Smurfit Westrock will invest about €600 million in its French operations over the next three to five years, funding a modernisation and decarbonisation programme spanning the 50 sites where the packaging group employs about 6,000 people. The group timed the announcement ahead of this year’s Choose France summit, the annual showcase the French government stages to draw foreign capital into domestic industry.
Saverio Mayer, CEO Europe, MEA and APAC at Smurfit WestRock, said the spending builds on more than €500 million invested in French plants over the past five years to modernise operations and expand capacity, with the company now in its fifth decade in the country. He added that the group’s “commitment to innovation, quality, and decarbonisation efforts is clear.”
Because the group already runs four net zero plants in France alongside an almost fully decarbonised paper mill, the new spending deepens an emissions-cutting effort already well underway. Andrew Coffey, chief executive of Smurfit Westrock France, said hitting net zero at those sites had given the company a platform to go further, arguing that “sites creating sustainable packaging are sustainable in their own right.”
Smurfit Westrock has earmarked €40 million for an expansion and modernisation of the Épernay facility in the Marne and €20 million for the advanced corrugated plant at Vernon. More than €100 million will go to the Facture paper mill in south-western France, where the works include a new evaporation plant.
Coffey said the targeted spending would strengthen the company’s capabilities whilst cutting its environmental impact across a French operation that sits within a global network of about 97,000 people in 40 countries.
