A Sustainability Conversation with Maarten Eddes

Whether we’re making CSR investments that support responsible forestry in Vietnam, responsibly sourcing materials or innovating more environmentally friendly technologies and processes, Avery Dennison is firmly committed to our 2025 Sustainability Goals.

Recently, we caught up with our colleague, Maarten Eddes, global business and process manager for Indirect Procurement and Sustainability Contact for Europe, to discuss Avery Dennison’s approach to GHG emission reduction and enabling renewable sources of energy.  

Tell us about your role at Avery Dennison and the businesses you support.

I work in procurement with global responsibility for procurement processes.  I also serve as the category manager for utilities across Europe and leader for sustainability initiatives for indirect procurement. I support corporate initiatives as well our Label and Graphic Materials and Industrial Health Care businesses.

How is Avery Dennison taking a holistic approach to GHG emission reduction?

There are many functions involved in decision making for sourcing our energy.  We have an engineering team managing our operations facilities, a procurement team negotiating prices, and then a sustainability team focused on cleaner energy solutions and investment in renewable energy. Over the last few years, we have joined the initiatives, bringing together everyone’s expertise to align on our strategy and specific projects going on in each region.  

Our 2025 Sustainability Goal is to achieve at least 3 percent absolute reduction year over year. We are making great progress, and with the speed of technology and increasing availability of renewable energy, this way of working ensures we have the latest information.   

Avery Dennison successfully introduced a wind turbine at its Turnhout, Belgium facility. What was that process was like, the impact on operations, and the financial benefit of investing in this kind of infrastructure projects?

The wind turbine project was a learning process for everyone involved. The project is a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), in combination with a private wire, and was interesting for a few reasons:

1. There was no investment from the Avery Dennison side. The project developer leases our land and put up the wind turbine. The developer is responsible for the electricity production and maintenance of the wind turbine.

2. In Belgium, a private wire connection with delivery behind the meter is very advantageous as you don’t have to pay for the non-energy costs that you normally would pay (i.e. costs for the national grid and taxes). This is a saving of around 50% of the Total Cost (of Ownership).

3. We are getting the GoOs (Guarantees of Origin) that are produced by the wind turbine so we can claim that the energy produced by the wind turbine and we consumed was indeed green.

What are European green energy certificates, and how do they work?

The Guarantees of Energy (GoO) market .... 

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To learn more about our sustainability efforts, visit www.sustainability.averydennison.com.

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