Sustainability is a supply-chain effort: if everyone collaborates to reduce carbon dioxide emissions along the supply chain, from raw materials to the finished product, the benefits for the environment will emerge in an appreciable and measurable way.
Fedrigoni strongly believes in this principle as global leader in the manufacture of high-value specialty papers for packaging, publishing and graphics, as well as premium labels and self-adhesive materials. Fedrigoni has been committed to a constant dialogue with customers and suppliers for years in order to reduce its environmental impact and find end-of-life solutions not only for its own products but also for intermediate shelf articles and goods.
This effort has led to the company making ever more sustainable and high performance solutions and becoming the ideal partner for the consumer goods industry, to which it supplies advanced answers for any type of labelling and customised packaging, particularly for major fashion and luxury brands. This will be spoken about today at the Climate Capital Live international event promoted by the Financial Times. Chiara Medioli Fedrigoni, Chief Sustainability & Communication Officer at Fedrigoni Group, will attend a round table entitled “Reducing the carbon embedded in consumer goods” together with top managers from Mars and the Consumer Goods Forum, where the issue of how to reduce the environmental impact of mass consumption companies will be addressed.
“Fedrigoni has been making paper for a long time" - explains Chiara Medioli Fedrigoni -: "the Fabriano brand paper exists since almost 800 years and since the end of the 19th century above all high added value paper used by others to produce books, packaging (often for luxury brands) and labels, from sophisticated ones for champagne to the more common ones for detergents and foodstuffs. 26 years ago we launched the first line of paper with selected recycled content, which nevertheless maintained the high quality, and today, on some lines, we use 100% recycled cellulose or alternative fibres such as the high performance premium papers in the Materia Viva [Living Matter] collection. We invest in research and innovation to find sustainable solutions not just for what we make directly but also for intermediate articles: one of our goals for 2030 is to eliminate non-reusable waste from the entire process, also downstream of our production”.
For example, by producing self-adhesive materials without a film to remove (linerless), so that the printer is not left with waste to dispose of. “We really believe that sustainability is a supply-chain issue - explains Medioli Fedrigoni -: if I produce a non-stain or scratch-proof paper using a mechanical process like embossing, but it is plastic coated downstream, my effort is pointless”. We must therefore move towards finished single-material products, completely in paper, with slotted closing, in the case of packaging.
The company is at the forefront also for plastic-to-paper solutions, for instance replacing plastic with high performance papers in terms of strength, water-proofing and hygiene, but made with renewable and recyclable fibrous raw materials: natural, virgin or recycled fibres. “Today, we are capable of producing high quality added value papers that resist humidity, grease, tearing and pressure and which can be applied in all commodity sectors, in food&beverage just as in cosmetics, hospitality and logistics”, confirms Chiara Medioli Fedrigoni.
Among the most advanced solutions there is PaperSnap, an innovative paper-based solution developed in collaboration with EasysnapÒ and used for single-dose liquid packaging in cosmetics and food, which previously had only been available in plastic; or the trays that hold perfumery and cosmetic products inside the packaging, which Fedrigoni produces completely in thermoformed cellulose thanks to a patented proprietary technology.
