Companies committed to
Zero Waste

For the past 15 years, nothing has gone to waste at Subaru. Their manufacturing facility in Lafayette, Indiana, and four plants in Japan, have been zero waste to landfill since 2005—no small feat for a company that produces nearly 1 million vehicles per year across its supply chain.

The company tracks its waste production using barcodes and sends the materials to other departments or plants where they can be recycled or repurposed. They recycle everything from waste oil to paint sludge and reuse packaging wherever possible. Waste that is too difficult to reuse or recycle is incinerated for energy, but this totals less than 5% of their overall waste.

Beyond just eliminating manufacturing waste on their side, the company has also ensured that 96% of the components in a Subaru vehicle are reusable or recyclable. They have also partnered with the National Parks Conservation Association to help bring their zero-waste strategies to America’s national parks and extend their waste reduction philosophy to an even greater challenge.

There’s a good reason why Unilever often tops the list of best zero waste companies. The company achieved its Zero-Waste-to-Landfill goal in 2016, six years ahead of schedule, and has maintained it ever since. Doing this at a company with 242 factories in 67 countries that produce an extensive variety of products required a lot of innovation. Some of their unique efforts include transforming tea waste into textile dyes and reusing sludge to feed earthworms.

According to Unilever, going zero waste and implementing eco-friendly initiatives has created numerous jobs and helped save the company over $225 million. They don’t plan to stop there, however, and have pledged to use only 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable packaging by 2025.

This company launched its Zero Manufacturing Waste to Landfill program in 2008 and has made steady progress since then. By 2013, 45 of their manufacturing facilities around the world had gone zero waste, and by 2018 they had successfully diverted 80% of operational waste from landfill, with the ultimate goal of achieving 100% by the end of this year.

A large part of P&G’s success can be attributed to its Global Asset Recovery Purchases (GARP) team, which is in charge of strategies to divert waste. Some of these incredible innovations include converting plastic waste from diaper production into pellets to make brooms and buckets, and transforming scraps from toilet paper and wipes into material for low-cost roofing tiles.

In the long term, P&G is also committed to tackling consumer waste by striving towards offering 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2030.

You wouldn’t expect this tech behemoth to be one of the major zero-waste companies in North America, but Google is well on its way. As of 2016, six of the company’s data centers had achieved 100% zero waste, and as of 2017, a total of 91% of waste from global data centers was being successfully diverted from landfill.

To do this, the company switched its hardware upgrade strategy to focus on repairing and reusing equipment whenever possible. Equipment that can’t be reused is resold and given a second life, and anything that cannot be reused or resold is instead recycled. Efforts to reduce food and other types of waste have also resulted in an 86% landfill diversion rate at Google’s Bay Area offices.

Looking toward the future, the company is committed to achieving UL 2799 Zero Waste to Landfill certification at all of its final assembly manufacturing sites by 2022.

Committed to the zero waste cause since 2007, in 2016 this food product maker succeeded in achieving zero manufacturing waste to landfill at all 126 of its factories worldwide. To achieve this goal Mars focused on reducing waste by streamlining operations, introducing recycling schemes, and, of course, devising innovative uses for recovered waste products. Some of these include using leftover sweeteners as an energy source for manufacturing and capturing methane from disposable solid waste to generate alternative energy and minimize greenhouse gas emissions.

Among other sustainability goals, Mars is currently striving to make 100% of its plastic packaging reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.

Since 2013, Sierra Nevada has been diverting 99.8% of its solid waste from landfill. As a beer manufacturer, the majority of its production waste is brewing byproducts like barley and hops, which is diverted from landfill and supplied to livestock farms for use as feed. The company is also big on composting, using the HotRot composting system in its fields, breweries, and restaurants.

Sierra Nevada’s efforts go beyond simply eliminating manufacturing waste, however. Zero waste has been incorporated into the company culture, and from day one employees are gifted reusable bags, water bottles, and containers, and encouraged to eliminate the waste normally generated throughout their working day. All their hard work has paid off, as the US Zero Waste Council certified Sierra Nevada’s Chico, CA brewery as a platinum-level zero waste company—the highest possible certification level.