Resolute Forest Products - Health, Safety & Environment Program of the Year
Company: Resolute Forest Products, Montreal, QC, Canada
Company Description: Resolute Forest Products is a global leader in the forest products industry with a diverse range of products, including market pulp, tissue, wood products, newsprint and specialty papers, which are marketed in close to 70 countries.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Health, Safety & Environment Program of the Year - in Canada and the U.S.A.
Nomination Title: Resolute values working safely and ensuring sustainability
Resolute Forest Products is a global leader in the forest products industry with a diverse range of products, including market pulp, tissue, wood products and newsprint, which are marketed in over 50 countries. We own or operate some 40 facilities, as well as power generation assets, inthe USA andCanada. Resolute has third-party certified 100% of our managed woodlands to internationally recognized sustainable forest management standards.
On May 1, 2020 Resolute celebrated our 200th anniversary. For two centuries, Resolute has been transforming a renewable resource into products we depend on in our daily lives. Never was the importance of our role on clearer display than in the past year with the tissue products to fill empty shelves, pulp to produce medical and personal care supplies, wood products critical to our infrastructure now and in the economic recovery to come, and paper to keep people informed the world over. Our 7,100 employees have worked flat-out to meet the critical demand for forest products.
Together, we have built an enduring legacy of success on a global scale – from our earliest days as a lumber exporter to one of the most respected and sustainable forest product companies in the world.
From the outset of the pandemic, our focus was clear: protecting the health and well-being of our people and minimizing the spread of the virus at all our locations. We are particularly proud our employees continued to put safety first, with over half our sites operating without a single recordable injury, and our team achieving another year of world-class safety performance year. Our OSHA incident rate was 0.62, with a severity rate of 16.8.
Throughout this challenging year, we continued to take bold action to enhance the sustainability of our business. Resolute was an early adopter of climate action, and in 2020, we achieved scope 1 and 2 absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions of 83.4% compared to 2000 levels, and our emission intensity was down by nearly 56%. We also set a new target for GHG emission reductions: a 30% reduction from 2015 levels by 2025.
Optimizing the use of renewable energy sources such as hydroelectricity and carbon-neutral biomass, while reducing consumption of fossil fuels, is a key element of our strategy to improve our carbon footprint. In 2020, we generated three quarters of our total energy needs from renewable sources, such as hydroelectricity and biomass.
Our community partners have been working overtime throughout the pandemic to meet immediate and growing needs, particularly in vulnerable populations. Resolute has responded by contributing over $1 million toward various community organizations, including $270,000 for COVID-related support, in addition to in-kind donations such as facemasks and tissue.
Our continued success supports community economic growth and prosperity, social wellbeing and advancement, and shared environmental benefit. While the road ahead is certainly not without obstacles, this past year has demonstrated Resolute’s strength and resilience, our unwavering commitment to health and safety, and the meaningful relationships we have built across our operating communities.
In May, Resolute marked its 200th anniversary. For two centuries, Resolute has been transforming a renewable resource into products we depend on in our daily lives. Never was the importance of our role on clearer display than in the past year with the tissue products to fill empty shelves, pulp to produce medical and personal care supplies, wood products critical to our infrastructure now and in the economic recovery to come, and paper to keep people informed the world over. Our 7,100 employees from across some 40 facilities in the United States and Canada have worked flat-out to meet the critical demand for forest products.
As an industry, we provide indispensable products for basic human necessities and contributes to our well-being as a society. With the modern practices in use today, we steward the sustainable, renewable resources we harvest; seek resource maximization and waste minimization, with practices like integration and innovation; and play an important role in fighting climate change.
Resolute'sannual short-term incentive plan rewards eligible employees for the achievement of performance measures that, among other things, reflect the company’s health, safety and environmental performance. Specifically, employees are rewarded forimproving safety performance by way ofthe company's Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA) incident and severity rates, as well asimproving environmental performance by decreasing the number of environmentalincidents.