GOJO 2016-2017 Sustainability Report | Developing Products and Programs to Reduce Customer Waste

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GOJO SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

Developing Products & Programs to Reduce Customer Waste

G4-DMA, Indicator

GOJO dispensers are located within schools, healthcare facilities, airports, public restrooms and many other places to reduce the spread of illness by making hand hygiene easily accessible. GOJO completes numerous dispenser installations a year, with a single installation ranging from just a few dispensers to more than 10,000. In many cases, we are replacing old dispensers and historically, these dispensers ended up in our customers’ waste streams and landfills.

In 2015, we kept nearly 80,000 dispensers from reaching the landfill. Instead, these materials went on to become sprinkler systems, computer cases and two-liter bottles. We quickly learned about the challenges associated with establishing a recycling program. There are mixed materials in dispensers, such as different types of plastics, springs and batteries. Thus, our third-party partner does the disassembling and works to find customers for the various materials, and we challenged our product development team to find ways to make dispensers easier to recycle.

In the meantime, in 2016, we engaged a new recycling partner to help us identify additional options for responsibly and sustainably managing dispenser materials at the end of their useful life. In 2017, expectations are to keep collaborating and finding new ways to engage customers, while developing programs that have a built-in recycling component for used or non-viable dispensers.

Recover and reuse or recycle 50% of dispenser materials from the value chain

How We Measure: Weight of dispenser materials recovered and recycled divided by total weight of dispensers touched by GOJO Field Service Team

Note: Only GOJO dispensers in US that are touched by the GOJO Field Services Team are included (distributors are not included).

Percentage of dispenser materials touched by the GOJO Field Services Team recovered and recycled

During the baseline year of 2015, we provided dispenser recycling services through a GOJO-funded pilot project, with the intention of understanding the associated opportunities and challenges. In 2016, we focused on expanding our learnings through market research. We are currently partnering with a third-party to identify potential solutions to the challenges we identified.

GOJO & Stericycle Team Members

GOJO Partners with Stericycle to Raise the Bar for Product Stewardship
As part of our ongoing commitment to creating a healthier planet, GOJO has partnered with Stericycle to develop a dispenser recycling program.

Stericycle, founded in 1989, began with a better way to deal with medical waste. Today, the company is a worldwide leader in environmental and compliance solutions for businesses.

While working with Stericycle, we leaned on their experience with creating recycling programs to help us determine the best course of action. From developing turnkey solutions that are easy to implement, to changing behaviors to be more sustainable on an individual level, the collaborative process taught us a lot about the challenges of recycling mixed plastics. For example, we learned exactly how design decisions can impact the efficiency and economics of dispenser recycling.

We are dedicated to creating a solution that is easy for customers to implement and we aim to use our recycling program to encourage more customers to recycle dispensers. Working with a leader in the healthcare industry who also has a strong company commitment to sustainability, provides us with new opportunities to continue to add Sustainable Value throughout the lifecycles of our products.

Through teamwork, collaboration and a shared passion for sustainability, GOJO and Stericycle are working to build on the success and learning of our 2016 pilot and find innovative ways to meet our 2020 dispenser material recovery goal.

Bigger is Better When It Comes to Waste Reduction
Working to reduce our customers’ waste goes beyond recycling. As a global leader in hygiene for away-from-home settings and an organization committed to reducing our impact on the environment, we emphasize finding the most effective, efficient solutions for our customers. Higher-volume dispensing systems hold more product, require fewer refills to provide soap and sanitizer to customers and reduce the amount of packaging needed when shipping.

An end-user customer recently inquired about opportunities to increase their sustainability performance through the products they were purchasing for their restrooms. We found that by switching the customer from the 700mL GOJO LTX™ dispenser to the larger 1200mL GOJO LTX™ dispenser, the customer could achieve a 31.6 percent reduction in waste weight related to dispenser refills.

The conversion led to measurable Sustainable Value outcomes for the customer: In addition to the materials savings, the increased volume of product in the refills led to a savings of time and energy spent on maintenance, as the refills do not need to be changed as often, enabling maintenance staff more time to perform other tasks.

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Recover and reuse or recycle 50% of dispenser materials from the value chain

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