Innovation Everywhere You Look

The packaging company, integrated in a business group that makes a wide
range of products principally for agriculture and construction will use the 
resources raised through the bond to finance investments to expand its 
output capacity as well as to adopt new technologies and improve its 
energy efficiency.

As part of an inclusive business model, over the next five years Compañía 
de Empaques plans to double its purchases of fique fibers, used to 
manufacture coffee bean bags sacks and other recyclable and compostable 
textiles and cords. Fique, a plant similar to sisal, is mostly grown by
low-income farmers and rural cooperatives in central and southern regions 
of Colombia.

The company will also step up its research and development of new 
products derived from the fique plant, as well as its experiments with 
circular economy models, which involve reusing or repurposing waste that 
would otherwise end up in a landfill. They have already replaced coal with 
plant biomass as fuel for its own generator. They are in the process of 
reducing its carbon footprint using renewable energy with the construction 
of a biomass power plant using fique fiber waste and the installation of 
solar panels.

Under the terms of the sustainability-linked bond, the company will pay a 
higher or lower interest rate depending on whether it achieves or misses 
certain key performance indicators tied to a set of previously agreed and 
independently verified environmental and social targets. For example, one 
of the goals is to reduce the energy consumption rate of raw materials it 
uses, which include polypropylene.