Sustainability

Leading the way to a sustainable future.

Menasha Packaging and ORBIS care deeply about our customers’ sustainability goals as well as being good stewards of our planet. Every day we lead the way, using data and insights to create packaging and supply chain solutions that minimize our environmental footprint today, and for generations to follow.

The entire ORBIS portfolio of reusable containers, pallets, and racks supports the circular economy. ORBIS helps companies reduce and eliminate waste associated with single-use or expendable packaging, reuse of packaging assets over a long service life, and the recycling of packaging at the end-of-life.

Menasha Packaging creates sustainable packaging and supply chain solutions for over 1500 brands in today’s marketplace. Our design centers optimize materials that are SFI sustainably sourced and 100% recyclable to improve shipping efficiencies, and when possible, eliminate single-use plastics.

We are committed to driving the circular economy.

As leaders in creating sustainable packaging and supply chain solutions, our businesses design out waste (reduce), keep products in use (reuse) and repurpose resources (recycle). By reducing our impact on the environment, we also help our customers achieve their sustainability goals. Our environmental reduction achievements have been notable. From 2010 to 2020, we reduced water use nearly 90%, solid waste generation 9%, and GHG emissions 1.15% despite doubling the size of our company during that time. In 2020, we established new environmental goals described below.

30 by 30 goals

Water use

Reduce gallons of water used per production ton by 10% by 2030 (2020 baseline).

Waste reduction

Reduce landfill waste per ton of production by 10% by 2030 (2020 baseline).

CO2/Emissions reduction

Reduce total GHG emissions by 10% per ton of production by 2030 (2020 baseline).

Sustainability in action

Partnering up pays off

ORBIS CORPORATION

Curbside efficiency.

ORBIS is helping major U.S. grocers meet the dramatic increase in online shopping and curbside delivery. Retailers use ORBIS totes to fulfill online orders that are picked up curbside by consumers. ORBIS’ Pally, a hybrid dolly/pallet with wheels, is also used to wheel orders from store to curb.

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Environmental stewardship

Showing the way on sustainability.

Environmental stewardship is more than a responsibility. It’s a powerful opportunity to create value in how we do business, how we serve our customers and how we engage employees. As a company that relies on Earth’s resources, we strive to strike a balance in growing efficiently while reducing the environmental impact of our actions. We continue to discover the best means to achieve this balance.

Going gold.

Menasha Corporation’s headquarters building, constructed in 2016, in Neenah, Wis., has been LEED Gold certified for its sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. Reclaimed wood is used throughout the building, including the company’s heritage area.

The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), is the foremost recognition program for buildings that are designed, constructed, maintained and operated for improved environmental and human health performance.

Other environmental initiatives

Repurposing plastic.

ORBIS is helping clean up coastline waste and stimulate local economies with its Ocean in Mind program, which reclaims and reuses plastic material recovered near major waterways. Once collected, the plastic is sorted, reprocessed and used to make reusable packaging for the supply chain.

Calculating impacts.

Customers can make informed sustainability decisions with our environmental calculator tools that are customized to provide data relevant to our products.

Master recyclers.

Our ORBIS business manufactures and markets high-quality waste diversion and recycling products in the U.S., Canada and beyond. In fact, we have the largest line of “blue bins” for curbside recycling on the market.

Carbon disclosures.

We report our emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an independent nonprofit holding the world’s largest database of primary corporate climate change information.

Passing multiple tests.

A Menasha Packaging test lab is a certified International Safe Transit Association (ISTA) packaging provider. ISTA focuses on transport packaging and is the leading industry developer of testing protocols and design standards that define how packages should perform to ensure protection of its contents. Menasha Packaging has certified labs with the ability to conduct multiple ISTA testing procedures inclusive of the 6 Series Amazon tests.

Reprocessing plastic.

The Recycle with ORBIS program allows customers to recover, recycle and reprocess containers or pallets at the end of their service life to turn them into other useful products.

Greater shipping density.

ORBIS’ BulkPak® containers are collapsible, allowing more containers to be packed for a return truckload. 252 collapsed bins per truckload can be returned, versus the standard 208 bins per return truckload – a gain of up to 20% in shipping density for automakers and tier suppliers.

For more environmental success examples, see our 2024 Corporate Social Responsibility Report.

Download the report

View the report online

Many companies tout their environmental stewardship. At Menasha Corporation and our companies, we receive awards for it.

Learn more on our awards page.