Tackle Climate Change: Use Wood

“Certifying Trees outside Forests creates a win-win-win situation,” said Thorsten Arndt, Head of Communications at PEFC International, during the International Softwood Conference 2018* in Riga, Latvia, last week. “We can positively impact the lives of small famers and improve the management of trees in agriculture, whilst increasing the amount of wood available to society for products from sustainably managed sources.” “We will also enable cities to certify urban trees and parks, making it possible for them to provide assurances to their inhabitants that city trees are managed sustainably and raising awareness of the tremendous services that trees in cities provide to urban populations,” he added. PEFC is well-positioned to further expand the area of certified forests, explained Mr. Arndt. With the PEFC General Assembly expected to approve the revised sustainable forest management standard in November, trees outside forests will be eligible for certification. Click read more below for additional detail.

Highlights from 2016 include: •Collaborated with North American customers to bring sustainable ReAl® aerosol cans to the U.S. ReAl cans include a proprietary, Ball-developed aluminum alloy that allows the lightweighting of its impact extruded aerosol cans by 20 percent. This lightweighting reduces a 150-milliliter ReAl aerosol can's carbon footprint by 18 percent when compared to a standard can. •Continued work on the Joint Polar Satellite System satellite, which is currently completing environmental testing for NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. JPSS will enable critical measurements of global atmosphere, ocean and land surfaces and provide essential data for weather forecasting, storm tracking and continuity of NASA's long-term environmental data record. •Educated, inspired and empowered stakeholders to strategically strengthen curbside recycling in the U.S. through our support of The Recycling Partnership. Over the past three years, the Partnership has reached 17 million households in 424 cities, placed 400,000 new recycling carts on the ground, reduced contamination rates by 30 percent in targeted communities, and catalyzed investments in collection and recycling of approximately $27 million. Click Read More below for more of the story.

UPM Raflatac, a global leading manufacturer of pressure sensitive labels, is pleased to announce it has joined the U.S. Plastics Pact. This collaborative, solutions-driven initiative is rooted in four ambitious goals intended to drive significant systems change by unifying diverse cross-sector approaches, setting a national strategy, and creating scalable solutions to create a path forward toward a circular economy for plastics in the United States by 2025. The first North American Pact of its kind, the U.S. Pact is a collaboration led by The Recycling Partnership, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Activators like UPM Raflatac recognize that significant, systemwide change is imperative to realize a circular economy for plastics. As such, the U.S. Pact will convene more than 70 brands, retailers, NGOs, and government agencies across the plastics value chain to bring one voice to U.S. packaging through coordinated initiatives and innovative solutions for rethinking products, packaging, and business models.