Mondi puts pen to paper on WWF’s Climate Savers business leadership programme

Mondi Group has joined the ranks of global climate leaders by signing up to Climate Savers, WWF’s climate leadership programme for businesses. The packaging and paper group commits to reduce its specific production-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 0.25 t CO2e/t production by 2050. This commitment and others made as part of its participation in the flagship programme are in line with climate science targets required to limit global temperature rise to under 2°C.

Mondi is a world leading packaging and paper group, employing around 25,400 people across more than 30 countries, and currently producing over 100,000 different customer solutions. The supplier is dedicated to sustainably managing forests and acquires wood from responsible sources to produce pulp. Along with paper for recycling, Mondi then turns that pulp into containerboard, kraft paper and uncoated fine paper. The company claims to be fully integrated across the packaging and paper value chain, managing forests and production pulp, paper and compound plastics in order to develop industrial and consumer packaging solutions.

Mondi’s participation in Climate Savers is an extension of a strategic global partnership between Mondi and WWF that started in 2014. The partnership focuses on promoting environmental stewardship in the packaging and paper sector. In joining Climate Savers, Mondi commits to working to further reduce GHG emissions across its entire value chain and to taking actions to positively influence the packaging and paper industry as well as policy makers. Climate Savers members aim to transform businesses into low-carbon economy leaders.

Peter Oswald, Chief Executive Officer, Mondi Group says, “As a global player in the packaging and paper industry, we are part of an energy intensive sector. We’ve managed to reduce our specific CO2 emissions by 38% since 2004 by focusing on operational efficiency and energy efficiency. We join the WWF Climate Savers programme to reinforce our long-standing commitment to climate change mitigation and to demonstrate to the rest of our industry that using energy efficiently is not only necessary for the environment, but also good for business. We are proud to confirm our commitment to the science-based target needed to keep global warming well below 2°C for our production-related emissions.”

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, leader of WWF’s global Climate & Energy Practice says, “Climate change is one of the biggest threats of our future, with fundamental impacts on places, species and people everywhere. To change things for the better, we need to start acting now. We welcome Mondi’s efforts toward helping build a more sustainable business world and are happy to have them join the Climate Savers programme.”

To achieve its climate goals, Mondi has developed an ambitious programme to improve energy efficiency, replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, sustainably manage its forests and associated ecosystems, and source its raw materials responsibly. Mondi is also active in developing packaging and paper products that help its customers and consumers reduce their own carbon footprints.

Mondi’s Climate Savers agreement will run at least until the end of 2020, concurrent with phase two of its global partnership with WWF.