Paper and pulp producer Sappi’s three dissolving wood pulp (DWP) production facilities – Cloquet, Ngodwana and Saiccor – have completed the Higg Facility Environmental Module (Higg FEM) self-assessment via the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s (SAC’s) online portal.
The Higg FEM is a sustainability assessment tool that standardises how facilities measure and evaluate their environmental performance year-on-year.
Sustainability performance is influenced by the effectiveness of a company’s environmental management system and, additionally, the tool evaluates whether baseline measurements and continuous improvement plans are in place for water, energy and chemical use, as well as for wastewater, air emissions and waste generation.
With Sappi having become a member of the SAC in February 2019, it said on Monday that it had used the opportunity to benchmark its sustainability initiatives within a global context.
It noted that, to the best of the company’s knowledge, Sappi was the first non-integrated DWP manufacturer to complete the online self-assessment and said it looked forward to “using the Higg FEM to galvanise and progress [the company’s] leadership position as a sustainable producer of DWP”.
Sappi DWP sustainability GM Krelyne Andrew said the completion of the assessment had taken the company one step further in its supply chain transparency journey, and provided the company with the ability to bridge the gap between the beginning and end of the textile value chain.
“We now have a deeper understanding of the environmental performance of our DWP operations, relative to this value chain benchmark and see the opportunity to use the Higg FEM tool to support continuous improvement discussions and strategies,” Andrew commented.