Smurfit Kappa creates international foundation

Oct 10, 2012. /Lesprom Network/. Smurfit Kappa has set up an independent foundation with charitable status to invest in Corporate Social Responsibility activities, as the company said in the press release received by Lesprom Network. The Smurfit Kappa Group Foundation was brought to life in February 2011 when the Board decided to donate a total of Euro 3 million over the following three years. It was stipulated that Euro 500,000 could be invested in Corporate Social Responsibility activities each year. The other half would be invested to finance future CSR activities. At the end of the third year Smurfit Kappa will review the activities of the Foundation and decide whether to invest further. The Foundation was set up to invest in and support appropriate sustainable projects with implementation by the local operating units. The funding should address, in particular, the millennium goals of the United Nations. Activities will focus initially on projects involving young disadvantaged children in the areas of health/nutrition, basic care and early education. The Foundation aims to support projects which are capable of becoming self-sufficient in the long term, thus educating people in practical ways to assume responsibility for their own issues over time. Brendan Tuohy, external Board member of the Smurfit Kappa Group Foundation, and a former Secretary-General of the Irish Government’s Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, states: “The creation of the Foundation is strong evidence of Smurfit Kappa’s clear commitment to the local communities in the countries where it operates and, as a leading Irish multinational group, a recognition of the important role that it must play in the field of corporate social responsibility.” Smurfit Kappa Group is a world leader in paper-based packaging with operations in Europe and Latin America.