Efficient Operations

As an enterprise with a global footprint, we are employing a strong strategy to reduce operational impacts from our company-owned production (manufacturing and packaging), distribution and retail facilities.

Driving Improvements

All of our manufacturing, packaging and distribution facilities implement our Environmental Safety Management System which adheres to Company environmental and safety policies. All of our manufacturing facilities are certified to ISO 14001.

Our Global Environmental Affairs and Safety (EAS) team works to advance the environmental performance of our Company and has driven significant operating improvements since FY2008, when we first began reporting recycling rates and greenhouse gas emissions. We continue to implement important strategic initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint and have identified new opportunities for resource efficiency, conservation and materials recapture.

“We continue to focus on managing our operating footprint, working across our sites in partnership with our Office Services team, to optimize our resource use and minimize waste, " says Michael Jaklitsch, Vice President, Global Environmental Affairs and Safety. "In addition to reducing our use of key inputs such as energy, we are learning from best practices to increase diversion of our waste and mitigate and offset our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.”

We continue to focus on managing our operating footprint to optimize our resource use and minimize waste.

Michael Jaklitsch

Vice President, Global Environmental Affairs and Safety

Our Concentrated Efforts

Climate Change

Climate Change, Energy & Emissions

We recognize our responsibility to reduce our contribution to global climate change by conserving energy, investing in renewable sources of energy and reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Understanding Climate Change Related Risk

In FY2015, we completed a comprehensive climate change risk management analysis. We identified the physical, business continuity, sourcing, regulatory and reputation risks and how consumer preferences might be affected by climate change. This process strengthened our ability to anticipate risks to our business from rising energy demands and costs and other impacts from climate disruption.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Our climate and energy practices center on reducing operational (Scope 1 and Scope 2) GHG emissions. While we recognize that the vast majority of emissions in our value chain are attributed to upstream suppliers, our focus for the near-term is to improve our footprint in operations where we have the most direct control.

Every year, we report our GHG emissions to the CDP, which monitors corporate approaches to tackling climate change. We are proud to be included in the CDP Climate Disclosure Leadership Index for the third consecutive year. Our performance score was a B and our disclosure score was 99[TR1].

Energy Efficiency

The energy consumed by our manufacturing, distribution and retail stores accounts for the majority of our GHG Scope 1 and 2 footprint. In addition to ongoing energy efficiency initiatives, such as the use of ENERGY STAR equipment and high-efficiency airflow and temperature management systems, we have been piloting programs around efficient lighting, energy dashboards in our facilities, and reducing transport-related emissions.

Increasingly, we will focus on energy efficiency projects to meet our GHG goals for our growing number of freestanding stores. We have established high efficiency lighting standards for all new freestanding stores, and existing stores are being retrofitted over time as additional scalable approaches to energy efficiency are identified.

Waste & Recycling

Our business produces different types of waste that we strive to reduce and recycle where possible. We have a strong record of minimizing waste from our facilities and continue to identify new ways to improve recovery and diversion rates. Since 2003, our company owned manufacturing and distribution facilities have sent zero waste-to-landfill. Any waste that cannot be recycled is incinerated and converted to energy. Our owned manufacturing and distribution centers, which make up 23 facilities, are zero waste-to-landfill, plus five affiliate locations, and we are working to expand this to more of our operations.

We achieved a recycling rate of 88.5 percent for our industrial sites, exceeding our target of 88 percent for FY2016. We tailor efficiency measures to the processes and materials at each facility. Our FY2017 recycling target is 90 percent.

We recognize the challenges and opportunities to further reduce our impacts in these areas and across our operations, even in regions of the world that currently lack modern waste management infrastructure. We have begun gap assessments at a number of our affiliate distribution centers (DCs) as we continue to assess and implement best practices across our facilities.

Water

Although the majority of our operations are neither water-intensive nor located in water-stressed areas, we recognize our responsibility to conserve precious water resources. Understanding the current state of water use across our operations is essential to better managing this vital resource.

In FY2016, we conducted a corporate water footprint analysis at our production facility in Blaine, Minnesota. Several water conservation opportunities were identified in the study. Projects under consideration for implementation in FY2017 have the potential to reduce water consumption in the facility by more than a million gallons of water per year.

Water savings and purification technologies are already being used in some of our locations throughout the world. Resulting from a recommendation from the FY2015 water study at the Melville, New York production facility, a new closed loop chiller system was installed in the Bio-Fermentation Lab in FY2016. The projected water savings is over several million gallons per year.

In our Belgium facility, a new water treatment system cleans waste water for reuse in mechanical cleaning, reducing water use by up to 50 percent at this location. South Africa is working to ensure that its facility can continue to operate in the event of an interruption in local water supply. We continue to assess other facilities to identify opportunities and strategies to improve water conservation.

Climate Change
Waste & Recycling
Water

Climate Change, Energy & Emissions

We recognize our responsibility to reduce our contribution to global climate change by conserving energy, investing in renewable sources of energy and reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Understanding Climate Change Related Risk

In FY2015, we completed a comprehensive climate change risk management analysis. We identified the physical, business continuity, sourcing, regulatory and reputation risks and how consumer preferences might be affected by climate change. This process strengthened our ability to anticipate risks to our business from rising energy demands and costs and other impacts from climate disruption.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Our climate and energy practices center on reducing operational (Scope 1 and Scope 2) GHG emissions. While we recognize that the vast majority of emissions in our value chain are attributed to upstream suppliers, our focus for the near-term is to improve our footprint in operations where we have the most direct control.

Every year, we report our GHG emissions to the CDP, which monitors corporate approaches to tackling climate change. We are proud to be included in the CDP Climate Disclosure Leadership Index for the third consecutive year. Our performance score was a B and our disclosure score was 99[TR1].

Energy Efficiency

The energy consumed by our manufacturing, distribution and retail stores accounts for the majority of our GHG Scope 1 and 2 footprint. In addition to ongoing energy efficiency initiatives, such as the use of ENERGY STAR equipment and high-efficiency airflow and temperature management systems, we have been piloting programs around efficient lighting, energy dashboards in our facilities, and reducing transport-related emissions.

Increasingly, we will focus on energy efficiency projects to meet our GHG goals for our growing number of freestanding stores. We have established high efficiency lighting standards for all new freestanding stores, and existing stores are being retrofitted over time as additional scalable approaches to energy efficiency are identified.

Waste & Recycling

Our business produces different types of waste that we strive to reduce and recycle where possible. We have a strong record of minimizing waste from our facilities and continue to identify new ways to improve recovery and diversion rates. Since 2003, our company owned manufacturing and distribution facilities have sent zero waste-to-landfill. Any waste that cannot be recycled is incinerated and converted to energy. Our owned manufacturing and distribution centers, which make up 23 facilities, are zero waste-to-landfill, plus five affiliate locations, and we are working to expand this to more of our operations.

We achieved a recycling rate of 88.5 percent for our industrial sites, exceeding our target of 88 percent for FY2016. We tailor efficiency measures to the processes and materials at each facility. Our FY2017 recycling target is 90 percent.

We recognize the challenges and opportunities to further reduce our impacts in these areas and across our operations, even in regions of the world that currently lack modern waste management infrastructure. We have begun gap assessments at a number of our affiliate distribution centers (DCs) as we continue to assess and implement best practices across our facilities.

Water

Although the majority of our operations are neither water-intensive nor located in water-stressed areas, we recognize our responsibility to conserve precious water resources. Understanding the current state of water use across our operations is essential to better managing this vital resource.

In FY2016, we conducted a corporate water footprint analysis at our production facility in Blaine, Minnesota. Several water conservation opportunities were identified in the study. Projects under consideration for implementation in FY2017 have the potential to reduce water consumption in the facility by more than a million gallons of water per year.

Water savings and purification technologies are already being used in some of our locations throughout the world. Resulting from a recommendation from the FY2015 water study at the Melville, New York production facility, a new closed loop chiller system was installed in the Bio-Fermentation Lab in FY2016. The projected water savings is over several million gallons per year.

In our Belgium facility, a new water treatment system cleans waste water for reuse in mechanical cleaning, reducing water use by up to 50 percent at this location. South Africa is working to ensure that its facility can continue to operate in the event of an interruption in local water supply. We continue to assess other facilities to identify opportunities and strategies to improve water conservation.