Our approach to sustainability at Ring Container Technologies is unique. We see it being as much about present facts as future ambitions. We innovate, refine, and offer products that function well and are affordable for our customers – particularly given the inflationary and other pressures they are currently facing. Reliable and cost-effective sustainable solutions go together with recyclable, responsibly sourced, and material reduction.
Ring customers see and feel what this looks like in practice. Our journey is made up of three interdependent drivers: reliability, cost effective sustainability, and community involvement.
Driver 1: Reliability
Our business, simply put, is there for people. Whether during the height of COVID-19 related closures or amid supply chain and inflation issues, Ring Container Technologies is a rare outlier in that our customers have not experienced disruptions in the delivery of our products. We lead with “yes” for our customers’ needs and offer solutions at the root of a problem.
This philosophy is made possible by robust quality assurance processes and our institutional commitment to staying close to the drawing board. That is to say, if a product isn’t working like both Ring and the customer expected, we immediately go back to the basics, retooling it according to new specifications until the right solution is realized.
Driver 2: Cost effective sustainability
We want our customers to be able to use our packaging to cut down on consumer waste and their own environmental footprints now – not in 15 or 20 years once a prototype is brought to reality.
Among the ways that we do this include reducing design complexity, by seeking process efficiencies and leaner resource use from the point of design. Ring also takes a managed approach to risks, focusing on solutions that are accessible to anyone, as opposed to investments that would be a non-starter for companies that have limited budgets.
If all this sounds rather modest at first glance, it’s important to bear in mind that the wider chain of sustainability must begin somewhere, going beyond Fortune 500 companies and into the heart of small business. Indeed, in a global sustainability market projected to be worth $40 billion in just three years’ time, expanding supply chain buy-in will have an emphasis on affordability.
Driver 3: Community involvement
Ring Container Technologies understands that an irreplaceable part of sustainability is being a good neighbor. We get involved in our communities in the traditional sense, such as our cleanup at the Wolf River Conservancy, and volunteer activities by Ring executives and associates at the individual level.
Community involvement is also about how we operate. We are sensitive to the places where our teams live, work, and play. Our Focused Plant philosophy minimizes the need for long-distance travel and delivery, thus cutting down on emissions in the air for miles around. And through improvements to energy efficiency within our plants, we focus our efforts on being a good steward of the environment.
An ecosystem of deliberate change: what makes Ring unique
We don’t make promises that we cannot keep, but rather take action that we can and do demonstrate. For instance, we launched a technical breakthrough in the form of BarrierGuard® OxygenSmart™, a product that protects product quality and shelf life, while also earning the coveted “Widely Recycled” label from How2Recycle®.
Our latest innovation, BarrierGuard® Enhance™, protects the freshness of smaller carbonated beverages and incorporates post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials without impacting performance.
Both products and innovations reflect our tenacity for action to promote and support circularity in the plastics industry, an effort backed by our industry-leading portfolio of blow-molded containers, all of which allow our customers to cut down on materials used and bolster recyclability.
Looking toward the future is important, but we also consider how things can be made more carbon neutral and efficient in the here and now. Sustainability is a present fact, one that reminds us that what we do today lays the ground for a cleaner and more robust future and ensures that as many people as possible can participate in this new reality.
Click here to view the Ring Pursuit of Excellence 2022 Environmental, Social, and Governance Report.
