Pregis Cuts Operational Emissions 88% Against 2019 Baseline for Sixth Year

Pregis has reduced its operational emissions intensity by 88 percent compared to its 2019 baseline, hitting its 2K30 sustainability goal for the sixth consecutive year, according to the company's 2025 Sustainability Report. The Chicago-based packaging manufacturer also diverted 92.5 percent of operational waste from landfills across 32 global manufacturing and warehouse sites, doubled its investment in renewable energy credits compared to 2024, and generated 55 percent of global revenue from products defined as paper-based, bio-based or containing at least 30 percent recycled content.

 

A Sustained Emissions Track Record Rather Than a Single-Year Result

 

The most significant figure in the report is not the 88 percent reduction itself but its consistency: this is the sixth straight year Pregis has met its 2K30 emissions target. A single strong year can reflect a one-off efficiency project or a favourable market condition, but sustaining a target across six consecutive reporting periods suggests the reduction is embedded in how the company actually operates rather than the product of isolated interventions.

The renewable energy strategy underpinning that progress also deepened during the year. Pregis doubled its investment in renewable energy credits compared to 2024, matching electricity use across multiple US manufacturing facilities with wind power and generating an estimated reduction of 11,700 metric tons of market-based Scope 2 emissions. Scope 2 emissions cover the indirect emissions from purchased electricity, and matching that consumption with wind power through renewable energy credits is a widely used mechanism for lowering a manufacturer's reported footprint, though the credits represent a financial and accounting claim to renewable generation elsewhere on the grid rather than physical delivery of that specific power to the facility.

 

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Circularity Built Into the Product Line, Not Bolted On

 

What distinguishes Pregis's sustainability approach from a purely operational focus is how directly recycled content and circularity are embedded in its commercial products rather than treated as a separate initiative. The company's PolyPlank Renew XL foam contains a minimum of 98 percent pre-consumer recycled polyethylene, certified by SCS Global, while its EasyPack Strata paper system uses fully recycled content for cushioning applications in high-volume fulfilment. That level of recycled content in structural packaging materials, rather than in packaging surfaces or non-functional components, indicates the recycled inputs are load-bearing to the product's actual performance rather than a marketing addition.

The company's Elgin, Illinois facility illustrates this integration at the manufacturing level. Opened in 2025, the 477,000-square-foot Paper Center of Excellence was designed from the ground up for zero-waste operations and runs entirely on electricity matched with renewable energy credits. It is projected to divert approximately 5,000 tons of waste from landfills annually, and its role as the company's primary Midwest hub for curbside recyclable mailers and paper packaging means the facility's own environmental design directly supports the recyclability of what it produces.

 

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Third-Party Validation and What It Signals

 

Pregis received EcoVadis Silver recognition for its European operations, placing it in the top 15 percent of respondents globally, and EcoVadis Bronze for its North American operations, in the top 35 percent. EcoVadis is an independent sustainability ratings platform widely used by corporate buyers to assess supplier environmental and social performance, so these rankings carry weight beyond Pregis's self-reported figures, since they reflect an external assessment against a global peer set rather than the company's own methodology alone. The gap between the European Silver rating and the North American Bronze rating suggests room for improvement specifically in the company's domestic operations relative to its European counterpart.

The report also details a densifier programme that recovers foam waste through fabricator partners, recognised through a new Recover Award category added to the company's annual purpose awards, alongside water access work through the Uzima Clean Water Mission that the company says has positively impacted more than 1.4 million people cumulatively since 2019. These social and community programmes sit alongside the environmental metrics as part of what the company frames as an integrated sustainability approach, though the emissions and circularity data remain the more independently verifiable core of the report. Whether Pregis sustains its emissions trajectory as it continues to grow, and whether recycled content across its product lines expands beyond the current 55 percent of revenue, will indicate whether this progress continues to compound or begins to plateau as the easier efficiency gains are exhausted.

 

Source: Pregis