Graham Packaging Releases 2020 Sustainability Report

Lancaster, Pennsylvania — (May 12, 2021) —Graham Packaging, an industry leader in the design and manufacturing of innovative and sustainable packaging solutions, announces the release of its 2020 Sustainability Report. The comprehensive report documents the challenges Graham Packaging overcame in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic while staying focused on helping customers achieve their sustainability goals as well as Graham’s own efforts to continue innovating within the sustainable packaging solutions industry.

“The pandemic required us to adapt quickly to create increased safety measures while overcoming numerous logistics challenges. As a member of the packaging industry, we were designated as an essential business, so while most of the world slowed down, we had to keep our efforts in 2020 on pace,” said Tracee Auld, Chief Sustainability Officer & Chief Growth Officer, Graham Packaging. “That meant we had to innovate our processes and work around the limitations created by COVID-19, while continuing our ongoing mission to develop new packaging designs to create recyclable, responsible products for consumers.”

While COVID-19 posed a challenge for Graham Packaging, it was far from the company’s sole focus in 2020. The Pennsylvania-based company continued to successfully move ahead on many important initiatives, including:

• Expanding its commitment to sustainability by signing on to the UN Global Compact, the largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative in the world.
• Helping to launch the National Lubricant Container Recycling Coalition, an organization that will tackle issues around oil bottle recycling.
• Joining the Digital Watermarks Initiative Holy Grail 2.0 project to improve recycling operations through the use of digital watermarks in sorting efforts.
• Continuing to innovate in product lightweighting, durability and reusability, helping to   reduce unnecessary plastic.
• Driving the industry on ethics and governance issues, including initiatives on Graham’s codes of conduct and its strategic response to climate change.

Further, Graham Packaging achieved a number of milestones in 2020 that stem from Graham’s core mission of environmentally responsible packaging manufacturing. These successes include:

• Ranking No. 1 out of 54 companies in the plastic, metal and glass packaging industry in the ESG Risk Rating Report, where 1 is the lowest risk. The third-party evaluator, Sustainalytics, also rated Graham Packaging as No. 3 out of 90 companies in the containers packaging industry and overall placed Graham in the top 2% of 13,562 companies measured globally by Sustainalytics.
• Offering 91% fully recyclable PET & HDPE containers and 7% sometimes recyclable PP containers.
• Accomplishing an 8% reduction in climate change impacts from 2019 to 2020.
• Reducing its energy intensity by 8% from a 2018 baseline, on its way to its 2025 goal of a 25% reduction.
• Winning the 2020 Innovator Award from the Sustainable Packaging Coalition.
• Earning a 95% favorability rating for its Environmental, Health & Safety in an internal employee survey.
• Completing 50 life cycle assessment studies to help customers lower their own environmental impact.

To review the complete 2020 Sustainability Report from Graham Packaging, visit https://www.grahampackaging.com/sustainability.

About Graham Packaging

Graham Packaging is a global leader in the development and design of creative, sustainable packaging solutions for a variety of industry-leading consumer brands. The company employs some of the best and brightest package designers, who bring inspired, technology-driven solutions to market. Headquartered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a flagship manufacturing facility in nearby York, Pennsylvania, Graham Packaging produces more than 16 billion containers annually across nearly 70 plants in North America, Asia, Europe and South America. The company was founded in 1970 and acquired in 2011 by Reynolds Group Holdings — a leading global manufacturer and supplier of consumer food and beverage packaging and storage products. For additional information on Graham Packaging, please visit https://www.grahampackaging.com/.