Leadership Companies Setting Aggressive Targets for Waste Reduction
According to the survey of 95 corporate environment, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability leaders, 48 percent of those who responded have set a target for percentage of total waste recycled, while an additional 24 percent are currently considering this goal. For many respondents, those goals went as far as zero. According to the survey, 26 percent are pursuing a zero waste-to-landfill goal and 42 percent are currently considering it.
Thomas Day, Chief Sustainability Officer with the United States Postal Service, who attended the conference, says the current focus on waste may be a sign of program maturity among leadership companies.
"Many of us…have already done some pretty amazing stuff with energy reduction over the past five years or so," he said. "Waste reduction, diversion from landfill to recycling also has financial benefit but it's a little more challenging than energy so I think it's the next big thing on the list."
Thanks to improvements in operational efficiency and standardization of its waste hauling contracts, Mr. Day says the USPS is expected to well exceed its initial target of 50 percent diversion from landfill to recycling over the next five years.
"We believe with this we'll go well beyond 90 percent," he said. "We think bottom line it has an impact of more than $100 million, so it's a good thing for us to do."
The traditional challenge with waste, according to Dennis Wolcott, Global Energy Programs Manager with Parker Hannifin Corp., is that no manufacturing process is 100 percent efficient.
"Energy and water are kind of the same because you're always going to have to use them. You just want to minimize how much you have to use," Mr. Wolcott said. "Waste is different and it's harder because there is something that comes out of the process no matter what you do."
Mr. Wolcott said the company's EHS team is working the problem "on both ends": reducing the materials that go into the process and identifying ways to recycle the byproducts afterwards.
In addition to showcasing program results, the conference provided a detailed look at the strategies that companies such as the USPS and Lockheed Martin have used to achieve their resource reduction goals.
For Nicole Krenner, who recently assumed the role of Sustainability Operations Excellence Manager for 3M Co., this insight into others' programs gave her new ideas for advancing the company's zero waste initiative.
Specifically, she liked the idea of creating a corporate-wide partnership with a recycling company to manage certain waste streams and to introduce kaizen-type events to focus on waste.
"It was good to learn that a lot of the other companies are in the same position as we are in terms of their aspirations and goal development," she said. "It was good to level-set, to see what they're doing, to see what's different but a lot of what's the same."
Mr. Day agreed that most of those who participated seemed to be making strides in reducing their environmental impacts, but that success was an ever-moving target.
"I think the challenge for all of us is that we can't rest on our laurels. We have to keep looking for the next big challenge, the next thing we need to take on," he said.
To see more results from NAEM's benchmark on leading-edge goals and metrics, please email NAEM Research Analyst Taylor Gelsinger, taylor@naem.org.
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