RRD is committed, in partnership with our clients, to the utilization of raw materials from responsibly managed forests.

Our commitment through participation and compliance with the SFI and PEFC Chain of Custody (COC) standards ensure to our clients that the raw materials utilized in their certified print orders come from legal and sustainable sources and promote responsible forestry management.

RRD commits to implementing and maintaining these COC requirements, and making the commitment available to its clients, employees, supplies and other interested parties.

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Environmental, health, and safety (EHS)

The Board of Directors annually reviews our EHS Policy and oversees the Company’s EHS strategy and targets.

It is RRD’s policy to protect the health and safety of our employees, clients, and the public, and to conduct all activities in an environmentally responsible manner. We are committed to this policy worldwide as an integral part of being the world’s premier business and marketing communications company.

Senior Corporate management ensures alignment of RRD’s business strategy and operations with this EHS policy, which includes the commitment to:

Strive to continuously improve global EHS performance by utilizing practices that protect employees and the environment, including reducing the quantity of emissions, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, developing opportunities for recycling and pollution prevention and using paper, energy, water and other resources more efficiently

Structure and responsibilities


  • EHS management system

    EHS management system

    At RRD, we have developed a comprehensive management system that enables us to effectively control our EHS impacts using a model consistent with well-accepted international management standards such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

    The elements of our EHS management system include:

    • EHS Policy: Described above
    • Programs and standards: To ensure compliance with legal requirements
    • Training: New employee orientation programs, online training and communications, topic-specific workshops and webinars, etc.
    • Measuring: Our progress towards implementing the RRD EHS Standards
    • Monitoring: To test and oversee compliance
  • EHS roles and responsibilities

    EHS roles and responsibilities

    EHS responsibilities are integrated into every level of our organization.

    • Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer: Reporting directly to the CEO, this position is responsible for oversight of the company Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Organization, including defining and implementing all related company goals and objectives.
    • EHS Senior Directors: Manage EHS compliance at our worldwide locations, as well as issues relating to business continuity, product safety, sustainability, and security.
    • Regional EHS Managers: Provide direct EHS support to our manufacturing locations.
    • Site EHS Leads: Provide day to day oversight of EHS compliance activities in our manufacturing locations.
  • Sustainability

    Sustainability

    The RRD Sustainability Approach is reflected in a variety of practices across four categories:

    • Resource efficiency: We identify, measure, and continuously improve efficiencies associated with consumption and use of energy, raw materials, water, and other resources.
    • Responsible procurement: We extend our influence across the breadth of the supply chain by encouraging sustainable practices among our suppliers and enabling them for our clients.
    • Waste minimization: Reduce, reuse and recycle describe a variety of practical, everyday actions that we take in our manufacturing, administrative, and service facilities.
    • Stewardship: We strive to learn and share best practices through internal and external education, communication, and through demonstrations of our commitment and progress.

Data compilation system

We have key EHS performance indicators that we monitor at each location including:

Recordable case rate

A rate, per 100 employees, of the number of times an employee received treatment beyond basic first aid for a work-related injury or illness (a "case").

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions

While each of our individual manufacturing locations tracks their energy consumption data, we are currently working with a third party vendor to seamlessly collect this data from worldwide locations in a centralized location, and apply geographic conversion factors to identify the associated GHG emissions by site. This allows us to both identify reduction opportunities as well as gauge the effectiveness of initiatives employed. RRD also uses this data to provide an annual response to the CDP Supply Chain survey.

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Targets and objectives

Our health and safety results mean the most to us because they help us to measure how well we are keeping our employees safe. While we report our numbers as a rate (which helps us to standardize our global reporting with the U.S. Government method for calculating injury rates), what they really come down to is the number of people who are hurt.

As continuous improvement, we assign annual work related injury and Illness reduction targets for our worldwide manufacturing locations. Lower rates mean fewer injuries and more people are able to work and support their loved ones. As an indication of our performance, or recordable case rate is more than 60% below the corresponding industry average. While our results tell a great story, we continue to strive toward our ultimate goal of zero work related injuries. We invite you to view our historical company recordable case rates, which show a consistent downward trend (reduction in rate): www.rrd.com/about/commitments/ehs

The Engineering, EHS, and Procurement teams are working together to support the company energy/waste reduction plan in order to align with company 3YG objectives to drive out cost and support profitable growth, identify and prioritize opportunities, and establish and share best practices. The ongoing steps in this process are to (i) develop a pipeline of projects with assigned leads, expected benefits, and timelines; (ii) identify mechanisms to centrally track all energy/waste related projects and status; and (iii) engage vendors and other external partners to identify cost-out opportunities, taking into account incentive programs where available.

Programs to achieve targets

Each facility is required to implement EHS programs to minimize risk to employees, visitors and contractors and meet regulatory requirements (OSHA, EPA, etc.). From a safety perspective, these programs include, but are not limited to: Confined Space, Contractor Safety, Emergency Response Plans, Fire Protection, General EHS Provisions, Hazard Communications, Hearing Conservation, Lockout Tagout, Machine Safeguarding, Personal Protective Equipment and Powered Industrial Vehicles. From an environmental perspective, our site level environmental programs include, but are not limited to: Air Permit Compliance, Hazardous Waste Management, Oil Spill Prevention Plans, Ozone Depleting Substances, Waste Determinations, and Water Permit/Ordinance Compliance.

RRD is pursuing energy efficiency programs involving several different technologies that we are installing in our plants worldwide. In order to reduce our energy usage we’re investing to use enhanced energy consumption and recovery systems. Examples include:

Electrical demand response programs

To help reduce consumption and allow utilities to manage demand without brownouts or investment in costly generation capacity, RRD participates in several demand response programs. These programs, offered by some local utilities, ask large industrial users to reduce consumption during peak demand periods.

Heat recovery

A proprietary process that captures heat and allows it to be used again. This heat is used to reduce ambient heating needs, to even more effectively dry printing inks, and to make boilers operate more efficiently.

Lighting upgrades

To ensure a brighter future, RRD is taking advantage of recent advances in lighting technology. We continue to install lighting system retrofits in our domestic and international facilities.

Alternative energy

We continuously seek opportunities to utilize increased alternative energy, including through geographic power grids utilized, onsite physical installations, and through power purchase agreements.

RRD locations worldwide continuously work to reduce, reuse, and recycle the amount and type of by-products produced. While specific initiatives will vary by site and manufacturing process, examples include: recycle of materials when feasible (paper, including add roll trim, paper tear off, office paper, butt rolls (also used as packing material), bound and stapled waste, cardboard, including bare cores from printing rolls, plastic wrap, aluminum printing plates; returning reusable rags, oil pigs and oil mats to the uniform company that supplies laundry and reuse; returning forklift batteries to battery vendor for recycling; sending used oil to a third party for recycling; repairing broken/damaged pallets and reusing.

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Training and awareness

Impacted employees receive EHS training for the tasks that they perform. A master training matrix is used by each site that outlines all training content required for each EHS procedure, as well as the mechanism and materials that can be used to complete this training (computer-based, classroom, hands-on, on-the-job). Portions of this training have been converted into the native language for operations outside of the United States. Computer-based courses taken are documented electronically via an internal database, while all other training (classroom, hands-on, on-the-job) is documented at the site level per the corresponding EHS procedure requirements.

Audits

We use complementary mechanisms to actively monitor our performance:

Facility self-assessments

Facilities will conduct periodic self-assessments using the EHS Task Tracker system to measure performance against established company standards and drive continuous improvement in performance.

EHS Territory Director and Regional Manager oversight

Takes place through regular communication and interaction with our facilities, at a minimum, annually. On-site visits, coordinated implementation planning, and operating plan execution allows for us to assess performance and align resources accordingly.

Committed to correcting all audit findings quickly and responsibly, progress is tracked and reports are provided to senior management. Due to the sensitive and confidential nature of our audits we do not share specific audit findings outside of the company.

Emergency response

Each facility is required to implement a site-specific Emergency Response Plan (ERP), that outlines the roles and responsibilities that must be filled and the procedures that must be followed in the event of an evacuation emergency, severe weather situation, earthquake, etc. All employees are trained on the emergency specific alarms, evacuation routes, and assembly areas, with annual evacuation drills conducted to ensure proficiency. Additionally, RRD has a company-wide crisis communication and business continuity plan.

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Client collaboration

We routinely work with our clients to ensure papers used are in compliance with applicable regulations, and make options available to our clients with increased environmental attributes. Examples include:

US Lacey Act Compliance

It is RRD’s responsibility to take “due care” to check that materials we import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase are obtained legally. RRD will be responsible for verifying Lacey compliance for the paper and other forest products that we directly source.

Forestry Chain of Custody Certifications

RRD provides customers with a variety of supply options that protect forest ecosystem health. The Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®), Sustainable Forest Initiative® (SFI®) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) all promote well managed forests, reforestation and continuous improvement in standards and practices. With over 100 FSC, SFI and PEFC chain of custody certified locations worldwide, including facilities in North America, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, RRD is a demonstrated leader in certified paper use.

Where agreeable to both parties given cost and availability, we routinely collaborate with clients to improve their products environmental attributes, including through: increased certified and/or post consumer waste recycled paper content, inks with increased vegetable based content, materials that are highly recyclable, less material to help reduce weight and waste

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