DS Smith, Europe’s largest cardboard and paper recycler and the leading provider of sustainable packaging, has become an Ellen MacArthur Foundation Global Partner. The three-year partnership will support innovation in DS Smith’s business model, to include projects on packaging design for a circular economy, and improving collection systems in urban areas.
We’re delighted to welcome DS Smith as a Global Partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Building on the company’s strong history of innovation across its supply chains, our partnership will focus on identifying opportunities to redesign materials, business models, and problematic waste streams, to create solutions that are aligned with the principles of the circular economy. By applying innovation and creativity, and taking a whole systems approach, we have a huge opportunity to redesign our economy so that it can work in the long term. I look forward to exploring what our partnership can do to accelerate this shift.
DS Smith operates in 17 countries across Europe to manage over 5 million tonnes of recyclable materials each year and ensure they are not lost from the system. It is also participating in new trials to solve how the UK collects and processes rising quantities of e-commerce packaging and hard to recycle products, such as coffee cups.
Our business model is centred on the circular economy and so this partnership will be extremely important in developing our products and services further. Our employees are proud of the efforts we make in their communities and our strong focus on sustainability. However, I believe we can go further and the insights and partnership that the Ellen MacArthur Foundation can provide will be invaluable. In return, our innovation can support the Foundation’s drive to grow more business engagement in the circular economy.
DS Smith joins the Foundation’s ten existing Global Partners including Danone, Google, H&M Group, Intesa Sanpaolo, NIKE, Inc., Phillips, Renault, SC Johnson, Solvay, and Unilever in driving forward market leading circular economy initiatives at scale.