Smurfit Westrock CSO Garrett Quinn on leveraging stakeholder demands for sustainability
"There was a significant opportunity to get some valuation premium by being even better at sustainability."
A Chief Sustainability Officer’s biggest challenge is to make a business case for sustainability – but for Smurfit Westrock’s CSO Garrett Quinn, evolving investor and customer expectations now make it easier than ever.
Quinn took on the role in 2021, when Smurfit Westrock was still Smurfit Kappa, a paper packaging firm founded in Ireland and with a strong presence in Europe and Latin America – before it merged with US counterpart Westrock in 2023.
With the merger, the Chief Sustainability Officer became responsible for the new, global entity’s entire sustainability strategy, and he is now working to complete a materiality assessment and align the two companies’ previous climate goals into new, unified targets.
