Particleboard giant Sonae is aiming to boost its profile and raise awareness of its environmental performance with an educational programme targeting schools near its Knowsley plant.
The company’s sales and marketing director Dave Chapman unveiled the initiative as an ‘epiphany’ for the company at the Plywood Club of London meeting this week.
The aim, he said, was to highlight to pupils and teachers what really goes on at Sonae when “all people mostly see is a big industrial unit producing clouds of steam”.
“We’ll tell them about what happens in the factory and what comes out the other end; the valuable end products people don’t normally associate with a plant like ours,” said Mr Chapman.
In particular, he added, the initiative will flag up Sonae’s record on using recycled fibre from post-consumer wood waste under its “Real Urban Forest Products” programme and the benefits of recycling generally.
The educational material, which Sonae may roll out beyond the Liverpool area, will be “cartoon-based” and pupils will also get an associated workbook.
