Kraft is cooking up a new recipe to help fight climate change. “Green Advocates” on “Green Teams” across the company and around the world have drummed up their own grassroots sustainability projects in offices and manufacturing plants.
“We’re changing our behavior, our business practices and our culture,” said Steve Yucknut, Vice President of Sustainability in a press release. “What’s most exciting to me is seeing employees come up with their own ideas to go green and spreading those ideas around their plant or office and beyond. Employees feel empowered to make real changes.”
Kraft Foods has made basic changes at locations around the world, such as trading individual printers for more efficient shared devices, adding recycling bins and replacing disposable kitchenware with reusable items.
The teams are having a ripple effect throughout the company around the world.
In Chicago, employees created an online system for sharing and reusing idle plant equipment around the world — re-purposing some 360 machines in 2009 alone, both saving money and keeping those bulky objects out of landfills.
In Canada, employees created an organic garden where they grow vegetables for the office cafeteria and even to bring home to their families. Green Teams helped the office collect food scraps and coffee grounds for composting — reducing the amount of waste going to landfills. And they even started a free employee shuttle program to encourage public transit use, increasing ridership 150 percent in one year.
In Quebec, a plant employee began a collection point for used batteries. So far, more than a million pounds of batteries have been recycled at that one plant alone.
In Brazil, the award-winning Atitude Consciente (Conscious Attitude) program, now in its fourth year, educates employees on reducing solid waste, water and energy consumption and increasing recycling rates. The program also has encouraged employees to tune up their cars to reduce harmful emissions.
Sao Paulo employees even joined the local “Live Earth Run for Water” race — a 4-mile run representing the average distance women and children in developing countries walk each day to get water.
In China, Green Advocates recognized Earth Hour by turning off all non-essential lights, appliances, and computers at plants in Beijing and Guangzhou and in offices (and even some employees’ homes) around the country.
Efforts of all kinds are also underway among Kraft employees in the UK and Germany.
Given that Kraft is the world’s second largest food company, distributing products in 160 countries worldwide, it’s good to see the company is making sustainability a priority.
Photo via Kraft Foods.