Our Approach to Sustainability

Our approach to sustainability is driven by Being Amcor. Being Amcor has three elements that define our approach to business:

Our Belief Statement

WHY we believe in what we do

Our belief statement is what we stand for and what we aspire to – it states what we believe in at Amcor. And what we believe in is responsible packaging. Responsible packaging contributes to a better world for today and tomorrow.

We value

HOW we behave in managing our business

Our values are the foundation of who we are and how we behave. They outline the characteristics that our customers and other stakeholders can expect from us. They help to explain how we do the things we do.

The Amcor Way

WHAT we focus on in building operational excellence

The Amcor Way outlines five business competencies to drive performance at Amcor: Safety; Customer and Market Focus; Talent; Capital Discipline and Low Cost.
All of our sustainability initiatives are focused to support and contribute to the deliverables of The Amcor Way – from Safety through to Low Cost.
Sustainability management is most effective when it is integrated with business processes and organisational management systems.
Aligning our approach to sustainability with The Amcor Way will help position Amcor to realise opportunities for sustainable business growth and to outperform our stakeholders’ expectations.

 

Our Sustainability Framework

Being sustainable is not just about living our core values. We are accountable to a broad range of stakeholders, and to gain their support and confidence we must be responsive to their interests. Our stakeholders are those who have a direct relationship to, or are impacted by, our business. They include investors and suppliers of capital, co-workers, customers and suppliers, industry bodies, governments, and the communities in which we operate.

We address these interests via specific plans and actions across five areas. These areas are:

Environment

• Implementing environmental management systems and continuously improving environmental performance at Amcor sites.
• Regularly setting and working towards our EnviroAction targets.
• Working with suppliers and customers to reduce environmental impactsthroughout our supply chains and the lifecycle of our products.

Community

• Conducting open and constructive dialogue with our communities.
• Supporting local community projects.
• Utilising our packaging expertise to address social and environmental needs.

Workplace

• Maintaining a safe workplace - ‘No Injuries’.
• Engaging and developing our co-workers.
• Maintaining a diverse workforce and providing equal opportunity.

Marketplace

• Utilising our life cycle assessment capabilities to offer customers responsible packaging; and supporting our customers’ sustainability objectives.
• Promoting the role and benefits of responsible packaging.
• Ensuring responsible and ethical sourcing/procurement.

Economy

• Positioning Amcor to realise opportunities for sustainable business growth.
• Demonstrating good governance, sensible risk taking and business continuity management.
• Managing climate change related challenges and opportunities.

These areas were developed in accordance with international frameworks and benchmarks such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. As such, they can be used for benchmarking against various international standards and our corporate peers.

Enterprise Risk Management

Our sustainability risks and opportunities are identified and assessed under our Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Framework and incorporated in our approach to sustainability.
Read more in the ‘Sustainability challenges and opportunities’ section.

Implementing our approach

Amcor’s Group Risk and Sustainability function coordinates the implementation of our Group-wide approach to sustainability via our Sustainability Leadership Council (SLC), utilising common tools and sharing best practice.

During FY2010/11 we continued to implement our company-wide Group Sustainability Action Plan and enhanced our centralised reporting and knowledge sharing. We launched our Responsible Packaging message and challenging new environmental reduction (EnviroAction) targets for the new Amcor were developed. These targets are for the five-year period to FY2015/16 and cover the recently-acquired sites.

The Sustainability Leaders within Amcor businesses develop and implement sustainability action plans appropriate for their region or market, in alignment with the Company’s sustainability objectives and with their own business strategies, plans and objectives. The Sustainability Leaders work with representatives of Research and Development, Sales and Marketing and site management within their Amcor business groups.