This is a guest article written by Lyndsey Parette - Sustainability Manager at Duni Group.
Duni is one of Europe’s leading suppliers of inspiring concepts for the set table and creates, environmentally-sound, single-use products for food and drink. Duni offer high-quality products including napkins, table covers, candles and other tabletop accessories; along with packaging and packaging systems for the growing takeaway market. Sustainability Manager, Lyndsey Parette, explains why FSC certification is so important to Duni, and unwraps the story on how they make their sustainable e-crackers.
Headquartered in Malmo, Sweden with production and offices around the world, including a UK office in Runcorn. The company started production in 1949 and produced the world’s first coloured soft napkin in 1954.
“Since 2009, when we first became FSC - certified, we have adjusted our strategy to focus on being a trusted sustainability leader within our industry. Increasing our offering of FSC - certified products is crucial for the strategy to achieve a sustainability leadership role. We’ve had numerous design/product awards in ‘sustainable’ design for our products, and we continue to innovate with sustainability in mind.
At Duni, we want to be the trusted leader in sustainable take-away and set table solutions so, FSC and other sustainability focused certifications are part of our core business.
We sell FSC - certified single-use napkins, table covers and other set table products. We also trade FSC - certified take-away food packaging and serving products (e.g. Single-use boxes, bowls, cups and cutlery). We are also now in the second year of promoting our exclusive eCracker – a sustainable, hygienic and socially conscious alternative to the traditional Christmas cracker. If you consider that every year, 40 million Christmas traditional crackers are discarded. Lined up end to end this equates to 1,220 Mount Everests stacked on top of each other, and that’s not including the unnecessary plastic toy inside. The Duni eCracker is manufactured from FSC® - certified paper, that also contains a premium Christmas hat and is fully recyclable. There’s no useless plastic to contend with, and a flat design significantly reduces transportation and storage requirements resulting in a lower carbon footprint.
Trusted third-party certifications are important for credibility. We feel strongly that claims should be backed up with robust evidence and FSC helps us achieve this.
As FSC is so recognised, it helps clearly communicate to our customers when a product is more sustainable/responsible. The FSC process has been thorough. We always see the auditing process helps to ensure we are both correctly maintaining and improving our systems. We’ve needed to put in place a credit system, clear documentation, and training processes for purchasing and sourcing, logistics, marketing, sales, accounting etc.
We have a somewhat complicated set-up, so it has been challenging to ensure the correct systems and processes are in place. It’s less difficult to ensure the FSC requirements are being met than it is to ensure our internal processes are being followed.
There’s a lot of value in FSC as a credible third-party that ensures responsible forest management in the chain of custody. But becoming FSC - certified requires proper commitment and resources. It’s important to understand the workload and requirements for all in the company as it is an integrated process. But with everything in place, this is an excellent cornerstone in building trust with our key stakeholders.
Find out more about Duni Group online.