The leading producer and supplier of diversified paper, packaging products and pulp, Sappi North America, Inc., has been awarded a platinum score in the latest EcoVadis rating. This is in parallel to the company's regional counterparts Sappi Europe and Sappi Southern Africa.

EcoVadis is a highly esteemed leader in third-party evaluations of business sustainability performance and only awards its platinum medal to companies who score at the top of 1% for their sustainable practices. The few measurable categories evaluated are Sustainable Procurement, Ethics, Labor & Human Rights, and Environment. Sappi North America has proved to make improvements from its previous scorecard, moving from the 96th to the 99th percentile overall. Pertaining to the environment category Sappi North America procures 90 out of 100.

Sandy Taft, the Director of Sustainability at Sappi North America, stated that they were very proud to see improvements in all four categories. Sandy added that they were developing new strategies and processes to improve even further after hearing the results. Sappi North America is fully committed to an innovative and comprehensive approach to sustainability. The company looks at third-party evaluators like EcoVadis as benchmarks to improve the company’s efforts and identify areas to improve.

Taft stated that the pillars of their business were people, planet and prosperity. Taft added that by actively engaging in sustainable practices and efficiently using their primary renewable resource, the wood fibre they will meet their our commitment to all three. Sappi has finalized its sustainability goals for the next five years and is aligned with the UN Sustainability Development Goals.