HARTSVILLE, S.C. - Sonoco, one of the largest diversified global packaging companies, today released its 2012-2013 Corporate Responsibility Report, outlining the Company's continued progress towards achieving its global sustainability targets. The report's content is defined by Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Guidelines, which form a voluntary framework of principles and indicators that Sonoco uses to measure and report economic, environmental and social performance.

"A key initiative for Sonoco continues to be the development of a new $75 million biomass cogeneration system at our Hartsville, S.C., manufacturing complex," said Jack Sanders, President and CEO. "Powered by wood wastes from regional logging activity, the new cogeneration system will produce low-cost energy and steam for our paperboard mills, replacing inefficient coal boilers."

The Company also focused on improving sustainability at its customer and supplier facilities in 2012-13. Sonoco recently christened a new Supplier Sustainability Awards program, recognizing vendors that demonstrate leadership in developing and measuring their environmental and corporate responsibility efforts. And, in 2012, Sonoco Recycling reduced wastes from its U.S. packaging customers' facilities by nearly 44,000 metric tons and helped seven customer plants achieve landfill-free status.

Other highlights from the report include:

• Normalized direct (Scope 1) GHG emissions were reduced by 9.8 percent in 2012 from Company facilities as more natural gas was used to fuel its boilers.
• Sonoco Alcore, Sonoco's European affiliate, and the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) UKopened a recycling facility at the Company's Stainland, West Yorkshire, paperboard mill that is able to take up to 25,000 metric tons of UK paper cartons along with an estimated 3,000 metric tons of paper coffee cups from London's Heathrow Airport, which will be converted into uncoated recycled paperboard.
• Landfill waste from Company facilities was reduced by nearly 12,000 metric tons in 2012.
• Thirty-one company plants reached landfill-free status by diverting 95 percent or more of waste from landfills.

To download the report, visit the Sustainability section of our website.