Wes Carter has one eye on the ledger and the other on the ocean. He notes that both business and Earth are heating up. “Climate change is undeniable,” the executive says with certainty. “When you look at the hurricanes, wildfires and all the melting Arctic ice caps, the Earth is sending us signals that are a serious issue.”
As president of Atlantic Packaging, which is on track to hit $830 million in 2021 revenues, employs 1,435 people across 28 locations, including its Wilmington headquarters, and Greenville, Charleston and Charlotte operations. Customers include Proctor & Gamble, QVC, Bass Pro Shop and Williams-Sonoma, Carter feels a responsibility to act. “As the largest, private packaging company in the U.S., we have a moral obligation to care about environmental issues. The supply chain we participate in is part of the problem. The supply chain has to shift or nothing will change,” the Charleston resident explains.
Carter allows the irony to sink in. He comes from a family that puts social risk ahead of business security. His grandfather, who started Atlantic Packaging with a Tabor City newspaper, ignored the safe thing to do in the ’50s and used the paper to stand up to the Ku Klux Klan. The journalist’s grandson is now pushing for environmentally-friendly packaging, while kick-starting a project to save the waters where he loves to surf. “Unfortunately, climate change can get politicized, but you can’t ignore pollution,” Carter says. “I focus on the pollution piece of this because of the business I’m in.”
Carter says their sustainability program not only works with all to reduce package size and waste, but is a leader in introducing new products, like the fishbone carrier to replace plastic, six-pack rings. “Plastic takes 400 years to degrade,” Carter says. “Those six-pack rings? They’ve been choking turtles my whole life. We have a lot of influence in the beverage industry and felt like the fishbone carrier was a great opportunity to lead in replacing a very obvious environmental problem in packaging.”
Atlantic has also partnered with the global surfing community to form A New Earth Project (ANEP) to rid the oceans of plastic pollution. ANEP hopes to fight for policy change, while creating awareness, in part with a documentary set to debut next year. “It’s surfers transcending their sport and becoming advocates,” Carter reveals. “They see the ocean more than anybody and have a unique view of the problem.”
“This is the direction the market is going and we have an ability to lead in it,” he says. “Embracing sustainability is an intelligent business decision and a good decision for the betterment of the plant. At the end of the day, the Earth is going to be just fine. Humans may not be.”
