Markem-Imaje celebrates International Mother Earth Day 2023

Celebrate and Protect Our Planet on International Mother Earth Day 2023!

Get ready to mark your calendars for April 22, as we commemorate International Mother Earth Day 2023. This significant date serves as a global reminder to raise awareness and inspire a collective commitment to safeguarding our planet. As we face the undeniable reality of climate change, caused by human activities such as fossil fuel burning, deforestation, and massive livestock farming, the need for action has never been more urgent.

The alarming statistics from the United Nations speak for themselves: our planet is losing a staggering 4.7 million hectares of forests every year, an area larger than Denmark. This loss of precious ecosystems has direct consequences for our health, as biodiversity plays a crucial role in protecting us from diseases. With an estimated one million animal and plant species now threatened with extinction, the urgency to take action has reached critical levels.

But it's not all doom and gloom. International Mother Earth Day 2023 is a powerful reminder that we can make a difference. It's a call to action, an opportunity to come together and take meaningful steps toward protecting our planet. Whether it's reducing our carbon footprint, supporting sustainable practices, advocating for policy changes, or raising awareness in our communities, each one of us can play a role in shaping a brighter future for our Earth.

How can companies contribute to protecting the environment?

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted in 2015 by the United Nations member states. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 goals that constitute the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address global challenges, including water consumption, clean energy, climate change, or reforestation.

Contributing to the SDGs requires collaboration with suppliers and customers andengaging with civil society, therefore supporting SDG 17 Goals. Our Sustainability in Action program addresses environmental issues like energy and water consumption, waste management, and greenhouse gas emissions. It also entails delivering sustainable, high-quality products and services. For a company like Markem-Imaje, it is key to develop innovative marking & coding solutions that meet the needs of our customers, while protecting people and our planet. That’s why we are continuously working to evolve our technologies to reduce packaging’s carbon footprint, achieve chemical-free coding, develop energy-saving markers, and boost printing on eco-friendly packaging materials.

Markem-Imaje and Reforest’Action, an alliance to be celebrated on Earth Day 2023

In 2021, Markem-Imaje started a collaboration with Reforest’Action, a French forest specialist organization dedicated to preserving, restoring, and creating forests in France and around the world, in response to climate emergencies and biodiversity loss. Their activity is based on crowdplanting, a unique model of participatory planting that allows everyone to take concrete action to protect and preserve diverse forests.

How is Markem-Imaje contributing to planting trees with Reforest’Action? We invite our customers to join us in our efforts to improve sustainability. Their usage of MEK-free inks will not only lessen the number of VOCs released into the environment, but their purchase will also help protect and restore forests. Our commitment is to plant one tree in Brazil or Peru for each box of MEK-Free CIJ ink bought. Offer applies to the extrusion sector with the EC582 and EW581 inks, and FMCG with EB588 and FB655 references.

Restoring patches of the forest will help recover the eroded biodiversity, improve food security and incomes of local communities, protect underlying food crops from too much sunshine or heavy rainfall, fight global warming thanks to the CO2 stored in the wood, and raise local awareness of the need and value in protecting trees in their area.

After two years of partnership, the initiative has proven highly successful, with excellent results. Markem-Imaje has planted 38,239 trees, that have contributed to:

• - 5,735 tons of CO2 stored

• - 114,717 shelters for animals created

• - 152,956 months of oxygen generated

• - 38,239 hours of work created

“Markem-Imaje has historically taken action to decrease its carbon footprint and has, throughout the years, allocated considerable resources to develop more sustainable products and practices. The launch of our new MEK-free inks is the result of our commitment. That said, we wanted to take it a step further by embarking our customers and concretely proceeding through a third-party partnership: Reforest’Action,” says Vincent Millot, CIJ Marketing Leader at Markem-Imaje.

Other MI sustainability initiatives

Solar Energy installations at our plants. Our manufacturing operations in Bourg-lès-Valence (in France) benefit from renewable energy produced by 2,000 square meters of photovoltaic panels. It generates 17% of the site’s energy needs. Our Bhiwadi facility (in India) installed 619 solar panels that generate up to 200kW of renewable energy. This installment saves 30% of our grid electricity bill.

Kindergarten project in Markem-Imaje India. Markem-Imaje transformed a repurposed building into a kindergarten in the Bhiwadi site, India. The building is equipped with passive energy-saving technologies: a vertical garden on the walls for solar protection, it is zero-waste oriented, and local trees will be planted on the dry surrounding land.

Global Sustainability by Design Initiative. The sustainability by Design concept is the approach to creating products and services considering the environmental, social, and economic impacts from the initial phase to the end of life. The initial step consists in conducting a Life cycle Assessment from “Cradle to Grave” (all along the product life cycle) on the different MI technologies.

In focusing our efforts, we are constantly revisiting our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) to drive growth and innovation sustainably while reducing risk and fostering transparency and trust. In 2022 four of our sites have been awarded the EcoVadis certification:

• - The Bourg-lès-Valence manufacturing site, in France, has been awarded, for the third consecutive time, a Gold Medal and maintained its high score.

• - Markem-Imaje US, Keene, achieved the Ecovadis Gold rating, for the second year in a row.

• - Markem-Imaje China has successfully achieved its first assessment and was awarded a Silver Medal.

• - Markem-Imaje India has been awarded an EcoVadis Silver Medal for its ESG performance.

Visit the sustainability section on our website for more information on our sustainability and environmental initiatives.