Our Future: Plastic Sustainability

CEO Message

Over the past year businesses in South Africa, much like the rest of the world, had to adjust to a rapidly changing business landscape. Macroeconomic impacts like the economic slow-down, the weakening Rand-Dollar exchange rate, inflation and lower consumer spending are just some of the challenges businesses had to grapple with. Moreover, load-shedding has impacted every aspect of our lives and has reshaped and reimagined how we do business. Despite these challenges, Safripol has remained resolute in our ambition to create plastics that responsibly shape your world, and to create long term shared value for all our stakeholders.

Accelerating our transition towards a circular economy for plastics

ASPIRE: We launched our first two rPET recycled products in the market containing 15 and 25 % post-consumer resin. We are leveraging our technical expertise, state of the art polymerisation infrastructure, operational excellence, and economies of scale to address the circular economy and provide a competitive product to the market aligned with the mandated extended producer responsibility targets for recycling and recycled content.

We have acquired a majority shareholding in Xuba Compounders (Pty) Ltd., which will allow Safripol to strengthen our circular economy portfolio further for upcycling of PET, PP, and HDPE, as well as expand our offerings into high value compounded polymer grades for industrial and automotive applications.

We have also made significant strides in redesigning our HDPE, PP and PET resins for rightweighting and fit for purpose applications, as well as expanding our resins for durable longterm applications, which ensures we keep the material in use for as long as possible.

Safripol is being seen as a leading voice in plastic sustainability. Our Lets plastic Responsibly campaign is gaining in momentum and is changing the plastic narrative and putting focus on plastics as a valuable resource that should remain in the circular economy.

Progress towards decarbonisation

This past year, we have taken a major step in our decarbonisation pathway and have announced our targets towards achieving net-zero for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

These targets are aligned to our major capital investment programs which will allow us to reduce our greenhouse gas emission intensity by 20% by FY 2028 Vs our FY 2021 baseline.

We have achieved a critical milestone in our energy transition and have implemented our first 10MW photovoltaic renewable energy plant with beneficial operation expected in FY 2024.

We will implement further renewable energy solutions by FY 2028, which will allow the business to decouple from our carbon intensive coal-based energy source and ensure energy security for the business going into the future.

We have also completed the first phase of construction towards upgrading our high-density polyethylene operations which will be completed during FY 2024 which would allow us to improve our resource efficiencies and decrease our emissions even further.

Contributing towards sustainable communities

We have accelerated our social impact programs reaching more youth, more families, more communities and impacting more lives.

We have mobilised several projects at community level together with our partners to capacitate waste collection projects so that we can secure large volumes of consistent highquality feedstock for use back in the industry.

Our school’s recycling and education programs are changing young-minds and creating the mind-set shift that we need for social and environmental change.

Safripol’s nutrient-rich feeding scheme targeting early childhood development centres is making impact in ensuring young children receive the nourishment they need to thrive. The program uses rigid polypropylene containers which are being returned and refilled aligning with the circular economy.

While we still have more work to do, I am exceptionally proud of the tangible progress we have made in our journey towards a more competitive, sustainable, and future ready business. For Safripol, sustainability is business critical, and we will continue to collaborate with all value-chain partners and drive all efforts towards the transformational changes that we need for a sustainable and prosperous future.

“Safripol has remained resolute in our ambition to create plastics that responsibly shape your world, and to create long-term shared value for all our stakeholders” – Nico Van Niekerk, Safripol, Chief Executive Officer