Valspar Sustainability

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operational sustainability

operations

At Valspar, we know that genuine sustainability is never an achievement, but always an ongoing process. We engage this process in all our operations through programs to continuously improve the efficiency of our people and processes, a focus on value delivery and a conscientious drive to protect people and the planet.

Our teams consistently develop ideas and projects to reduce our waste stream, improve our energy use, manage water more efficiently and produce products that help our customers operate more safely and with less environmental impact as well. We have begun to amplify those efforts with a more rigorous process of evaluation and tracking. We plan to determine benchmarks for progress and document measurable outcomes from our initiatives.

Laying the groundwork for improved operational sustainability

Worldwide examination of best practices, successes and gaps will chart a path forward MORE >

Worldwide examination of best practices, successes and gaps will chart a path forward

Laying the groundwork for improved operational sustainability

We are engaged in a company-wide journey toward greater efficiency across our operations, from developing processes and systems that use fewer resources to finding creative ways to reduce waste.

Individual projects at specific sites or within operations have yielded significant improvements in our energy and water use, reduced our waste streams and increased the volume of resources we reuse or recycle. We have recognized the need to take these improvements to scale throughout the company, using site-specific successes as a roadmap.

We are creating a comprehensive sustainability framework to set targets and evaluate progress in several areas, including:

reducing overall emissions to air, water and land;
eliminating and reducing waste in manufacturing through source reduction, reuse, recycling, reclamation and pollution prevention programs;
optimizing the use of environmentally benign materials and processes; and
working with our customers on the safe use, transportation and disposal of Valspar products.

In 2013, we began sustainability planning across all of our operations worldwide. This will help us identify where we can make targeted improvements. We will develop global and local targets against defined performance benchmarks. In addition, gathering comprehensive data from our operations will enable us to begin mapping plans for sharing best practices and replicating our sustainability successes throughout the business.

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The projects we have already implemented demonstrate the value of a comprehensive implementation plan for the sustainability triple bottom line — improving profitability, safeguarding people and bearing a lighter imprint on the planet.

We have consolidated nonhazardous waste from all of our U.S. plants to increase our recycling options. Metal paint cans from our Garland, Texas plant, for instance, could not be recycled locally, but are now part of a consolidated recycling stream through our new waste management contract.
Solvent recovery stills have decreased our demand for hazardous materials disposal in several plants. The stills enable us to reuse solvent to clean vessels between product batches. At our Birmingham, Alabama site, for instance, this has enabled us to reduce hazardous materials collection by 70- to 80 percent.
Waste reduction has been an evaluative criteria for our President’s Award for Safety and Environmental Performance since its inception in 1994. We recently added water efficiency and energy use reduction to the criteria for the award as well.