Sappi North America's Ultracast Viva® Wins Awards for Sustainable Innovation

January 21, 2022 /3BL Media/ - Sappi North America, Inc., a leading producer and supplier of diversified paper, packaging products and pulp, has been named a 2021 SEAL Sustainable Product Award winner for its Ultracast Viva® casting and release paper.

Ultracast Viva was also selected by the International Design Awards Jury for an Honorable Mention for textile design.

Ultracast Viva is the new standard for high-fidelity casting and release papers, offering compatibility with solvent-free casting systems, serving as the mold for coated fabrics by transferring texture and gloss to create authentically pleasing synthetic leathers and other coated materials. The textured surfaces are then used for end products people use every day, such as shoes, car seats, handbags, apparel and more. After use, the release paper is stripped away and can be reused multiple times.

The SEAL Awards celebrate the companies and leaders across the globe that make measurable contributions to sustainability and develop innovative initiatives that will positively impact the environment for centuries to come. The International Design Awards recognize, celebrate and promote exceptional design visionaries and discover emerging talent in architecture, interior, product, graphic and fashion design worldwide.

"Sustainability and innovation are what drives Sappi North America, and it is the inspiration for each of our products," said Mark Hittie, Director, Release Business Strategy, Sappi North America. "We launched Ultracast Viva with a commitment to environmentally-friendly manufacturing to help our customers reduce their own environmental footprint. We're thrilled that it is getting the recognition it deserves as the first high-fidelity textured release paper line compatible with solvent-free systems, and we look forward to the progress this innovative and technologically advanced release paper will spur."

Ultracast Viva is a first-of-its-kind product that sets the standard for sustainable casting and is designed for companies dedicated to using sustainable alternatives when creating high-quality coated fabrics and textured materials. Ultracast Viva was developed proactively to align with the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) Program, and it answers a long-standing call for  a release paper that enables production via solvent-free manufacturing systems.

To see the full list of 2021 SEAL Sustainable Product Award winners, please visit: sealawards.com.

To see the full list of 2021 IDA winners, please visit: idesignawards.com 

To learn more about Sappi North America's sustainability efforts, please visit: sappi.com. 

About Sappi North America, Inc. 
Sappi North America, Inc., headquartered in Boston, is a market leader in converting wood fiber into superior products that customers demand worldwide. The success of our three diversified businesses – high-quality graphic papers, pulp and packaging and speciality papers – is driven by strong customer relationships, best-in-class people and advantaged assets, products and services. Our high-quality graphic papers, including McCoy, Opus, Somerse, and Flo, are the key platform for premium magazines, catalogs, books, direct mail and high-end print advertising. We are a leading manufacturer of dissolving pulp with our Verve brand, a sustainable fiber, which is used in a wide range of products, including textile fibers and household goods. We deliver sustainable packaging and specialty papers for luxury packaging and folding carton applications with our single-ply packaging brands, Spectro and Proto, and for the food and label industries with our specialty papers, LusterPrint and LusterCote. We are also one of the world's leading suppliers of casting and release papers with our Ultracast, PolyEx and Classics lines for the automotive, fashion and engineered films industries. Customers rely on Sappi for high technical, operational and market expertise; products and services delivered with consistently high quality and reliability; and state-of-the-art and cost-competitive assets and innovative spirit. 

Sappi North America, Inc. is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Sappi Limited (JSE), a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with more than 12,000 employees and manufacturing operations on three continents in seven countries and customers in over 150 countries. 

About The SEAL Awards
SEAL (Sustainability, Environmental Achievement & Leadership) Awards is an environmental advocacy organization that honors leadership through our business sustainability awards & environmental journalism awards while funding research and pursuing our own environmental impact campaigns.