Since Wastequip was founded in 1989, we have built a portfolio of industry-leading brands and a team of experts to solve nearly any waste or recycling challenge our customers face. I’m proud of what we have accomplished and recognize that none of this is possible without a sustainable workforce, economy and environment. I believe that business can be a powerful tool to make the world a better place — and that doing the right thing for our people and our planet is also the right thing for our business.
Therefore in 2020, we launched our Wastequip CORE (Corporate Responsibility) program to formalize our commitment to improving the condition of the planet we depend on, the lives of our employees, and the communities in which we operate, all while maintaining a healthy company.
Over the past several years, we have made strides to reduce our environmental impact across many areas of our business – like installing energy-efficient lighting in our facilities, implementing a pallet-recycling program, recycling our own scrap and reducing our inbound and outbound freight. However, we lacked a formalized, data-driven approach and dedicated team responsible for defining our company-wide strategy, identifying our goals and tracking progress toward those goals.
To lead CORE, we created a team led by Kristin Kinder, our Vice President of Research and Waste Stream Sustainability. While Kristin is an integral part of senior leadership, she acts as an independent industry expert, guiding our sustainability strategy. We also partnered with a leading consultancy to conduct an objective review of our products and manufacturing processes to help identify areas for improvement for our Toter brand. We are using that data along with our early assessments of our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions to understand our carbon footprint and set meaningful goals to reduce it.
CORE has also formally connected multiple stakeholders to ensure we look at our impacts on people and the planet together. Since announcing CORE, I’m happy to report progress in several areas:
- We formed a steering committee with cross-functional participation from operations, human resources, marketing and finance to set meaningful goals based on data, ensure diversity of thought, and track our progress toward our People and Planet goals.
- We launched Project25 to reduce our virgin resin usage by 25% across our manufacturing operation.
- We introduced the Toter EVR-Green cart, the industry’s first 100% recycled cart body.
- On the people side, we achieved gender pay equity across all positions in 2021. And we are actively working to recruit more women into the industry while ensuring they have the same opportunities for advancement as their male counterparts.
- We formally incorporated sustainability into our capital investment and our new product development processes, ensuring that we maintain a focus on sustainability as we evaluate new business opportunities.
- We integrated sustainability into our annual strategic planning process and our long-term strategy
- And to ensure we maintain focus on our CORE goals, we have tied executive compensation to the achievement of our goals
I genuinely believe that we must approach our business and our lives with a philosophy of leaving more than we take. Taking care of our people and our planet is not only a necessity, but also helps us unlock significant value across our business.
We continue to identify strategies to reduce our carbon footprint, help our customers understand the environmental impact of their product choices and enhance our value to multiple stakeholders – employees, investors, communities, and suppliers. I am proud of our progress to date and energized by the opportunities that lie ahead of us.
Thank you,
Marty Bryant, CEO