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Environmental Policy

Avery Dennison is committed to protecting the environment, safeguarding human life and manufacturing safe products.

The following principles shall be put into action as Company policy, to be binding on all Avery Dennison employees worldwide.

  • Avery Dennison will adhere to all applicable environmental, health and safety laws. Furthermore, the Company will go beyond the legal requirements wherever, in our judgment, it is prudent to do so.
  • The health and safety of our employees are paramount. We will strive to direct our operations and achieve productivity gains in a manner that does not expose employees to unnecessary risk.
  • Avery Dennison will endeavor to develop, produce and sell products that can be manufactured, used and disposed of safely and in accordance with sound environmental practices.
  • Avery Dennison will contribute to the protection of the environment by employing control mechanisms, procedures and processes that are technically sound and economically feasible.
  • Avery Dennison will strive to improve its operations so as to minimize any negative impact it may have on the environment and on the health and safety of Avery Dennison employees, neighbors and customers.

Advancing Our Environmental Stewardship

To manage and mitigate the environmental impact of our business activities, we strive to meet or exceed regulatory standards in our manufacturing operations, across our supply chain as well as in the products we manufacture.

Here are just some of the steps we are taking to improve the energy efficiency of our processes, reduce the waste and emissions we generate, create new eco-friendly solutions for our customers and conserve the world’s natural resources.

Reducing Our Environmental Footprint

We aggressively avoid the use of toxic chemicals, and have reduced solvent-based adhesive products to less than 10 percent of sales by using environmentally preferred emulsion or hot melt formulations instead. In addition, in North America and Europe, our Roll Materials businesses are collaborating with recycling firms and customers to divert product application wastes from landfills to energy or recycled materials.

To understand the environmental impact of our business, we are implementing a qualitative life cycle analysis (LCA) methodology to assess our global operations. LCA results help us to focus our efforts on the most meaningful and relevant sustainability opportunities in each of our businesses worldwide.

Our objectives for reducing our environmental footprint include...

  • Reducing waste sent to landfill from our roll materials operations in North America by ten percent by 2009, compared to 2007 levels. Similar targets will be developed for our other global operations.
  • Lowering global greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue by 15 percent by 2015, compared to 2005 levels.
  • Improving company-wide energy efficiency per dollar of revenue by ten percent by 2010, compared to 2007 levels.
  • Establishing global air emission reduction goals by 2009.
  • Setting the baseline for water use in our global operations for 2008.

Addressing Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

We participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project and Business Roundtable's Climate RESOLVE (Responsible Environmental Steps, Opportunities to Lead by Voluntary Efforts) initiative, both of which promote greenhouse gas emission and carbon footprint reduction.

A third-party, enterprise-wide GHG inventory revealed that our GHG emissions and associated energy usage are low in comparison with the growing list of companies reporting GHG emissions. In 2005, our global baseline GHG emissions equated to approximately 600,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, or 0.6 Tg (teragrams) CO2e. For context, EPA reported the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the U.S. economic "industry" sector at 2083.3 Tg CO2e in 2005.

To manage our carbon footprint, we are closely studying the company’s energy consumption profile in order to institute energy management and conservation initiatives to reduce our use of natural gas and electricity.

Providing Eco-friendly Solutions for Customers

Reducing our own environmental footprint is just part of the solution. We also offer eco-friendly products to help customers reduce their impact on the environment. In fact, producing economically feasible "green" products that will help customers grow their businesses responsibly is among our six key priorities.

Here are a few examples of eco-friendly products that our businesses around the world produce:

  • Green ticket and tag products featuring environmentally certified paper, organic cotton and recycled polyester printed fabric labels, organic and bamboo woven labels and biodegradable packaging materials
  • Low-waste pressure-sensitive products that use thinner liners, liner-less labels and a reduction of materials in packaging content
  • Recyclable and PVC-free binders as well as other products made with up to 100 percent recycled materials