DS Smith Excels in S&P Global Sustainability Assessment
Packaging leader climbs 16 points the global ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) assessment
Sustainable packaging leader DS Smith scored 67 in the 2021 S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment, reflecting an improvement of 16 points over the last year.
The company achieved maximum scores for environmental reporting, product design criteria, resource efficiency benefits of products and use of recycled and sustainably sourced materials. The result places DS Smith ahead of the average score of 38 in the containers and packaging industry.
DS Smith received recognition for its Circular Design Principles and Circular Design Metrics, as well as its ambitious targets to protect natural resources as part of its Now and Next sustainability strategy, reflecting the company’s commitment to place the circular economy at the heart of its business.
A significant score increase was also achieved in the areas of climate strategy and water-related risks, reflecting the climate scenario analysis undertaken as part of DS Smith’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) reporting.
“The CSA requires publicly available sustainability metrics and reflects what investors expect to see from our sustainability reporting, which is increasingly greater depth and detail,” said Keith Ledbetter, managing director of DS Smith North America. “Using the results from the 2020 CSA results, we published a record amount of ESG data in our 2021 Sustainability Report. This level of transparency brings clarity to help our stakeholders make better decisions and that is reflected in our improved 2021 CSA score.”
S&P Global is the world’s largest provider of financial market indices. The S&P Global CSA is an annual evaluation of companies’ sustainability practices and the basis for the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) series. It assesses more than 10,000 companies worldwide, focusing on sustainability criteria that are both industry-specific and financially material.
“Participation in the S&P CSA helps us understand what investors care about across a full breadth of issues and to benchmark our performance against our own criteria but also in comparison to other organizations,” said Wouter van Tol, head of sustainability, community and government affairs at DS Smith. “We are delighted to have increased our score and continue to drive ESG performance through our Now and Next sustainability strategy, applying the insights obtained from these ratings to understand where there are opportunities to achieve even more.”