Ranpak makes strides in sustainability mission

Paper packaging and sustainability have guided Ranpak Corp. since its 1972 founding, according to David Murgio, the company's chief sustainability officer.

“We’ve always been focused entirely on paper packaging from the very onset,” Murgio says. “In a way, we were sustainable before it was kind of cool to be sustainable. We’ve always been focused on replacing plastic with paper packaging.”

The company, with a global headquarters in Painesville, Ohio, automation headquarters in Shelton, Connecticut, and global offices in the Netherlands and Singapore, has grown considerably in 52 years. Ranpak, which became a publicly traded company in 2019, now boasts more than 700 employees, including a salesforce that spans 55 countries.

In particular, the company specializes in secondary packaging used to protect products in shipment. It provides items such as void fill, cushioning, mailers and cold chain products, and serves the automotive, e-commerce, retail, food and beverage and industrial manufacturing sectors, among others. In recent years, Ranpak has developed packaging automation equipment that incorporates artificial intelligence (AI), machine vision and robotics and can size boxes and protective material according to the product being shipped.

Its equipment, much like its packaging products, is designed with sustainability in mind, Murgio says. The company’s paper is biodegradable and curbside recyclable.

“We’ve just stayed true to that mantra about figuring out new ways to make paper do things that historically have been done with plastic, foam and things that, frankly, are a lot worse for the environment and have a more negative impact on our future,” he says. “That’s something that has been absolutely embedded in our ethos for 50 years and has never changed. We’ve never deviated from that, and we’re still as committed to all of that as ever.”

Along with ongoing changes to its bases of operation around the world and its development of automation tools, the company’s 2023 sustainability and impact report, released in late July, reveals significant progress toward recycled-content goals and a commitment to reduce CO₂ emissions.

Pursuing goals

When setting sustainability goals, Murgio says Ranpak’s approach is to set achievable targets it has “a line of sight” on, rather than goals scheduled far in the future, such as in 2050. The company has a number of 2030 goals and has either closed the gap or surpassed them, according to its 2023 report.

One of its commitments was to source an aggregate paper supply consisting of at least 25 percent postconsumer material or alternative pulp by 2030, and it reports reaching 58 percent last year, well ahead of its deadline. Additionally, the company reports a recycled pulp supply of 70 percent last year, a 9 percent year-over-year increase from 2022 and within range of its 2030 goal of obtaining 75 percent from postconsumer and postindustrial sources.

Ranpak says it also has continued to expand the sourcing of certified material. Its report says 86 percent of the paper it sourced in 2023 was Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified—an 83 percent increase from 2020 when the company first issued a sustainability report. Ranpak has set a goal to obtain FSC, Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certification for 100 percent of its paper packaging materials by 2030.

“I’m confident in our progress,” Murgio says. “I think we’re doing great. It means a lot to me that I can stand behind [our goals] and believe that this is achievable.”

Specifically, Murgio points to Ranpak’s Greenline paper, which is made with 100 percent-postconsumer material and used as void fill in a box, as one example of an innovation that pushed the company closer to its recycled-content targets.

David Murgio

“Our [research and development] head spent six months going to paper mills and doing the hard work, getting samples and figuring out how to tweak our machines to see how we could run postconsumer waste through them,” Murgio says, adding that recycled paper tends to be weaker and softer than its virgin counterpart, which is harder and more rigid. “I was a lot of hard work [to develop], and that product is doing quite well. It’s a perfect fit for e-commerce players.”

Overall, the company reports it sold more than 300 million cubic feet of paper void fill—a common replacement for plastic air pillows—last year.

Operational shifts

Ranpak’s sustainability focus is not just trained on its products but also its operations.

The company recently condensed three Netherlands-based facilities into one newly constructed headquarters in the same country, for example. The building has achieved Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) green building certification and is 100 percent electrified, with no natural gas consumption. Murgio says more than half the facility’s power is generated by a solar array.

The company’s fleet, which consists of about 150 vehicles primarily used by its sales staff in the U.S. and Europe, gradually are being converted to hybrid vehicles. Currently, 25 percent of the company’s fleet consists of hybrids, and Murgio says the goal is eventually to reach 100 percent.

Ranpak also has made it a goal to maximize recycling of the scrap its facilities generate. In the report, the company says it produced 4,786 metric tons of scrap in 2023, a decrease of 485 metric tons from 2022, and recycled 96 percent of its scrap overall.

For customers operating Ranpak equipment in their facilities, the company offers a recycling program for parts that has grown in scope since its 2020 inception. The company reports a year-over-year increase in the number of parts saved (53,920 parts in 2023 compared to 30,408 in 2022).

One area where Ranpak hopes to improve is its Scopes 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In its 2023 report, the company notes the desire to achieve a 46 percent emissions reduction by 2030, but actually recorded a 23 percent increase (5,000 metric tons CO₂ equivalent) from 2022 (4,055 mt CO₂e).

In the report, Ranpak says the increase is the result of changes to its operational footprint, such as the consolidation of its European facilities, increased production at its U.S. facilities and the opening of its 50,000-square-foot North American automation headquarters in Connecticut, where it performs research and development (R&D) and manufactures its equipment.

“We recognize we have work to do there yet,” Murgio says. “I think [the emissions] numbers are not really apples to apples, because in 2023 we did a lot of real estate transition. … I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks, but by the same token, it’s something that we need to work on, and it’s something that we’re focused on.”

A plastic alternative

Helping customers move away from the use of plastic packaging has been a core focus at Ranpak since its founding.

Citing data compiled by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the company notes in its sustainability report that 95 percent of the value of plastic packaging material is lost to the economy after a single cycle of use, with 32 percent escaping collections systems altogether and becoming litter.

The company commissioned a lifecycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the performance of key products against plastic alternatives and claims that in some cases Ranpak’s paper products resulted in significantly less GHG emissions through their lifecycle than comparable plastic solutions. In all cases, the company reports that its packaging solutions resulted in less fossil fuel usage and are recycled at a higher rate than their plastic-based counterparts.

Murgio says Ranpak’s products can replace plastic without asking for radical changes from its customers.

“For customers to shift to paper packaging, they can start making a significant dent in the plastic problem we all have without having to redesign their products, without having to do more R&D to figure out the next thing, without having to ask customers to get used to something different,” he says.

“It doesn’t require businesses to come up with new substances and doesn’t require customers to get used to a new customer experience,” Murgio continues. “It’s a simple way that we can start reducing the amount of plastic we pump into the environment, and that’s what’s so exciting about what we do, and that’s what kind of puts the bounce in my step every day. It’s literally something that can be done today.”

More information about Ranpak’s products and automation equipment can be found on its website.