Corporate Initiatives and Responsibilites
ForEverGreen Team
Formed in 2005, BISSELL’s ForEverGreen Team is dedicated to researching, communicating, and implementing strategies to improve BISSELL’s environmental practices in product design, packaging, logistics, and facility design and operations. The teams’ goal is to reduce BISSELL’s impact on the global environment by identifying and implementing sustainability strategies consistent with overall key business objectives.
As evidence of its continued commitment to environmental leadership and corporate responsibility, BISSELL this year joined the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) SmartWay Transport Partnership. Through the program, BISSELL will use only SmartWay compliant carriers dedicated to increasing energy efficiency while significantly reducing greenhouse gases and air pollution.
Other earth-friendly practices are enacted at the shipping docks, where trucks idle for just 20 minutes when dropping off and picking up materials, as opposed to two hours. And forklifts are operated by rechargeable batteries instead of natural gases like propane. In fact, BISSELL is working to reduce energy consumption five percent across its own facilities and those of its partners by 2010.
In the manufacturing process, BISSELL implements product remanufacturing and closed loop recycling. BISSELL aims to eliminate Styrofoam from all cartons by the end of this year.
The ForEverGreen team has implemented several recycling programs at the company’s Grand Rapids, MI headquarters:
- Battery recycling
- Paper recycling
- Zero waste home computer recycling
- Styrofoam recycling
Of course, we realize these are just first steps, but we wanted to share with you some of the progress the ForEverGreen Team has made to date:
Well, as you can see, we’re tidying up a bit, and continuing to investigate ways to do even more! We’re committed to making a difference (like maximizing the recycled content in our corrugated packaging, furthering product and packaging innovations, and more). So stay tuned, folks. This is only the beginning.
Resource Links
http://www.directmail.com - Stop getting unwanted junk mail.
http://www.begreennow.com - Calculate your carbon foot print!
http://earth911.org - Find a recycling center near you.