Ushma Pandya tackles the ever-growing problem of waste disposal and offers insights from waste reporting, including goals and progress from major brands.
Insights from a scan of 50 Firms in the media/travel/ consumer products, telecom and retail industries.
Think Zero did a scan of over 50 companies in the media, travel, consumer products, telecom, retail industries to understand how firms are setting and reporting on their waste reduction goals and progress.
The following are some of the insights gleaned from that scan.
1) Waste reporting / Material management discussion is a standard practice among the larger firms. There is no standard on WHAT is reported but 49 out of the 50 firms all provided some data on their waste reduction strategies. Some firms focused on operational waste of their site and others focused on the end-of-life options for the products they sell.
Representative examples include:
Showing year over year diversion rates
Providing a waste intensity metrics (e.g., waste per consumer)
Detailing the recycled content of sold product
Providing detail on investments in new technologies / recycling infrastructure
Highlighting Zero Waste certifications
2) Some, but not all, companies report their overall waste volumes, usually based on hauler data. Where companies report their overall waste, it is often broken down by material type (e.g., trash, recyclables, etc.). Waste data quality and availability is variable, so the reported data includes multiple vendors and some estimations.
Some examples:
Best Buy breaks down recyclable weight into 10 categories
Target reported reuse weight (i.e. weight of reuse of hangers, donations, salvage)
Walmart provides diversion rate by country/ region on a YoY basis.
Nike provides data by site categories (e.g., HQ, Manufacturing, Distribution Centers)
Key points include:
- Employee engagement activities
- Progress to goal
- Zero waste certifications
Read the full article, Trends in Waste Reporting, on LinkedIn.