Unilever names Metsä Board as Partner to Win

Recently formed Metsä Board, formerly known as M-real and a European producer of fresh forest fibre cartonboards, has received a Partner to Win Award in sustainability from Unilever, one of the world’s leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods.
 
The award was presented to Metsä Board for its development of lightweight and sustainable boards, and their significant contribution to Unilever’s packaging.
 
The award was announced at Unilever’s second annual Partner to Win Supplier Summit, held in early May 2012. Unilever launched the Partner to Win programme in 2011 to work more closely with its key suppliers, ensure faster innovation and invest sustainably throughout its value chain. It signed up its 30^th strategic supplier partnership at this year’s summit, and said the partnerships now cover more than €3 billion of annual spend and support investment in growth, more sustainable practices and bigger and better innovations.
 
To celebrate and recognise suppliers who have made a significant contribution to innovation, sustainability, business integration, world class enterprise support, and capacity and capability development, Unilever hosted the inaugural Partner to Win Awards in 2012.
 
Pier Luigi Sigismondi, chief supply chain officer at Unilever, said: ‘Unilever has a bold ambition to double the size of its business whilst halving the environmental impact of its products. Our recent financial results and update on the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan show we are making good progress in both areas. However to achieve our ambition, it is vital that we work in closer partnership with our strategic suppliers to ensure faster innovations and invest sustainably throughout our value chain. In 2011, our suppliers invested an estimated €1.3 billion in additional industrial capacity to support our growth.
 
‘It’s a similar story when it comes working closely together on innovation. Half of Unilever’s innovation pipeline now comes from our suppliers. From last year’s Partner to Win Supplier Summit alone, more than 250 innovation ideas were taken into joint development programs. This demonstrates the strength and commitment of our partnerships and the progress we are making.’
 
Metsä Board was named as an awardee in the Winning through Sustainability category, as a partner in board and for its work on developing sustainable lightweight packaging. Kenya Tea Development Agency (partner in tea) and Agraz (partner in tomatoes) were also winners in the same category as Metsä Board.
 
Pasi Piiparinen, senior vice president and head of paperboard at Metsä Board, said: ‘We are delighted with the award and see it as high recognition of the work we have done to develop lightweight boards, as well as our progress in many different fields of sustainability across the whole Metsä Group.
 
‘Using a lighter weight board can reduce the carbon footprint of a carton significantly. When scaled up across a wide range of fast moving consumer goods products, with global distribution, the potential for reducing environmental impact is quite dramatic.’
 
Read more on Metsä Board here
Read more on packaging substrates here