Sappi Ambassadors Educate, Engage and Drive Sustainability Initiatives

Our Sustainability Ambassadors are a network of 60 dedicated employees from various groups across all of Sappi’s North American sites. They readily take on additional accountability to drive sustainability education and engagement through interactions with fellow employees and the communities in which we operate.

This year, our Lead Sustainability Ambassador clarified the mission and deliverables of the ambassador group, focusing on three areas: communication, training and community outreach. The ambassador leadership and site teams engage monthly to develop plans that meet our deliverables.

An important part of communication is access to information. To increase our employees’ access to sustainability material, two internal SharePoint sites were launched. The sustainability site is available to all Sappi employees and contains collections of sustainability articles and videos published by Sappi and industry partners, training materials, Sappi news mentions and sustainability group contacts for the North American team. A second SharePoint site—a sales tools site—is accessible by the Sappi field sales team. It is a collaborative workspace for sharing customer-directed presentations that showcase Sappi’s strong sustainability position in the marketplace, providing technical documents and product certifications, and offering additional training materials.

Training is an important focus for our employees, and Sustainability is no exception. The ambassador teams design several trainings throughout the year. Each team tailors training specific to their coworkers on a variety of topics, including progress toward Sappi’s sustainability goals and familiarity with our KPIs. Engagement with the annual sustainability report is a key focus. Details of Sappi North America’s goals, projects and people highlighted in the report are used to create game-show-style activities and emailed quizzes, and act as a springboard for group discussions with subject matter experts. In addition to Sappi-specific sustainability topics, the ambassador teams share information about important global trends, ways to reduce energy consumption at home and recycling tips.

Ambassadors also develop and coordinate volunteer opportunities in their local communities. Ambassador groups invite participation from all Sappi employees in these efforts. Highlights from 2022 include the ambassadors in Boston participating in an annual cleanup of the Charles River and the coordination of a crayon recycling drive for America Recycles Day to divert unwanted crayons from landfills. Southern Maine ambassadors, including participants from the South Portland office, the Westbrook Mill and the Technology Center, celebrated Earth Day with Girl Scouts at an event in which ambassadors shared Sappi’s responsible forestry practices and detailed the use of renewable energy, as well as the variety of career paths available at Sappi.