Sun Chemical released its 13th sustainability report, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to sustainability and social responsibility in all aspects of its business.

As part of Sun Chemical’s ongoing process to achieve its targets to reduce CO2 levels by at least 50 percent by 2030 and becoming net carbon neutral by 2050, the company’s latest sustainability report highlights initiatives and results based on three pillars of its business: operations, products and services, and collaborations.

To guide its sustainability practices and roadmaps in each of the three pillars, Sun Chemical follows a strategic framework called the ‘five Rs’— Reuse, Reduce, Renew, Recycle and Redesign—which supports a circular economy and reductions in carbon footprint.

The operations section of the report shows how Sun Chemical’s recent acquisitions and additional manufacturing facilities affected overall energy and water consumption. The data highlights that despite the acquisitions, the quantities of waste incinerated without energy recovery and landfill waste continued to decrease since the last report.

“Sun Chemical’s ongoing efforts to strive for continuously improving results in waste, water, and energy reduction drive decisions and actions throughout our operations,” said Gary Andrzejewski, corporate VP, environmental affairs, Sun Chemical. “Our focus on decreasing energy usage, which last year included investing in solar arrays and heat recovery systems, is a key sustainable strategy that is especially important as we integrate acquisitions into our operations.”

The products and services section of the report describes Sun Chemical’s sustainable development process which includes the design of products or processes that reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to climate change, conserve virgin resources and/or lower the accumulation of waste compared to conventional products or processes they replace. Some of the featured offerings include:

• Copper-free blue inks for compostable packaging
• AquaHeat oven-safe renewable inks made with high levels of biorenewable content
• Sustainability-enabling series of inks and coatings for the narrow-web, label and sleeve market
• A new water-based coating for sheetfed commercial printing and folding cartons
• Moisture vapor barrier coatings for paper packaging applications
• Digital color management solutions that offer a number of sustainability benefits
• New functional black pigments that enable easier recycling of black plastics in recycling facilities

“Sustainability is top-of-mind for many converters and brand owners and they’re looking for products that enable them to achieve sustainability goals,” said Michael Simoni, director, global sustainability, Sun Chemical. “Because Sun Chemical’s sustainability efforts in research and product development are rooted in our ‘5Rs’ framework, we develop a wide variety of bio-renewable, compost-compliant and recycle-friendly product lines across our portfolio.”

Collaborations and partnerships play an essential role in Sun Chemical sustainability efforts, especially in shaping the future of a circular economy and strengthening sustainable value chains. To measure the sustainability performance of its suppliers, Sun Chemical utilizes the EcoVadis scoring platform. The report shows that more than 85% of Sun Chemical suppliers that participate in the EcoVadis system have achieved a Corporate Social Responsibility score greater than 45/100, Sun Chemical’s acceptable threshold.

Other collaborations featured in the report include:
• the oneBARRIER project with Bobst and other partners to create recycle-ready mono-material ultra-high and high-barrier flexible packaging
• joining the Circular Plastics Initiative through the Dutch Institute for Sustainable Process Technology
• a partnership with UK-based In2tech to develop a more sustainable approach to electronics manufacturing.