In 2021, Greif’s Leadership Council began overseeing five sustainability issues, including waste, in an effort to further accelerate our ESG strategy. We now report on waste each quarter to the Executive Leadership Team. We also added a waste KPI to Greif’s enterprise scorecard and monthly reports that are shared with managers and tracked via the Greif Business System (GBS) and Must Win Battle (MWB) scorecard. The Global Waste Team, comprised of Greif colleagues from each business unit and region, meets monthly to discuss our waste reduction strategies. The Waste Team holds facility management accountable for managing and reducing waste. Greif implements colleague engagement strategies to empower production colleagues to focus on waste reduction. Greif’s Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) policies, procedures and training govern the labeling, handling, storage and transportation of hazardous waste.

In 2021, 54 plants held a virtual tour that included information sharing on sustainability, including waste. Members of Greif’s executive team and GIP’s leadership team attended the virtual tours to provide collaboration and support our continued waste management progress.

Greif’s Compliance Management System (CMS) allows us to collect data, monitor performance and measure progress accurately and efficiently. In 2020 and into 2021, we improved our ability to view and manage waste data in CMS by enabling monthly access to data. This allows each facility to gain insights into data more quickly and implement programs throughout the year. As part of our CMS, we require all facilities to report monthly waste data, submit invoices for verification in addition to roadmaps. Our waste data is subject to evaluation and verification by our internal audit team to ensure consistency and reliability.

For all Global Industrial Packaging (GIP) facilities, we maintain a detailed waste matrix to help us understand each facility’s waste streams, each waste stream’s disposal method (recycling, reuse, landfilling, etc.) and manage progress. The waste matrices serve as a collaboration tool allowing facilities to compare management of common waste streams. In 2021, our PPS business began the process of developing matrices, allowing for company-wide integration of our waste data and programs. As part of this process, we built a foundation of education and training throughout our PPS business, including trainings on data entry and waste stream identification. These efforts enabled a number of our facilities to reach or make significant progress towards our goal to divert 90 percent of waste from landfills at all facilities. We will complete our waste matrices for all PPS facilities in 2022.

Facilities that have yet to reach our 2025 waste diversion target are responsible for creating a quarterly, or semi-annual, roadmap to evaluate all waste streams going to landfill and develop a diversion strategy. Each facility includes at least the top three waste diversion projects and reports on associated cost reductions, waste to landfill reductions and the status of each project. Our waste diversion roadmaps provide great insight into our facilities and their waste management progress, and help facilities improve performance year over year. Our roadmaps play a critical role in our ability to reach our waste diversion goal, enabling each facility to understand its waste management needs and identify actions for improvement. Waste training for staff is another key component to continuous improvement in achieving our waste strategy and goals.

Greif has partnered with Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) to expand our commitment to reducing plastic waste. Through the partnership, we commit to conducting audits in our facilities to evaluate our plastic resin handling operations and implement best practice housekeeping and pellet, flake and powder containment practices. Third party audits were conducted at our Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Houston, Texas and Mt. Sterling, Kentucky locations from 2017 to 2019, before being paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All facilities passed our continued internal audits and we will restart third-party audits in 2022.