Domtar Wins AF&PA Sustainability Award for Water Conservation Program

Our winning project was our water conservation program, which began as a pilot program in 2023. It will save more than 1 billion gallons of water annually and contribute to our goal to reduce water use by 20 percent per unit of product by 2030 (compared to a 2019 baseline). AF&PA’s Leadership in Sustainability — Water Management award recognizes our efforts to reduce our water usage as part of our overarching sustainability goals. “Sustainability is foundational for our members, and our awards program reflects that,” said AF&PA President and CEO Heidi Brock in a recent press release. “These award-winning projects demonstrate sustainability leadership and innovation in action. We are proud to recognize real-world examples of how our forest and paper industry sustainability goals come to life.”

Water Conservation Program Turns Ideas into Reality

We launched our award-winning water conservation program in 2023. We dedicated a portion of capital spending solely for water-reduction projects. This water reduction fund was designed to attract innovative projects and ideas from teams within the Domtar network. Mills could submit proposals for a chance to earn a portion of the available funds. “The projects didn’t need to provide a financial return. The priority was saving water,” explains Brian Kozlowski, senior director of environment and sustainability for Domtar’s Paper and Packaging business unit. “That gave our employees the chance to think beyond the bottom line, and they really did!” The results from 2023 were impressive. The water conservation program completed ten projects at seven mills that will save more than 1 billion gallons of water annually. That’s enough water to fill more than 1,600 Olympic-sized swimming pools. These projects included:

Reusing cooling water, process white water and seal water instead of fresh water
Installing flow regulators to control water usage more efficiently
Replacing packing with mechanical seals to minimize freshwater losses
Adding mechanical seals with tank support systems to extend their life
Converting open-loop water cooling to closed-loop systems, eliminating water use altogether
Rerouting water streams to a cooling tower for reuse, replacing single-pass freshwater systems

“I was very impressed by how our teams responded and rose to the challenge,” says Bill Edwards, senior vice president of operations for Domtar’s Paper and Packaging business unit. “The process not only generated some fun and healthy competition between our mills but also generated some great and actionable projects that will have meaningful and long-lasting impacts on water usage for our mills and for our communities.” Feedback from our customers, communities and employees has been very positive. They appreciate our approach and commitment to regular and dedicated funding for water conservation projects.

In addition, by becoming more water efficient, we are also building resiliency in our local communities to better weather drought conditions. With such positive feedback and promising results in 2023, we’ve continued this initiative in 2024.