PRATT IN BOX SEAT TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
BILLIONAIRE Anthony Pratt will spend more than $7bn expanding in the US over the next decade, as part of the biggest ever expenditure strategy for his manufacturing empire.
Mr Pratt has pledged to invest $US5bn ($7.75bn) in US recycling and clean energy infrastructure to create more than 5000 manufacturing jobs in 10 years.
His Pratt Industries cardboard box making and recycling business is currently building a $US500m paper mill in Kentucky, one of the first moves in the $US5bn spending plan.
Earlier this year, it clinched an agreement to spend $US200m on a new factory in Dallas, Texas, which will be Pratt’s 71st factory in the US.
Pratt Industries also opened a $US200m corrugated box manufacturing plant in Park City, Kansas, in October.
“Pratt Industries is proud to be the largest Australian employer of Americans, employing over 11,000 Americans in well-paying, green- collar, manufacturing jobs operating more than 70 factories across America,” Mr Pratt told an AmCham function this week. “The value of our investment in American recycling and clean energy infrastructure is now over $US10bn. In America, steady growth is forever and we are honoured to have built five out of America’s last seven paper mills, all 100 per cent recycled.”
Mr Pratt’s wealth was estimated at $27.77bn in The Australian’s 2022 edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250, published in March.
Mr Pratt said recycling was an important weapon against climate change because “as things decay in landfill they emit methane, which is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 25-year period. As a result, landfills emit more greenhouse gases than global aviation.”
Pratt Industries is the fifth-largest corrugated packaging company in the US and with 11,000 employees is now bigger than the family’s Visy operation in Australia and New Zealand.
Mr Pratt has said he would spend $2bn in Australia, where he owns Visy with sisters Heloise Pratt and Fiona Geminder.
Last month, Visy broke ground on its new $500m glass food and beverage container recycling and manufacturing plant on the Gold Coast.
It is also building a new $150m corrugated box factory at Hemmant, south of Brisbane airport.