Report Profile

RockTenn is one of North America's leading producers of corrugated and consumer packaging and recycling solutions.  Based in Norcross, Ga., we employ approximately 26,000 people and operate more than 240 facilities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and China.

In July 2012, RockTenn published its inaugural Sustainability Report to illustrate our long-standing commitment to sustainable business practices. The report provides information about RockTenn’s policies, procedures and ongoing projects in such areas as environmental stewardship, responsible fiber sourcing, recycling leadership, product responsibility and commitment to our co-workers and communities. RockTenn’s relentless journey toward continuous improvement is emphasized throughout the report.

The Sustainability Report describes our sustainability focus in three arenas – people, performance and the environment. It also publicly identifies six sustainability goals to be reached by 2020, based on a 2009 baseline. Our goals are to:

1. Reduce water use by 12% (measured as gallons of effluent discharge per ton of production)


2. Reduce energy use by 10% (measured as MMBtu per ton of production)


3. Reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions by 10% (measured as pounds of CO2 per ton of production)


4. Reduce solid waste by 15% (measured as landfill pounds per ton of production)


5. Improve employee safety by 30% (measurement used is our OSHA recordable incident rate)


6. Achieve chain-of-custody fiber certification in 100% of our wholly-owned facilities.

Within the report, readers will also find:

1. Reporting of progress (2010 – 2011) against our goals and areas of focus for improvement


2. Highlights of ongoing processes and programs (“Sustainability in Action” call-outs)


3. Twenty-three featured “Evidence of Excellence” case studies that demonstrate our successes with initiatives implemented within the reporting period

RockTenn’s Sustainability Report was developed following the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines, a reporting framework that provides a common method for providing transparency around sustainability activities, goals and progress. RockTenn’s Sustainability Report is available in an interactive PDF format online at www.rocktenn.com/sustainability.