A leading European paper manufacturer, The Hamelin Group, talks EU Ecolabel

To date, EU Ecolabel certified products represent more than 75% of the Hamelin group’s products, including its entire collection of stationary paper, along with more than 2 000 different types of its notebooks. By minimising the company’s environmental impact via compliance with the EU Ecolabel criteria, Hamelin aims to promote sustainability and sustainable forestry amongst industry stakeholders and consumers.

The request for an environmental certification recognised across the EU and valid worldwide

In the early 2000s, this company launched a benchmark study to evaluate and select a certification scheme that met their internal criteria for environmental excellence. As the EU Ecolabel criteria for converted paper did not exist at the time, they instead focused their efforts in participating in a coalition of sustainable paper manufactures. As the years progressed, the European Commission felt market pressure to create a product group for converted paper and therefore officially launched a working group of industry and Member State stakeholders. Hamelin was amongst the panel of important stakeholders who played an active role in the establishment of the criteria. In particular, The Hamelin Group tested the draft criteria in order to help evaluate its stringency and relevance.

Sustainability within the Converted Paper Products market

For Hamelin, EU Ecolabel is not only a marketing tool, but rather a key element in the company’s CSR policy.  Over the past decade, Hamelin has certified as many products as possible in order to work towards enhancing and optimizing its sustainable supply chain. Even if some of Hamelin’s products are outside the scope of the converted paper group, the company has taken measures to apply the ecological manufacturing processes to their entire supply chain. This has had an overall positive effect on their non-EU Ecolabel certified products and has created consistency in terms of their sustainability practices.

Hamelin’s clients, which are from the B2B market followed the actions taken under the environmental policy of the group and demonstrated a strong interest for the EU Ecolabel certification. In particular, the pan-European aspects of the EU Ecolabel helped clients grasp a positive and trustworthy image of Hamelin’s converted paper products.

The EU Ecolabel certification for converted products: a tool that helps licence holder go one step further

According to Hamelin’s company policy, all fibres used in its products must be obtained from sustainably managed forests. In order to better evaluate the source of its produces, all Hamelin’s pulp suppliers must be FSC or PEFC certified.

Numerous certifications: The EU Ecolabel stands above

Even though the synergy between FSC, PEFC and the EU Ecolabel may not be immediately evident, in many ways the three certification scheme can been seen as complementary. For example, EU Ecolabel criteria includes an option for licence holders to use paper pulp certified with FSC or PEFC to suffice requirements for sustainable forestry. For Hamelin Group, the EU Ecolabel, due to its strict requirements in terms of supply chain management, is the most stringent certification scheme for the converted paper products.

As mentioned, the EU Ecolabel comprises a wide-range of requirements covering the entire supply chain, including:

• Requirements to use recycled fibre or pulp from a sustainably managed forest
• Prohibition of use of Solvent ink, which limits the VOC (Volatile organic compound)
• Requirement to increase recyclability at the products end-of-life.
• Ban on discarding raw material leftover

Sustainability as a core course of action

For Hamelin, sustainability is not a passing trend; but an inevitable change that must take place at every step of the production process.