Marking Earth Day 2024, John Lewis has signed up to environmental organization Canopy’s Pack4Good initiative - an effort to source better packaging materials and ensure the protection of critical forests around the world.
Signatories will commit to ensuring that none of their packaging is sourced from ancient and endangered forests in their textile and packaging supply chains.
John Lewis says keeping forests standing is the “quickest, cheapest, and most effective” way to stabilize the Earth’s climate, adding that forests absorb carbon, mitigate the effects of climate change, provide habitats for an estimated 80% of the world’s terrestrial species, regulate water cycles, and are foundational to life on our planet.
Marija Rompani, director of sustainability & ethics at the John Lewis Partnership, said: “We’re committed to protecting and restoring nature, and we constantly strive to reduce and improve our packaging. Signing up to the Pack4Good initiative is a truly positive step forward on our journey to ensuring all our paper-based packaging is from a more sustainable source.”
Nicole Rycroft, founder and executive director of Canopy, added: “We are so pleased to welcome John Lewis into the Canopy fold on Earth Day. There is no better time to keep forests standing and to transform today’s take-make-waste supply chains that underpin the global climate and biodiversity crises.”
In another step to control packaging use, the retailer recently removed paper delivery notes from John Lewis customer orders. The change will reportedly save up to 26 million pieces of paper, equating to a possible 115 tonnes of material and 155 tonnes in carbon emissions saved.
Last year, Montinutra announced plans to upscale its conversion of forest industry side streams into natural biochemicals for the chemical and cosmetics sectors, with €2 million in pre-A funding led by Metsä Spring. Moninutra apparently utilizes chemical-free, pressurized hot water extraction and recovery processes for energy and water to create its products, intending to replace fossil-based consumption in the chemical and cosmetics industries.
This month, Bpacks announced the launch of the ‘world’s first’ bark-based packaging technology, set to integrate into existing production equipment for rigid plastics and offer an alternative, low-carbon, biodegradable material. The company says it can convert wood production waste into bark-based pellets or finished packaging in a process similar to polymers, with additional capital investments not required to integrate it.
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