In our 2023 Sustainability Performance Review, Sylvamo Chief Sustainability Officer James McDonald addressed the company's sustainability performance and offered his perspective on our sustainability journey so far. Read his letter below.
To our stakeholders:
The future of paper deserves a company committed to the success of the entire ecosystem.
When I think of the range of issues the world faced in 2023 involving global conflicts, financial instability, political tension, expanding regulations and supply chain challenges, I am even more impressed with our more than 6,500 colleagues who continued to safely produce papers that people rely on every day for education, communication and entertainment.
We have never wavered from our purpose to produce the paper the world relies on in the most responsible and sustainable ways.
Over the last year, corporations have had to constantly evaluate capital allocations, expand environmental and sustainability disclosures and implement regulated reporting shifts while simultaneously balancing the needs of their stakeholders, such as employees, customers, investors, communities and key nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners. Fortunately, for Sylvamo, we have the experience and expertise to address all of these challenges and began to set forth programs, projects and partnerships to address them.
In 2023, we spent our time building relationships to support and advance our 2030 goals around sustaining forests, thriving people and communities and responsible operations. We continued to identify ways to grow our People Before Paper safety culture, reduce the amount of energy and water we use, advance inclusion and diversity initiatives and support education and critical needs in our communities. We also focused on identifying projects that will help deliver a 35% reduction to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 and a 25% reduction in overall water use.
The groundwork to accomplish our goals has been laid and we will focus on prioritization of projects in 2024. We still have work to do, but we are on the way to building a better future for people, the planet and our company. Our commitment to transparent reporting remains and we expect internal and external stakeholders to hold us accountable to these commitments.
I hope you enjoy our 2023 Sustainability Performance Review and will continue to follow our journey to be the World’s Paper Company. For more information about Sylvamo, our sustainability efforts, progress on goals and environmental performance, please visit our Why We Care section.
