From the SEE Impact Report: Reducing Energy Consumption
Originally published in the SEE Impact Report 2022
SEE is implementing measures to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy sources across our value chain. Within its operations, SEE measures electricity, natural gas, diesel, propane, gasoline, and waste-to-energy converted to megawatt hour (MWh). In 2022, SEE operations consumed 1,319,366,159 kilowatt-hour (kWh) energy, equating to 4,749,718 gigajoules (GJ). The breakdown was 50% grid electricity and 16% renewable electricity with 33% energy from other sources (natural gas, propane, scrap plastic, diesel, and fleet fuel).
Our goal is to achieve energy-intensity reductions of 17% by 2025 and 28% by 2030 from a 2019 base year. Intensity is calculated by dividing total megawatt hours by net trade sales. To normalize foreign exchange rates, net trade sales are adjusted to 2019 foreign exchange rates, except for one currency that has been designated as highly inflationary under U.S. GAAP and uses 2021 foreign exchange rates.
Energy Intensity
2022: 0.227 kWh/USD
2021: 0.249 kWh/USD
2020: 0.273 kWh/USD
2019: 0.277 kWh/USD
In 2022, SEE achieved a 18.1% reduction in energy intensity from a 2019 base year, achieving the objective three years ahead of schedule.
Diverting Waste
SEE manages and contributes to the reduction of waste across the value chain and product life cycle to minimize environmental pollution. This includes addressing SEE’s own operational and manufacturing waste, as well as retailer and post-consumer waste, through increased resource efficiency, recycling, product offerings, advocacy, partnerships, communication, and education.
We aim to achieve diversion of manufacturing waste from landfill and external incineration of 85% by 2025 and 100% by 2030. Manufacturing waste is from production of the company’s materials, including scrap, and is measured by weight.
SEE diverted 67.7% of waste from landfill and external incineration in 2022. Several key initiatives are ongoing with new projects underway to achieve our waste objectives.
Conserving Water
SEE is managing water across our value chain in terms of quantity and quality, including operational consumption, effluent mitigation, wastewater treatment, and water scarcity considerations.
Protecting and conserving natural resources such as water is a priority. The products SEE manufactures do not contain water, so direct use of water is limited. The primary use of water in direct operations is either for heat transfer in manufacturing equipment or for quenching the molten polymer during the film extrusion process. These operations must use water of a reasonable quality, but it does not need to be potable.
In isolated cases where there was a temporary issue with the availability of potable water, we were able to successfully use recycled water from local waste treatment plants. Since it is not critical that we use potable water in order to manufacture our products, we have determined that the availability of fresh water is not important to our direct operations. At SEE’s facility in Toluca, Mexico, we have continued to make upgrades to the water purification system and are close to being able to recycle 100% of the facility’s process and wastewater.
Absolute Water Use
2022: 1,532,643 cubic meters
2021: 1,597,933 cubic meters
2020: 1,595,017 cubic meters
2019: 1,605,259 cubic meters
Absolute water use in 2022 was down 72,616 cubic meters (4.5%) from 2019.
SEE’s goal is to achieve water intensity reductions of 17% by 2025 and 28% by 2030 from a 2019 base year. Intensity is calculated by dividing total cubic meters by net trade sales. SEE achieved a 22.4% reduction in water intensity from a 2019 base year—achieving the water intensity target three years ahead of schedule.
SEE discloses its water security impacts through CDP, a global nonprofit that runs the leading environmental disclosure platform. In 2021 and 2022, SEE received a score of B from CDP for its water security efforts.
Water Intensity Data
2022: 0.264 liters/USD
2021: 0.290 liters/USD
2020: 0.32 liters/USD
2019: 0.34 liters/USD
To normalize foreign exchange rates, net trade sales are adjusted to 2019 foreign exchange rates, except for one currency that has been designated as highly inflationary under U.S. GAAP and continues to utilize 2021 foreign exchange rates.
