BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: 2020-BEYOND
Doing the right thing is more than what we do at Sonoco. It’s who we are. We started in paper products 125 years ago, and today we lead the packaging industry by not only meeting customers’ needs and making the right investments but also doing right by our employees and our partners.
At Sonoco, we guide our decision-making with the mantra: People build business by doing the right thing. Setting world-class safety standards, finding sustainable alternatives that are recyclable in local recycling streams, providing support to our local communities during natural disasters and more are the norm. Why? In the words of our former CEO Harris DeLoach: “You do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
We learned from the start that having strong principles—and acting on them—can have unforeseen benefits. “People externally ... want to invest in good stories, too, and they want to invest in sustainable stories,” says Chief Financial Officer Rob Dillard. “How can we take it five degrees away from center and do a little bit more? We want to always do the right thing. That’s something that we always want to be—unimpeachable with our customers.”
John Florence, General Counsel, Secretary and Vice President of Converted Paper Products, noticed that aspect of Sonoco when he started with the company in 2015. “I think it’s always been sort of an ethical, people-based culture that everyone feels proud about,” he says. “To be able to sustain our reputation means that real action has been in place in the people in the company for 125 years. I think that’s pretty remarkable.”
Doing the right thing extends to the shop floor and how we treat coworkers. “People are always welcoming. They always want to do what’s best both for the company and for their coworkers, because we look at our coworkers as a family,” says Elizabeth Rhue, Vice President of Global Environmental, Sustainability and Technical Services. “We want to stand proud for Sonoco but also stand proud for the people that we work with every day. ... I’ve had the opportunity to see that across the globe.”
During COVID-19, for example, Sonoco Cares—one of our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)—connected employees to community organizations. One that was particularly close to our headquarters: the Hartsville Soup Kitchen. Sonoco employees volunteered there for the entirety of 2021.
In the same year, as part of the Sonoco Walking Challenge, 700 participants on 175 teams walked a total of 220,476,490 steps to raise funds for Rise Against Hunger and other local organizations in Latin America.
And in 2022, we held our first international Earth Day effort, taking part in collection drives and cleanup efforts across the United States and Latin America to give back to the areas where we live and work.
Beyond our impact as individuals, the Sonoco Foundation—our philanthropic arm—allows us to invest in initiatives related to education, community development, conservation and the environment, arts and culture, and health and wellness. In 2021, the Sonoco Foundation donated $251,000 in college scholarships to our employees and community, as well as nearly $2 million to nonprofits around the world.
The enduring Sonoco spirit of doing what’s right lays the groundwork for how we innovate, how we create trust with our customers and partners, and how we treat our communities. Doing the right thing has always mattered to us and will continue to matter in the years ahead.