We are re-imagining how we do everything, including what we do with our waste streams. We have a long history of minimizing the waste we produce by promoting recycling and utilizing reusable and sustainable goods. Moving forward, we will continue to investigate new diversion methods to reduce what we send to landfills.
Over the last six years, ADP has diverted 31,000 tons of waste from landfills. Below are some of the ways we’re reducing the trash we send to landfills.
When closing office space, there is often excess furniture that ADP can no longer use. Instead of sending it to the landfill, we find organizations that can use the office furniture and donate it to them. Since 2015, we’ve donated almost 18,000 total items to partnering organizations, helping those in need and reducing our waste.
Waste diversion and minimizing environmental impact are cornerstones of our sustainability program. Managing our electronic waste (e-waste) represented a unique opportunity to advance both of these priorities. We are proud of our e-waste recycling program and recycling our electronics across all our operations. To accomplish this, ADP partners with an electronic waste recycler and reseller to reuse or recycle our electronic waste components. From anywhere in our operations, the process is the same: each piece of equipment is collected, counted, certified and responsibly disposed. Prior to the recycling process, all data is wiped from the electronics to protect privacy and confidentiality. In calendar 2020, ADP recycled 147 tons of electronic waste.
In calendar 2020, we closed multiple offices in New Jersey as part of our efforts to consolidate our office space. Furniture from all these offices were collected and donated to Habitat for Humanity and Eva’s Village, where items went directly to their facilities. Included in this donation were tables, chairs, filing cabinets and office supplies.
Since our core business revolves around payroll and HR services, paper usage has historically been a significant component of our environmental footprint. After recognizing the opportunity to reduce usage for both our clients and our own business, we started to offer digitized services and launched paper reduction initiatives. Within North America, approximately 85 percent of clients were paperless in 2020.
In addition, ADP introduced an environmental footprint objective into our annual bonus plan design for executive officers. We have initially targeted an enterprise-wide client paper reduction initiative for fiscal year 2022.
Finally, we introduced introduced the “All Shred” program. Through this program, we partner with a vendor to shred and recycle 100% of the paper placed in their secure containers at our office locations and print centers. In 2020, we shredded and recycled over 1,600 tons of paper. We also introduced a “Print on Demand” initiative that helps reduce wasted paper from redundant or unnecessary printing jobs by providing associates a second opportunity to review what they want to print directly at the print station.
ADP India received a certificate of appreciation for participating in the WOW "Wellbeing Out of Waste"—Paperboards and Specialty Paper Division CSR recycling program. In 2020, we recycled over 4.5 tons of dry waste materials.
All ADP buildings include designated recycling containers and we encourage all associates to manage their waste by using the proper receptacle responsibly. In 2020, we introduced new, universal signage across our offices that encourage everyone to recycle and managed to recycle a total of 2,250 tons of material.
Per our policy, ADP requires our cafeterias and bistros to use sustainable products whenever possible. Disposable serviceware is made from biodegradable materials and cutlery is made from recycled plastics. Three of our cafeterias have food waste pulping machines, reducing our waste volume. We continue to prohibit all Styrofoam products.
