Visy/Pratt Industries

Sector: Corporate

Employees:

> Over 8,000 people worldwide

Carbon Footprint:

> 1,238,000 tonnes CO₂e emissions (2005/6 - covers in/direct emissions from Australia, New Zealand, and south-east Asia)

TARGETS

> Support energy reduction programmes in each division.
> Map footprint for USA activities, produce paper supply chain life cycle analysis.
> Adopt and implement the updated Environmental Code of Practice for Packaging.

Achievements

> In June 2005, Visy Recycling upgrade at its Laverton Glass Recycling plant captured an additional 50,000 tonnes of material previously entering landfills.
> Results of a GHG emission audit of paper supply chain lifecycle revealed that diverting paper from landfills and recycling it helps Visy significantly avoid methane emissions; in fact, Visy reduces GHG emissions by almost half a tonne for every tonne of boxes it produces.
> In 2002-3, Visy voted Australia’s leading company for environmental performance in the Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers’ annual corporate reputation index.

Benefits

> Visy’s campaigns to encourage recycling have the triple benefits of avoiding GHG emissions from landfills, reducing the strain on natural resources, and creating business for Visy’s divisions. 

Low Carbon Solutions

Background

Visy/Pratt Industries Inc. is the world’s largest privately-owned paper and packaging company. Visy trades as Pratt Industries Inc. in the US and globally the company generates annual sales revenues exceeding US$3 billion.

The most recent environmental reporting covers only Visy’s Australasia operations until the end of June 2006 – similar management systems and operational processes are in place and being developed further at Pratt Industries Inc but are not currently reported publicly. Visy operates over 100 sites within the six main divisions of recycling, pulp and paper, board, specialty products, beverage containers, and food packaging.

Visy supports a number of environmentally-focused public awareness campaigns to encourage recycling. For Australia’s National Recycling Week, Visy organised a range of fun activities for employees and the community. The “I Am Visy Recyclable” programme helps consumers identify recyclable material. Qantas flights from Melbourne and Sydney show Visy advertising messages to encourage travellers to recycle when they get home. Bert the Bottle is a new Visy advertising campaign shown in cinemas throughout Australia that encourage movie-goers to recycle. For the last three years, Visy has supported recycling education programmes at schools and offers participation incentives to schools, teachers and students. Increasingly, Visy employees are encouraged to promoting recycling at their childrens’ schools.  The company has created a ‘cardboard city’ named Visy Boxworld, which has been shown at schools and shopping centres across Victoria.

Internally, the company has introduced quarterly CEO Environmental Awards that recognise the Visy business which displays the best environmental initiative. In addition, the company has produced a 12 month wall planner for employees that highlights specific major environmental campaigns - during these times, Visy promotes activities and competitions to encourage participation at work and home.

At Visy’s paper mill at Tumut, NSW, Australia, the pulp mill cooling circuit was split into two streams, medium and high pressure. A variable speed drive was installed on the medium pressure line, thus it provided a large energy saving and better control of the process. The energy saved was approximately 1,400 MWh or about 1,300 tonnes CO₂(e) per year.

The Visy Beverage PET plant at Heathwood in Queensland, Australia, has improved its energy efficiency by installing insulation in its blow moulding exhaust. In addition, the site also added enclosures for its ovens and dramatically reducing the heat loss. The two changes reduced the demand on the air conditioning chiller system. As well as changing the air intake location to a cooler area, it increased the air compressor’s efficiency, and as result of these projects approximately 500 tonnes of CO₂(e) is prevented from being emitted each year.

Pratt Industries is about to commence construction of an energy-from-waste gasification plant at its paper recycling mill at Conyers, GA, USA. This energy production facility will enable residual waste which would otherwise go to landfill to be used in energy production. This project will reduce emissions by about 40,000 tonnes per year and reduce the site’s use of natural gas by almost 90%.

At Gibson Island in Queensland, Australia, waste from the papermaking process goes though an anaerobic digester and as a result of the decomposition process, a biogas is produced. The biogas mixture contains 75% methane and 25% CO₂. The site’s cogeneration system has been modified to pipe the biogas mixture into the boiler and reduce greenhouse gas and flaring emissions by 1.2 million cubic metres per year.

Committed to sustainable development, Visy operates under a packaging philosophy of “we make it, we take it…and we recycle it”. The company bases its environmental management systems on ISO 14001 standards, and around 20% of its sites have been externally certified to ISO 14001.

Visy established an internal working party in early 2006 to identify and assess the potential impacts of climate change which could face both its own operations and its clients. As a follow-up to this initial risk assessment, the group will continue to assess greenhouse, energy and climate change issues on a regular basis.

Every year Visy establishes actions and targets for improving eco-efficiency for all sites, and accredited sites undertake audits to evaluate standards and implementation. The company has tracked greenhouse gas emissions and abatement since 2000 and has publicly reported its performance since 2003-2004.

Visy Pulp and Paper in NSW has planted about 10,000 trees for carbon offsets and plans to plant another 2,000 trees in 2006.

A member of The Climate Group since August 2006, Visy is involved with a number of organisations that promote climate and environmental stewardship. Visy participates on the Australia Business Roundtable for Climate Change, and is a committed signatory to the Australian National Packaging Covenant Council – a national initiative that works to guarantee packaging materials are manufactured, used, and disposed of efficiently and according to environmentally sustainable principles and practices. 

The company began supplying its own packaging paper needs by building its first recycling paper mill in 1979; Visy now operates 7 mills across Australia and Pratt Industries operates two mills in the USA. Visy/Pratt Industries is heavily involved in recycling - providing and supporting recycling services and incorporating recycled and recyclable material into its products. Annually, Visy Recycling collects over 900,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard, roughly 450,000 tonnes of glass, over 20,000 tonnes of plastic and 5,000 tonnes of metals. Visy Pulp & Paper’s recycling mills produce 1.75 million tonnes of paper annually, of which roughly 80% is from 100% recycled material. Visy Board is Australasia’s leading manufacturer of corrugated fibreboard boxes made from 100% recycled or eco-friendly kraft papers. In the USA, Pratt Industries collects and recycles more than 700,000 tonnes of paper, producing 100% recycled content packaging which is equivalent to saving 25,000 trees per day from being harvested.

Visy has ensured that only liquid petroleum gas vehicles are purchased for tool-of-trade purposes, thus reducing the greenhouse gas emissions stemming from the company’s fleet. The company is also examining the potential viability of both biofuel use and transport offsets.