commitments

We are committed to fostering biodiversity and healthy ecosystems, and to responsible management practices across our value chain. Our commitment to product stewardship includes our commitments to safeguard the environment including but not limited to impacts related to climate change, loss of biodiversity, soil condition and water use.

Our approach

We aim to avoid negative impacts on biodiversity and achieve more positive outcomes for nature and forests by taking the actions described below:

• Sourcing raw materials from certified responsible sources, including all paperboard for our cartons with FSC™ certification, and ASI certification for aluminum suppliers.
• Maintaining ISO 14001 certification for environmental management across our global operations, assessing compliance with environmental standards through rigorous SEDEX SMETA audits at all our production sites, and identifying high-risk sites to support targeted mitigation measures.
• Reducing food loss and waste through our aseptic packs and highly efficient filling machines and improving waste collection systems to prevent packaging waste entering the environment as litter.
• Reducing SIGs climate impacts in line with our Net Zero commitments (see Climate+)
• Further optimizing our packaging using a life-cycle approach including multiple impact categories with biodiversity endpoints (see Sustainable innovation)
• Reducing packaging waste that may end in the natural environment as litter (see Resource+)

Our business relies heavily on nature and the ecosystem services it provides. Forest-based paperboard is the main raw material for our cartons, so we prioritize on safeguarding replenishment and strive for positive environmental outcomes. Other dependencies such as water are detailed in Resource+. Beyond the direct dependencies and corresponding impacts at our operational sites, our value chain may also contribute to negative biodiversity impacts. This includes the sourcing of commodities (such as aluminum foil), our production processes, and the end-of-life of used packaging products. In addition to direct impacts, the emission of greenhouse gases and other pollutants may threaten the natural environment.

Assessing effectiveness

Every two years all our operations, including all our production plants, are subjected to a SEDEX SMETA 4 Pillar audit which also covers environmental practices including biodiversity-related activities. Regular reviews are conducted by the Vice President of Global Sourcing and Procurement.

Taking a science-based approach for nature

Our assessment of SIG’s most material topics (see Our material topics) links biodiversity closely to forest ecosystems, where we can have the biggest impact on reducing biodiversity loss and delivering positive outcomes for nature.

We have already set a quantified nature positive target to create, restore, protect or improve management of an additional 650,000 hectares of forest by 2030, using a rigorous rationale that was confirmed by WWF. We will build on this by working towards science-based targets for nature, encompassing a range of environmental impacts, that can be externally verified in line with emerging standards.

In 2023 we joined the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN), which released the first guidance on science-based targets for nature in 2023. We are contributing with our expertise to the development of further guidance on science-based targets for nature as a member of the SBTN Corporate Engagement Program.

We engage with the Sustainability and Health Initiative for NetPositive Enterprise (SHINE), on ways to make use of established tools, such as life-cycle assessment, to help measure and communicate biodiversity impact in a standardized way to support informed stakeholder choices, such as consumers, based on a product’s impact on nature.

In 2024, SHINE started to create a white paper proposing a framework for regenerative sustainability on multiple impact categories, including biodiversity. The framework specifies different pathways for creating and measuring handprints as positive outcomes and relates handprint creation to footprint reduction. The framework is targeted at thought leaders who influence the development of sustainability metrics and create coherence between corporate sustainability accounting along value chains and environmental performance assessments of products and their life cycle.¹²

SHINE also concluded an update and further clarification of the framework of handprints and how to calculate them in practical terms. The methodology update has brought handprint assessment and reporting practices into alignment with related reporting frameworks including Avoided Emissions as defined by the WBCSD, and Beyond-Value-Chain-Mitigation as defined by the SBTi. It has also increased the alignment between SHINE’s Handprint framework and one published by researchers in Finland.

Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) approach

In 2024, we completed our materiality screening in line with the SBTN Materiality Screening Tool (MST), following on from our previous efforts based on the ENCORE assessment (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposure) carried out in 2023. This process provided a high-level assessment to identify whether our economic activities are materially impacting the eight key environmental pressure categories. By leveraging the Materiality Screening Tool, we gained valuable insights into both our direct operations and upstream value chains. The tool offered an initial automated assessment, which we then refined using our company-specific data, ensuring a more accurate representation of our material impacts. This comprehensive materiality screening helped us better understand the environmental pressures associated with our business activities, forming the foundation for setting effective science-based targets.

For the scope of action in our work with the SBTN, we are following the same organizational boundaries that we have used for the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). This means we are defining our boundary based on the operational control approach, which includes all business operations that fall directly under our ownership or control, as well as all raw materials identified as critical for our operations. By maintaining consistency with the organizational boundaries established for the SBTi, we ensure a streamlined and aligned approach to both climate and nature-related target setting, covering all relevant activities under our responsibility for the year in which the assessment is conducted. Three categories were identified as summarizing the core of the business (direct operations), whilst two of our A-materials fall within the high-impact commodity list.

In 2024, we also completed the value chain assessment, as part of our SBTN process. This step involved a more detailed and resource-intensive analysis but was focused specifically on the activities and environmental pressures identified as material for SIG during the materiality screening. Through this assessment, we mapped our business activities and value chains, quantifying their resulting pressures on nature. This comprehensive evaluation allowed us to gain deeper insights into the specific areas where our operations and value chains have the greatest environmental impacts, further informing our strategy for setting science-based targets. SIG chose to tackle all activities associated with the Company’s organizational boundary (direct operations and upstream) in its initial value chain assessment

Building on this robust assessment, we are preparing to join the SBTN pilot program during 2025 to start working on our target-validation process.

Our positive impact – Nature and biodiversity

Reverting biodiversity loss and helping nature thrive across the full value chain is fundamental to our ambition to deliver a regenerative packaging solution.

Each of our action areas contributes to reducing a negative impact on biodiversity and delivers positive outcomes for nature.

Managing nature-related risks and opportunities

In 2024, we conducted an in-depth analysis to identify our dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities related to nature, in preparation for reporting in line with the recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). Aligned with our SBTN initiatives, we also mapped the key steps outlined in the Locate and Evaluate phases of the LEAP approach. This helped us better understand and identify critical nature-related dependencies and impacts, as well as associated risks and opportunities, both within our operations and across our value chain. As part of this process, we carried out a first analysis of key suppliers and markets (Sweden, USA, Germany, China, India and Brazil) in conjunction with our climate risk assessment (see our TCFD report).

Part of this exercise continued the biodiversity and water consumption impact assessment efforts using the WWF Biodiversity & Water Risk Filter tools (see Resource+). The impact on the land-use chain and soil pollutants in both operations and the value chain was also analyzed based on available sectoral information such as life Cycle Inventory (LCI) datasets.

1 Our cartons use paper-based liquid packaging board, referred to throughout as “paperboard”; Via an independently certified mass balance system.

2 Via an independently certified mass balance system.

3 FSC™ license code FSC™ C020428.

4 SIG uses FSC™ Mix material that allows the mixing of FSC™ certified wood with FSC™ controlled wood and ensures that an equivalent amount of FSC™ certified wood is procured at the beginning of the value chain.

5 The FSC™ label that customers can include on SIG packs is the FSC™ Mix label, which means the product is made with a mixture of materials from FSC™ certified forests and FSC™ controlled wood.

6 The FSC™ label that customers can include on SIG packs is the FSC™ Mix label, which means the product is made with a mixture of materials from FSC™ certified forests, recycled materials, and/or FSC™ controlled wood.

7 United Nations Report.

8 WWF Living Planet Report, Biodiversity: Time to Act.

9 World Economic Forum.

10 SIG analysis, UEBT.

11 For the first 11 months of the year Vice President Global Production & CIS, Vice President Global Sourcing and Procurement.

12 SHINE also concluded an update and further clarification of the framework of handprints and how to calculate them in practical terms. The methodology update has brought handprint assessment and reporting practices into alignment with related reporting frameworks including Avoided Emissions as defined by the WBCSD, and Beyond-Value-Chain-Mitigation as defined by the SBTi. It has also increased the alignment between SHINE’s Handprint framework and one published by researchers in Finland.