Sustainability Commitments

Dart has invested £24 million in a new technical and innovation centre on our Mason, Michigan, campus. Known as The Vertical, the recently opened centre will increase our ability to develop new and improved products with a focus on sustainability. As a hub for ideas and innovation, The Vertical will help shape the future of food and beverage packaging, thoughtfully designed with First Use to Next Life™ sustainability and improved speed to market in mind.

Dart’s Community Action Team is a group of Dart employees throughout North America who volunteer to improve their local communities. Dart has committed that each of our locations will participate in one or more clean-up events in the communities where we live and work, with a goal of contributing at least 7,500 hours of community service annually by 2021. Then, we’re going to continue to push ourselves until we average one hour for each of our 15,000 employees.

In 2019 we piloted our new DCAT program in Lodi, CA, and Mason, MI. In single-day events centered around local waterways, Lodi volunteers picked up more than 600 pounds of trash and Mason volunteers collected more than 900 pounds. After each cleanup, volunteers sorted trash to separate recyclables from items that needed to be landfilled.

By 2021, Dart will promote the use of certifications to prove the fibre and plastic we use are sustainably sourced, and post-consumer recycled content and compostability claims are verified through an industry-recognized, third-party certification body. Our openness will inspire others in our industry to do the same.

In 2019, we promoted the following certifications for relevant products and processes :

• Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification™ (PEFC) for chain of custody certification of sustainably-sourced fibre and manufacturing processes globally.
• Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI) for chain of custody certification of sustainably sourced fibre and manufacturing processes in North America.
• Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC) for the global certification system with two key components – Forest Management and Chain of Custody.

Dart is committing to Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) Blue, a program dedicated to achieving zero plastic resin, pellet, flake and powder loss in the manufacturing process. While Dart has always prioritized zero pellet loss, this program confirms Dart is subscribing to strict industry guidelines. Once this is achieved, we will pursue OCS Blue, a program for plastics companies already excelling as OCS partners.

Dart is committing to accountability, and by 2020 will fully measure and publicly report our carbon footprint.

Dart will play an active role in industry associations to advance sustainable solutions for the products we manufacture. In 2019, Dart served on the following boards of directors to ensure foodservice packaging has a voice and becomes more sustainable:

• Paper Cup Alliance
• Recoup
• Paper Cup Recovery Group
• Pack2Go Europe
• Packaging Federation
• Foodservice Packaging Association.

We were also active with many other organizations including The Recycling Partnership and the Trash Free Seas Alliance.