Waste Connections Releases 2018 Sustainability Report

Waste Connections announced the release of its 2018 Sustainability Report, covering calendar years 2016 and 2017, which highlights the company’s focus on safety, culture, training and development, community involvement, environmental stewardship, governance and ethics.

“Our sustainability efforts extend beyond the environment. We also measure the positive impacts we have on the communities we serve, the development and welfare of our employees, the financial health of our company and the returns to our shareholders,” said Ronald J. Mittelstaedt, CEO and chairman of Waste Connections, in a statement. “We are particularly pleased with year-over-year improvements in safety and employee retention, as well as our continuing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

According to the report, safety is the company’s number one operating value. Waste Connections reports that its success has been driven by the development of its managers and supervisors into servant leaders, as well as the company’s ability to instill a commitment-based, safety-driven culture across its broader employee base.

“Servant leaders are accountable to employees for each employee’s success at work and beyond; safety is an integral component of this commitment,” according to the report. “The strong relationship between servant leader and employee enables us to utilize observations and tools to develop an employee risk-profile ranking and to facilitate effective communication and behavior coaching. This behavior-based approach to safety, when applied throughout larger acquisitions completed in 2016 and 2017, drove a more than 60 percent reduction in incident frequency within 12 months.”

The report also notes that Waste Connections is improving the purity and resulting value of its recycled materials by deploying new technology, such as optical sorting machines, at its materials recovery facilities. The company said it also works to educate its customers to improve separation at the originating source.

Waste Connections’ 2018 Sustainability Report is available here.