In our global economy, businesses need to be able to get their products from their plant to their warehouse and to retailers across the nation and across the globe quickly without damaging the product. Damaged product also damages the bottom line, making packaging a critical player in the world economy. While environmental concern and awareness has grown in the past several years, there is still a clear need for paper and plastic products. Economy aside, there are safety and sanitary reasons that goods must be packaged properly as they travel. At Norkol, we provide many packaging solutions for companies, who in turn supply the public with many essential products in many fields. In addition to providing great packaging solutions, we are very proud of the many steps we take to ensure we are doing our part for the environment.
Certifications
To show our commitment to the environment, we have earned multiple certifications from international organizations that monitor the responsible use of natural resources and set standards to increase sustainability.
We are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international non-profit organization that sets principles and criteria to ensure that products come from responsibly managed forests. Their mission is to “promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.” Not only that, but we have achieved Chain of Custody certification, which ensures all our suppliers comply to those same standards.
Additionally, we hold certification from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to standards that protect wildlife habitats and biodiversity, as well as sustainable practices and timely regeneration. These standards are updated every five years, and the certification process includes an independent, third party audit of our processes.
The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification is the third organization with whom we hold certification. This global, non-profit, non-governmental organization focuses on forest sustainability with an emphasis on the inclusion of smaller forests. PEFC’s Sustainability Benchmarks encompass international and intergovernmental research and guidelines, ensuring a very comprehensive view of our global environmental concerns.
Product and Waste
What does all of this mean in practice? We have several processes that help shrink our environmental footprint.
We seek out raw materials that contain post consumer recycled fiber. That means a portion of our products are used by reusing paper products that otherwise may have gone in a landfill. Ultimately, that means we are able to provide our products while using fewer trees. We are particularly successful in this endeavor in our Industrial Packaging Division, where we focus on using post consumer recycled paper.
Another important aspect to our dedication to the environment is our ability and commitment to reconditioning, converting, and restoring damaged paper so it is once again usable. We utilize partially damaged raw material any way we can. When we receive a roll of paper that is damaged for whatever reason, we look for ways to repurpose that stock so it doesn’t go to waste. Often this includes trimming the damaged portions away to salvage as much of the stock as possible for use in our products.
Then what happens to that trim? We take any trim we have or excess stock and sell it to repulping companies. Those companies then can transform that material into usable pulp for other products. All of these efforts have prevented millions of tons of paper from being sent to landfills.