Smurfit Kappa UK shortlisted for 2015 Sustainable Manufacturing Award

Smurfit Kappa has been shortlisted for the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers TMMX and The Manufacturer MX, Sustainable Manufacturing Category Award for 2015.

Smurfit Kappa was chosen for its unique ‘Protect their Future’ project. This encourages all the company’s employees to make a sustainable difference by considering and acting upon the impact of their home and working lives on the future of our planet and environment.

The awards are regarded as one of the largest and most rigorously judged events for the manufacturing sector. Smurfit Kappa’s short listing for the second round of judging will involve site visits to a sample of the companies 22 corrugated manufacturing sites.

A strategic framework of events and actions has enabled Smurfit Kappa to engage with all of its UK Corrugated employees with the aim of making them aware of the organisation’s responsibility for reducing carbon emissions. The project places emphasis on education and the development of an engrained awareness of the reasons for change by engaging individuals in a continual improvement process. This involves measuring, tracking and recognising success and achievement. Focusing initially on energy savings the project has developed to include improved communications across the sites. As a result, the implementation of company-wide Best-Practice Operating Standards and the establishment of a Best Applicable Technology blueprint appropriate for the whole of the corrugated industry have been undertaken.

Steve Parr, UK engineering Director explains, “Smurfit Kappa Corrugated takes its carbon responsibility seriously. The programme is driven from the top by the CEO and engages everyone, individually to cause a change. So far, we have delivered savings on carbon of 20% across the majority of our plants with over 50 live projects in our monitoring system. Being shortlisted for such a prestigious award is an incredible achievement, our understanding of what makes modern UK manufacturing competitive has obviously struck a chord with the judges.”