With the start of the new year, business leaders around the world are contemplating how to take their companies to the next level when it comes to sustainability. And despite what’s happening in Washington, American businesses are rising the occasion — cutting carbon emissions, conserving water and energy, and engaging employees around their goals.
If you’re looking for a bit more inspiration for the new year, consider this: Has your company ever thought about going zero waste? These 10 firms working toward zero waste to landfill prove it’s possible. And no, it won’t kill jobs or hurt profits.
1. Subaru
Subaru of Indiana Automotive (SIA), the automaker’s only U.S. manufacturing plant, hasn’t sent waste to local landfills in over 12 years. The same goes for two of Subaru’s manufacturing plants in Japan.
Thanks to suggestions from employees, Subaru reuses everything from auto part packaging to staff food scraps. On a net basis, its Indiana plant saves $1 to $2 million per year due to reduction and reuse — and Subaru has the best profit margin in the automotive industry.
And the reuse and recycling doesn’t stop at the factory: About 96 percent of the components in a Subaru vehicle can also be recycled or reused.
Organizations across the world noticed Subaru’s moves and asked the company how the heck they did it. Subaru agreed to benchmark with several of these organizations, including the National Park Service, to help them accomplish zero waste in their own operations.
2. Sierra Nevada
Back in 2013, Sierra Nevada said it saved more than $5 million by diverting nearly 100 percent of its waste from landfills. The U.S. Zero Waste Business Council certified its Chico, California, brewery as a platinum-level Zero Waste Facility the same year. And the company kept those numbers up, diverting 99.8 percent of its solid waste in 2014.
To accomplish this feat, the company sends its spent brewing ingredients — at least 150,000 pounds of malted barley and 4,000 pounds of hops a day — to local cattle and dairy farms for use as feed.
Its Chico brewery is also home to the first HotRot composting system in the U.S. Since it was installed in 2010, the system has transformed more than 5,000 tons of the company’s organic waste into rich compost which is then used in its Estate hop field, barley field and garden. The company has a similar partnership with a local composting company near its brewery in Mills River, North Carolina.
3. Toyota
Subaru isn’t the only automaker making waves in zero waste. In fact, the automotive sector is one of the widest adopters of such policies — and Toyota is a prime example.
The company’s North American facilities reduced, reused or recycled 96 percent of their non-regulated waste in 2015 — totaling over 900 million pounds.
The automaker became a founding member of the U.S. Zero Waste Building Council two years earlier. It now has 27 North American facilities that meet the council’s definition of a zero-waste site, including 10 manufacturing plants. And the U.S. EPA recognized Toyota Motor North America with a WasteWise Partner of the Year Award last year.
4. Unilever
Two years ago this month, Unilever announced that over 240 of its factories achieved the company’s goal of sending zero non-hazardous waste to landfill. By replicating its zero-waste model in other parts of the business, nearly 400 additional sites eliminated waste-to-landfill as of February of last year.
Unilever says its journey to zero waste saved the company over $225 million and “created hundreds of jobs.” To help others achieve similar results, Unilever teamed up with value-chain platform 2degrees last year to help bring organizations together around the zero-waste model.
“While I am proud of what our employees and partners have achieved across our manufacturing operations and the wider business, there is a lot more to be done to inspire a wide-scale movement,” Pier Luigi Sigismondi, chief supply chain officer for Unilever, said in a statement last year.
“It is time to accelerate efforts to move towards a zero-waste world and our new collaboration with 2degrees will allow us to share lessons and experiences, and to encourage other businesses and industries to take up the zero-waste challenge. By building a network of partners and working together, we can eliminate waste on an unprecedented scale across the globe.”
To read the full story, visit http://www.triplepundit.com/2017/01/10-companies-zero-waste-to-landfill/.