Hello All,

We had Great turn out at last month's Strategic Interest Group Meeting at PGI Fabrene in North Bay.  We had representatives from J&J Machine Works, North Bay Machining Center, Minesteel, Goodyear and NRC-IRAP to name a few.  I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome new member
Steeltech.  I would also like to thank PGW Fabrene for hosting this event and providing a very informative plant tour outlining its Green Practices.

Below are some excerpts from the presentation PGI Fabrene gave to the group.  If you would like to see the entire presentation, please click on the link below.

http://www.emccanada.org/membersonl/ontario/northbay/2010/emcsustainabilityppt

PGI has been recognized among the world leaders for sustainability reporting.  The Company was voted as a finalist along with Apple, Ford, 3M, and Walmart.  Many notable companies failed to achieve the finalist level.

PGI strives to be the premier partner of choice for innovative companies seeking materials that, in simplest terms, perform better and offer superior value.

We will achieve this by delivering outstanding customer satisfaction and solutions that help our clients succeed.

We are committed to making the world a safer, better place by providing the highest quality products in our markets around the world.

The contributions of our people will be recognized as the key to our success in achieving leadership and creating value for stakeholders.

 

What is sustainability:

• Sustainability is about living and working in ways that meet and integrate existing environmental, economic and social needs without compromising the well-being of future generations. The transition to sustainable development benefits today's society and builds a more secure future for our children.
• "The international nonwovens association, EDANA, defines sustainable development, or sustainability, as the reconciliation of economic growth with environmental protection and social responsibility, globally."  Pira International.

 

In 1983 the Brundtland Commission was convened by the United Nations to address the growing concern "about the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social development."

The report of this Commission, Our Common future, was published in 1987.

The report deals with sustainable development and the change of politics needed for achieving that. The definition of this term in the report is quite well known and often cited:

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

• the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs."

How do we know how sustainable we are?

The Sustainability Reporting Program is Canada's first independent initiative to find out how we are doing at living in balance for the long term. The reporting system works from a definition of sustainability that sees human activities as part of - and dependent upon - the natural world.

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was the 1997 brainchild of a couple of innovative guys from Boston.  By 2002 the GRI was officially set up in Amsterdam and offered guidelines (G1) to help organizations to report on their environmental, social and economic performance and to increase their accountability.  The GRI was rapidly becoming the leader among voluntary world-wide performance reporting programs on corporate responsibility.

As of January 2009, more than 1,500 organizations from 60 countries were using the Guidelines to produce their sustainability reports.

www.globalreporting.org

It's free.

Why wouldn't you?

www.polymergroup.com

Start by communicating with peer and workers.