2020 Sustainability Report

In 2019, Greif’s Global Industrial Packaging (GIP) facility in Sweden received a customer complaint that jerrycans were being damaged during unpacking because the plastic film used to wrap the pallets was too tight and difficult to remove. In response, the facility tested a number of film alternatives that were easier to remove and posed less risk of damaging the cans and ultimately selected an alternative that reduced the use of film by 48 percent, saving 7500 kg of materials annually. The transition also led to $12,000 USD savings and a 22,000 kg emission reduction. In order to scale the project, the team has updated the standard operating procedure for using similar films and have worked with our procurement team to update the supplier and material for the film.

In 2019, Greif collaborated with one of our waste management partners to identify materials used in our operations that could enter their engineered fuels program, which aims to identify materials that have a high heat value such as plastics, oils and absorbents, that can be used as fuel in certain applications that require significant amounts of energy, such as cement kilns. Through this collaboration, polypropylene lids used on Greif’s fibre and plastic drums were identified as strong options to enter this program. Since these lids cannot be recycled, Greif’s Naperville, Illinois facility collected and palletized 3.3 tons of lids to enter into this program. Without this program, the lids would have been sent to landfill. This program is available to Greif North American facilities.

Greif’s Global Industrial Packaging (GIP) facility in Falkenberg, Sweden implemented an innovative printing process for intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) that reduces waste, eliminates the use of solvents in printing and generates efficiencies in the manufacturing process. By replacing traditional ink jet printing with laser engraving to mark IBCs, the team has eliminated ink-based solvents from the manufacturing process and the need to change printing plates between production runs, creating a more efficient facility, and reduce the amount of resin required by 6.7 percent. In total, this change will lead to $50,000 annual savings and can easily be implemented in other Greif facilities.

During 2020, the Hadımköy team in Turkey developed a waste roadmap by assessing their waste streams and determining a path to reduce their waste going to the landfill. The Hadımköy team introduced separation bins for paper waste in production, separated leftover food waste and sent it to local animal shelters, and introduced separation bins for packaging and paper waste in the cafeteria. In total, these efforts led to a seven percent reduction in their waste to landfill. By the end of 2020, Hadımköy used the projects on their waste roadmap to further reduce their waste to landfill an additional five percent and already exceeded the corporate 2025 waste target.

In July 2020, Greif’s Global Industrial Packaging (GIP) facility in Omsk, Russia implemented an innovative means of reducing their wood waste to landfill by turning their sawdust into insulation. During the production of the Clovertainers the facility generates up to seven tons of sawdust annually which represented their largest source of waste and 39 percent of their waste that was being sent to landfill. To reduce their waste to landfill, the team began searching for recycling solutions for the sawdust and discovered they could process it into components for pallet production. Once processed, it can be sold to farmers for use as insulation for their livestock in the winter or to construction companies to be used as fuel. As a result, they have reduced their waste to landfill and realized cost savings.

In 2017, Greif’s Global Industrial Packaging (GIP) facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was the largest contributor of waste to landfill in the EMEA region with 36 percent of waste going to landfill. By analyzing their waste streams, the facility team determined that this was primarily due to wastewater that, if treated properly, could be recycled. Despite limited infrastructure support, availability of recycling partners and transportation options, the team established a process to internally separate and clean water to acceptable levels for local transporters and recyclers and consistently return water to them. Through these measures, the team reduced the oil content of the water from 60 ppm to 1.5 ppm and decreased their waste-to-landfill to four percent by the end of 2019. Due to Saudi Arabia’s own water scarcity, the impact of this initiative goes far beyond Greif’s operations. Through initiatives like this Greif has the ability to set a precedent for other businesses to follow and ultimately benefit the local community.

Greif is committed to using water-based exterior paints in our operations where possible, rather than high volatile organic compound (VOC) exterior paints. In Global Industrial Packaging (GIP) North America, eight out of our nine steel plants use water based paints. In GIP China, the Greif Zhuhai plant has converted to 70 percent water-based paints and in 2020, they began testing the use of water based regular drum liners in our products to further reduce the VOC impact of our products.