For 80 years in Brazil and present in the Americas, Europe and Asia, WestRock exists to innovate boldly and package sustainably. Committed to offering the best solutions in paper and corrugated cardboard packaging, considering sustainability as the foundation of our actions, our business and integrated operations, contributing to, as far as we are concerned, making the planet a better place today and for future generations.

We are dealing with interdependence and transformation, that is, assuming the responsibility of respecting, valuing and enhancing the noblest precepts of the science called Economics. Offering the best solutions in paper and corrugated cardboard packaging requires as its main responsibility the search for recurring deepening, learning and evolution of maturity in the different perspectives that characterize the value chain that begins in fiber production and supply operations to transform into paper and packaging.

The management plan for both forestry operations and other operations included in the forest production and logistics chain stands out as the basis of WestRock's integrated business which, thanks to its ability to balance geographic portions of planted forest at a level equivalent to that of native forests conserved, it became a comparative assessment for the global market of initiatives engaged under the banners of environmental, social and corporate governance.

Forest plantations, formed by species of the Eucalyptus and Pinus genera, constitute the basis of fiber supply for our paper and packaging businesses. Just like agricultural plantations, these plantations demand social resources and basic environmental services, such as soil and water and, like any activities, promote social, environmental and economic transformations. But despite the eminently positive objective, when not properly executed, they are capable of generating unwanted impacts.

Therefore, our forest management is the basis of our integrated business, guiding the management model for the use of social resources and environmental services that give us our main competitive advantage, the highest forestry productivity in the world. As it is not possible to take any shortcuts to achieve such a return, this management model for the use of social resources and environmental services is configured in WestRock's Forest Conservation, Preservation and Restoration Program.

Our objective is to ensure sustainability by promoting the ability to maintain social, environmental and economic balance. Conservation and preservation in our program focus, respectively, on rationalizing the use of resources while seeking maximum productivity evolution in the broadest sense (recurrent cycles of social evolution, environmental performance and economic-financial return), and protecting the degradation of Reserves Legal, Permanent Preservation Areas and other conservation areas.

When the focus is restoration, our commitment is to effectively identify, diagnose deviations and develop management plans that eliminate negative impacts and promote the reestablishment of the balance that leads to the necessary restoration.

Along with the use of environmental services, the vocation of our sustainable forest management plan lies in human capital, without it everything else is fragile. WestRock recognizes and values its dependence on people and ecosystem services, transforming this condition into a commitment to socio-environmental development. We have worked in this chain, applying significant investments in education and professional training at university and technical levels, with emphasis on operational training that enhances diversity and inclusion.

Our conservation and restoration program is a consequence of the reality of resource use demanded by our value chain. Over the last 60 years, we have consistently invested in scientific training and applied biotechnology, both in the process of genetic improvement of Pinus and Eucalyptus and in silvicultural management, aiming to enhance forest productivity. In the last six decades, the productivity of our planted forests has more than doubled, today positioning itself as a global reference in Pinus taeda and Eucalyptus dunnii.

Productivity imposes itself as a fundamental foundation in conservation and preservation processes, reduces the land immobilization bases for expanding our forestry businesses and offers increasingly greater adaptability to the ecosystems used to cultivate exotic forest plantations. It is essential to recognize that the competition that is disturbing is for the use of land, as opportunities to optimize production per unit area are essential both for socioeconomic return and for environmental conservation and preservation processes, including greater capacity to sequester greenhouse gases. greenhouse effect.

The effectiveness of the environmental conservation, preservation and restoration plan requires a permanent search for constant deepening, learning and evolution of maturity in the different perspectives that characterize the demand base of the forestry value chain. This deepening, at WestRock, is a consequence of the learning capacity resulting from work characterized as “Performance Analysis”, including assessments of social, operational, quality and environmental performance. The commitment to conserve, preserve and restore is dependent on the ability to characterize scenarios, identify scope and quantify impacts to then develop actions to restore the balance that guarantee sustainability.

This performance analysis work is developed based on principles, criteria and indicators that consider social, environmental and economic interfaces, which are capable of evaluating the efficiency of all operations and quantifying deviations in relation to established balance standards.

It is important to note that, in addition to monitoring fauna, flora, soil resources and water resources, as quantifiers of the quality of the relationship between exotic forest plantations and native forests (ecosystem services, in general), the vision of specific consumption is gaining significant relevance. Indicators such as kilometers traveled per ton of wood produced or area (hectare) managed, waste generation per ton of wood produced or area (hectare) managed, in addition to others related to the consumption of fossil sources per unit of wood production, are essential for guide us towards commitment to global goals for reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions.

The alignment between sophisticated biotechnology applied to the implementation and management of exotic forest plantations and the effective capacity to monitor the relationships between this management and the environmental services demanded, which characterizes the interfaces between conservation, production and restoration, is capable of achieving this balanced, equitable and sustainable relationship. Referencing the famous story by Machado de Assis, “The loan”, we have the vocation of productivity in the broad sense, “vocation of wealth”, the costs related to production and conservation are a consequence of the investment necessary for the continuous process of knowledge of the relationships between these perspectives, “vocation of work”.

Innovating boldly is a condition for leadership, just as packaging sustainably is a consequence of ownership gained through investment and hard work.