Highlight-Storys

Greif’s CorrChoice facilities, part of our Paper Packaging & Services (PPS) business, have implemented a set of tools that enable us to monitor and correct for potential quality issues in real-time. The tools establish alerts for a variety of factors that may impact quality, such as temperature and material storage capacity, and correct any deviations before they fall out of specification. This ability allows us to reduce waste, track potential recurring deviations and avoid long runs of products that would not meet customer expectations. As part of our Zero Defect System, our production lines are lined with ultrasonic sensors capable of detecting any separation or variation that may occur during the manufacturing process, such as differences in caliper spacing and paper weights. The system tracks defects as they move down the production line, removing defective products and recycling scrap.

CorrChoice GreenGuard provides customers a recyclable, repulpable and FDA compliant coated paper solution. A key customer was purchasing a triple wall corrugated container to maintain food quality. Greif worked with the customer to replace the plastic liner with our GreenGuard 200 paper coating. This change eliminated the need for the plastic liner – saving the customer time and labor costs – and made the shipping container 100 percent recyclable and repulpable.

In LATAM, we introduced PerforMAXXI, a web solution used for tracking deliveries to customers and monitoring real-time performance. PerforMAXXI is a mobile app on the delivery driver’s phone that provides customers updates on where their package is in the delivery process. The app utilizes Waze or Google Maps to assist the driver and will be updated to include digital road toll payments in the second phase. The app also enables communication with the driver throughout the trip, accurate measurement of on time delivery, and electronic proof of delivery via photo of the invoice signed by the customer. The app significantly streamlines the communication and delivery process.

The Greif facility in Houston saw marked improvement in its ability to divert waste from landfill during 2021. The facility installed a de-chimer, a device designed to safely and efficiently remove the metal chimes which are used to secure the top and bottom of fiber drums. Once the chimes are removed, the fiber and metal can be directed to separate waste streams for recycling. Since the de-chimer’s installation in July 2021, the facility has diverted more than 90 percent of its waste from landfills. The facility sends the fiber to our PPS Recycling Group, further reducing the waste disposal cost.

Greif is committed to using water-based exterior paints in our operations where possible, rather than high volatile organic compound (VOC) exterior paints. In Global Industrial Packaging (GIP) North America, eight of our nine steel plants use water-based paints. In our Asia Pacific (APAC) facilities, there’s ongoing transition to water-based paints, which includes our facilities in Zhuhai, Shanghai and Taicang, with 81 percent, 84 percent and 41 percent, respectively, of their paint usage being water-based in 2023. In EMEA, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and Poland use water-based paints alongside solvent-based paints.

Greif’s Pudahuel steel plant in Chile was our first facility in Latin America to operate on 100 percent renewable power. Through a two-year project, in partnership with energy provider IMELSA ENERGIA, the facility was able to move its entire electricity supply to 100 percent renewable sources. The facility produces large steel drums, conical drums and water bottles for the chemicals, lube oil and food and beverage markets. This switch advances our sustainability strategy, supports our 2030 GHG emissions reduction goal and helps support our customers’ Scope 3 emissions reductions goals.

Since 2011, Greif has been participating in Demand Response (DR) with Enel X, a division of the Enel Group Worldwide, a multinational power company and leading integrated player in the world’s power and gas markets, Enel X’s DR and real-time energy monitoring allows a company access to market opportunities to monetize flexibility, increase operational reliability and highlight advancements in sustainability. Greif has accumulated over $4.4 million in DR earnings, including $1.3 million in the last three years. There are approximately 17 Greif plants enrolled in DR with Enel X. We are assessing to determine if sites are eligible and suitable candidates for participation in DR to expand our participation in the program.

Greif’s LATAM Tigre location conducted a multi-disciplinary evaluation of all Latin American plants to implement a 6% reduction in energy consumption per unit produced by 2025 compared to a 2019 baseline. All machines, peripherals parts, general equipment and elements consuming electricity were identified and assessed, finding 447 energy focus areas across LATAM. From these focus areas, 70 strategic energy projects were identified. As of November 2023, 6 energy efficiency projects have been completed in LATAM, resulting in an energy cost savings of $29,300 per year and an energy use reduction of 63,000 kilowatt-hours per year.

At Greif’s Austell mill in Georgia, we began a wastewater residuals dewatering project to turn waste into biofuel. The circular economy practice sweeps thickened solids from a floating sediment blanket on to a dewatering press. The flowable solids are dehydrated until they can be transported to a location to air dry, mixed with other materials, and consumed as a supplemental boiler fuel. This process not only allows materials to be repurposed to gain the most benefit from start to finish, but it also saves the facility landfill disposal fees.

In late 2019, Greif’s Florence, Kentucky facility installed a wastewater treatment facility to reduce our hazardous waste load and recycle water back to the city. The process works by introducing water into the system, removing close to 100% of the pollutants from the paint process and sends the cleaned water to the local treatment plant. The water is then recycled by the treatment plant for redistribution to the community. The material leftover from the process is disposed via trash instead of hazardous waste. As the equipment came fully online in mid-2020, the process has not only significantly lowered hazardous waste generated by the facility, but also reduced the cost of waste by $40,000 a month.

In 2022, Greif implemented a maintenance program to advance the longevity of our regenerative thermal oxidizers (RTOs) that control volatile organic carbon (VOC) emissions at 10 of our GIPNA sites across North America. Continuing our shift to a corporate-driven management system, we work with a third-party partner to manage the recently implemented devices. Our third-party partners assist us in assuring that our RTOs are maintained in compliance with all relevant regulations and in avoiding or solving any maintenance-related issues. We hold quarterly, semi-annual- and annual maintenance evaluations and track this program within our CMS. We continue to install new RTOs at our facilities and anticipate leveraging the program at all applicable facilities, leading to improved efficiency and reduced emissions.

In 2007, Greif established a scholarship program to assist our colleagues’ children who plan to continue education in college or vocational school programs. Scholarship recipients are selected based on financial need, academic record, demonstrated leadership, participation in school and community activities, honors, statement of educational aspirations and goals, unusual personal and family circumstances and an outside appraisal.

The program is administered by Scholarship Management Services, a division of Scholarship America. Scholarship Management Services is the nation’s largest designer and manager of scholarship and tuition reimbursement programs for corporations, foundations, associations and individuals. Awards are granted regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability or national origin. Scholarship Management Services make the selection of recipients. In no circumstance does any officer or colleague of Greif play a part in the selection. In 2023, we supported 60 scholarships. Since 2007, 336 students from around the world have received Greif-sponsored scholarships.

In 2021, we launched Greif University, our training platform with different strategic learning offerings. Greif University serves as a unified place where all employees can go for development. We currently offer over 20,000 courses and learning modules from internal and external sources in different categories, including Customer Service Excellence, Environmental Health & Safety and Leadership & Professional Development. Each module is available in English and Spanish to train employees in their local language. Since launching Greif University, there has been a significant increase in the use of development materials and higher training completion rates. We also upgraded Greif University at the beginning of FY2023, expanding colleagues’ access to LinkedIn Learning courses.

Greif’s Lead to Last Program, launched in 2022 as part of our Global Leadership Development Framework, provides all global leaders with a unified model of leadership expectations. This training is offered through Greif University and conducted in 12-week cycles in which participants learn about inclusive, safety and values-drive leadership. Lead to Last focuses on equipping participants with the ability to:

Greif introduced Lead to Last sessions in Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese in addition to English in 2023. Since program inception, 686 colleagues have participated in the program.

All Greif colleagues in Canada and the United States have access to an employee assistance program (EAP). Greif’s EAP is a confidential work-based intervention program offering colleagues and their families informational services designed to enhance emotional, mental and general psychological well-being. The program provides preventive and proactive interventions for the early detection, identification and/or resolution of both work and personal problems that may adversely affect performance and well-being. These problems and issues may include but are not limited to, relationships, health, trauma, substance abuse, gambling and other addictions, financial problems, depression, anxiety disorders, psychiatric disorders, communication problems and coping with change.

Each facility that achieves an MCR of zero wins the Chairman’s Safety Excellence Award. Globally, 97 of our production facilities received the award in 2023 and were recognized at a virtual ceremony.

Greif’s long-term health and safety aspiration is to achieve zero accidents at all our facilities worldwide. While we recognize the challenge of this aspiration, 10 of our Global Industrial Packaging (GIP) facilities, including the following sites, have achieved ten or more years of accident-free operations:

These achievements, as well as other zero injury facilities in 2023, provide strong models in support of our aspiration of zero accidents at all our facilities worldwide.

Unconscious bias is how our brains work to compensate for overload which cna inhibit performance and lead to poor decision making. Our Unconscious Bias: Understanding Bias to unleash Potential offering aims to counteract that negative impact. The interactive course helps our leaders and colleagues address bias and helps them thrive, increasing performance in their areas and across the business. This course has been offered to a small number of teams and is launching this year as a core development offering for the entire business, facilitated by our own internal certified facilitators. This adds to our deep library of content to address and educate our business around the world of DEI.

Greif Sweden/Nordic ist das erste Unternehmen auf dem Markt, das Tintenstrahlmarkierungen auf Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBCs) durch Lasermarkierungen ersetzt und so den Einsatz von lösemittelhaltiger Tinte während der Produktion reduziert. Durch den Verzicht auf Lösungsmittel und Tinte ist die Produktionsumgebung sauberer. Außerdem können wir das Gewicht des IBCs um ein Kilogramm reduzieren, indem wir die traditionell für die Lasermarkierung verwendete Platte entfernen. Wir glauben, dass diese Innovation einen neuen Standard für Markierungen auf IBCs setzen wird.

Greif's Knock-Down-Trommeln (KDD) Greifs Knock Down Drums (KDD) bieten die optimale nachhaltige Lösung für den Transport von Stahlfässern an entlegene Standorte. Halbfertige Fassteile werden versandt und vor Ort mit minimalem Personal- und Ausrüstungsaufwand zusammengebaut. Das einzigartige Konzept ermöglicht den Transport von bis zu 1.176 KDDs in einem 20-Fuß-Seecontainer im Vergleich zu 80 vollfertigen Fässern. Dadurch wird wertvoller Platz gespart, die Transportkosten optimiert und der CO2-Fußabdruck unserer Kunden während längerer Transportzeiten minimiert. Die Fässer werden direkt an die Abfüllstation unserer Kunden geliefert, was zu einer Verbesserung der Effizienz durch minimale Lagerbestände und weniger manuelle Handhabung beiträgt.

Greif hat 2015 unsere ersten leichteren 20- und 25-Liter-Kanistermodelle hergestellt. Dieses Design ist 15 Prozent leichter als das Vorgängermodell, behält jedoch die Leistungsspezifikationen des vorherigen Designs bei. Aufgrund des reduzierten Gewichts reduzieren die neuen Kanister den Material- und Energieverbrauch bei der Produktion um bis zu 15 Prozent und verursachen geringere Emissionen. 2019 haben wir diese Produktlinie um die Größen 16 und 18 Liter erweitert. Wir produzieren unsere leichteren Kanister jetzt in Italien, Israel, Schweden und Singapur.

COEX-Mehrschicht-Kunststoffverpackungen kombinieren mehrere Schichten verschiedener Kunststoffmaterialien zu einer einzigen Struktur und bieten viele Vorteile in Bezug auf die Barriereleistung, insbesondere für Agrochemie- und Lebensmittelverpackungsanwendungen. Wenn sie jedoch wiederverwertet werden, können COEX-Kunststoffe nur in Anwendungen mit geringer Leistung eingesetzt werden. Als Reaktion auf den Bedarf unserer Kunden an recycelbaren Verpackungen mit überlegener Barriereleistung haben wir unsere ECOEX-Kanisterlinie entwickelt. Die ECOEX-Technologie ermöglicht es Greif, einen innovativen, mehrschichtigen Kanister herzustellen, der durch Wiedervermahlungsprozesse recycelt werden kann, um leistungsstarke, UN-zertifizierte Kanister und Flaschen herzustellen. ECOEX reduziert auch die Kosten für unsere Kunden, die normalerweise eine erhöhte Sammelgebühr für die Abholung von COEX-Verpackungen nach Gebrauch zahlen. Wir treiben weiterhin Innovationen voran, die unsere Kreislaufwirtschaftsstrategie unterstützen und die Bedürfnisse unserer Kunden erfüllen. Das LATAM GIP-Team wurde für seinen Beitrag zu unserer Kreislaufwirtschaftsstrategie bei gleichzeitiger Erfüllung der Bedürfnisse unserer Kunden mit dem Michael J. Gasser Sustainability Award 2021 ausgezeichnet.

Um den Kundenanforderungen nach Gewichtseinsparungen und Transportkostenoptimierungen nachzukommen, haben unsere Kollegen von Greif Latin America eine neuartige Kunststofffass-Innovation entwickelt, die einen noch nie dagewesenen Ansatz mit facettierten Seitenwänden für große Kunststofffässer verwendet. Diese Verbesserung reduziert bis zu 14 Prozent des Harzes im Fass bei gleichbleibender Leistung. Das Design reduziert nicht nur den Rohstoffverbrauch, sondern optimiert auch die Palettennutzung aufgrund seiner einzigartigen Konfiguration, die den Transport von mehr Fässern auf demselben Raum ermöglicht wie das bisherige Design. Das facettierte Fass ist eine nachhaltigere Lösung, sowohl hinsichtlich der Reduzierung des Verbrauchs natürlicher Ressourcen als auch hinsichtlich der Verringerung des Einsatzes fossiler Rohstoffe und der CO2-Emissionen während des Transports.

Bei Greif haben wir nun die Möglichkeit, hochauflösende Bilder drucken direkt auf Stahlfässer unter Verwendung neuester Drucktechnologien. Diese Fähigkeit ist das direkte Ergebnis einer Investition, die auf die Bedürfnisse von Kunden ausgerichtet ist, die nach Möglichkeiten suchen, ihre Produkte zu differenzieren und ein wirkungsvolles Verpackungsdesign zu entwickeln, um den Preis hochwertiger Produkte zu unterstützen. Dieser Prozess schafft nicht nur Mehrwert für unsere Kunden, sondern macht auch einen herkömmlichen Gasofen überflüssig, da während des Produktionsprozesses eine LED-basierte UV-Härtung eingesetzt wird. Dieser neue Prozess spart 0,5 Kilogramm CO2 pro Fass. Greif hat die neue Drum 360-Technologie strategisch in Werken in der Nähe von Kunden platziert, die diese neue Technologie verwenden, nämlich in Belgien, Frankreich, den Niederlanden, Italien, Deutschland und Polen.

Greif's GCUBE-Verbindung Lösung, gestartet auf der virtuellen LogiChem-Konferenz, bietet Echtzeit-Tracking-Informationen über die IBCs eines Kunden durch die Anwendung eines auf dem Internet der Dinge basierenden Geräts. Ein kundenbasiertes Dashboard zeigt in Echtzeit an, wo sich ein IBC befindet, den Füllstand des gefüllten Produkts und die Umgebungstemperatur. Mit diesem Dashboard können Kunden Lieferungen gefüllter Produkte und das Eintreffen neuer IBCs im Voraus planen sowie die Abholung leerer IBCs planen. GCUBE Connect unterstützt auch ein besseres Management von Rückständen in den IBCs. Jeder IBC, der die Anlage erreicht, wird automatisch gewogen, um die Menge der Rückstände im Behälter zu bestimmen und festzulegen, wie dieser behandelt wird. Diese Innovation passt gut zu Greif Frances Fähigkeit, wiederaufbereitete IBCs von jedem Standort entlang der Lieferkette eines Kunden abzuholen und abzugeben, anstatt nur von einem einzigen Standort. Zusammen vereinfachen sie die Logistik für den Kunden und erhöhen die Transparenz.

Greif’s Tri-Sure facility in Carol Stream collaborated with GIP North America purchasing, GIP Italy and four GIP NA plants to source 800,000 pounds of recycled plastic resins to use in the production of IBC rear/corner feet and corner protectors. This internal sourcing strategy reduced costs by $100,000. The team also reused empty corrugated bulk boxes to ship the recycled products they manufacture, reducing corrugated bulk box purchases by 84 percent. The project created company value and established environmental and financial benefits, while closing two internal loop systems and contributing to circular economy principles by diverting waste from landfills and finding a new purpose for them. Due to the outstanding sustainability impact of the project and its ability to be scaled to other molding and injection molding facilities, the project and Tri-Sure Carol Stream team was awarded the Michael J. Gasser Sustainability Award.

For the past 20 years Greif’s RIPS facility in Iberia, Portugal has been supplying customers with reconditioned conical drums, having reconditioned over 10 million drums and saving 50,000 tons of steel, 197,600 tonnes of CO2 emissions, 2,600,000 gigajoules of energy and 343,200 cubic meters of water in the process. The project was initially started as a way to help address our customers’ wish to reduce waste and lower their carbon footprint and overall improve customer satisfaction. The team collaborated with customers to understand their needs, including volume, specification requirements and safety, developed a reconditioning process and ultimately installed a reconditioning line to begin serving customers. Today, the facility serves a multitude of customers, reconditioning 500,000 conical drums and saving 5,200 tons of steel each year.

In 2020, Greif made investments and established multiple joint ventures in order to expand the scale and capabilities of the reuse, recycling and reconditioning services we provide. In April of 2020, Greif acquired a minority stake in Centurion Container LLC, expanding our intermediate bulk container (IBC) reconditioning network in North America. In August of 2020, Greif established a joint venture with Delta Plastics, the leading independent supplier of reconditioned IBCs in the United Kingdom. Finally, in December of 2020, Greif acquired a minority stake in LAF s.r.l., expanding IBC reconditioning services for our Italy-based customers. We look forward to working with our partners to continue to reduce our environmental impact through cradle to cradle solutions.

Greif’s LCS facility in Lille, France has taken significant steps to innovate the logistics associated with offering reconditioning services to our customers. Traditionally, empty IBCs were picked up from and delivered to a single location for a single customer. LCS Lille has begun picking up from locations along our customers supply chain, then delivering reconditioned IBCs back to our customers, simplifying logistics for our customers. Lille has also implemented Datamatrix, a traceability system that allows us to record all production steps from reception to delivery, have visibility into the origins of an IBC and provide a real time view of our inventory in support of overall enhanced customer service. Datamatrix also supports better management of residue in the IBCs they collect. Each IBC that enters the facility is automatically weighed to determine how much residue is in the container and inform how it is treated. With Datamatrix, this information can be sent directly back to customers to improve how they manage IBCs that are ready for pick-up. Lille uses a closed loop water system for water that is used to clean IBCs recycling 100 percent of the water they use, and collects, treats and shreds plastic that is used to manufacture new IBCs and plastic drums.

The CorrChoice GreenGuard® product line provides our customers with a food safe recyclable and repulpable alternative to supplemental materials, such as plastic liners. Our GreenGuard® line of paper coatings are safe for direct contact with most food types and feature oil, grease, water, moisture and abrasion resistance as well as an innovative wax replacement technology. By applying the coating to corrugated containers, we eliminate the need for supplemental materials used in many food applications. We work with our customers to ensure our products meet their needs for safe and secure food handling while providing packaging products that are 100% recyclable and repulpable, advancing our circular economy strategy while enabling our customers to meet their sustainability objectives.