Environmental Management
Assuring compliance with applicable environmental, health, safety, security (EHSS), and product safety laws and regulations is inherent in the company’s operating management and a critical piece of our commitment to sustain the quality of our planet for future generations.
Benjamin Moore has a robust EHSS management system that enables us to prevent and detect non-compliance with state, federal and local regulations, as well as internal policies and procedures. We actively strive to reduce the adverse impacts of our activities, products, and services on the environment. EHSS standards are established at the corporate level to standardize environmental, health and safety-related processes across all of our sites.
Our positive safety culture is driven by the EHSS Leadership team, which consists of corporate, manufacturing, and distribution facilities representatives. This group oversees compliance, performance and EHSS issues affecting Benjamin Moore and is responsible for overall governance, setting standards and priorities in line with the business goals, driving consistency between functional areas, and providing resource recommendations.
Climate Change
The reality of climate change requires companies to pivot with new regulations, changing weather patterns, and the desire to be responsible corporate citizens. As such, Benjamin Moore teams continuously pursue opportunities to reduce our environmental impact. In 2022, we worked with our lease partners on a solar panel addition at our Clifton, NJ Distribution Center, which will begin providing a portion of the facility’s electricity in 2023.
Energy Management
Benjamin Moore uses electricity for lighting, operations and processing; natural gas for heating; and diesel for our fleet of trucks. Moving towards greater energy efficiency in 2022, we replaced conventional light fixtures with LED bulbs throughout our Oakland, CA and Pomona, CA, distribution centers. This change decreased our overall greenhouse gas (GHG) carbon emissions by reducing 68,900 kilowatt hours (kWh). Opportunity chargers were installed for 38 of our forklift conventional charging stations across our distribution centers. This will reduce our carbon footprint through a reduction in kWh used. As future equipment leases expire, additional chargers will be converted to opportunity chargers.
Our research and development facility has hosted a 1.7-megawatt solar array for Constellation Energy Resources since 2010. The solar array generates more than 2.4 million kWh of electricity annually and provides about 70% of the facility’s yearly electricity needs. Benjamin Moore purchases the electricity generated by the system under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
Sustainable Transportation
Benjamin Moore has realized an average 2% increase in overall load efficiency since implementing the Ortec system in 2020. This increase in load utilization has resulted in approximately 200 fewer trucks needed to transport the same amount of product over the past two years.
The company continues to replace older equipment, which increases fuel efficiency by 6-9% per tractor replaced.
Waste Management
Benjamin Moore is continually exploring new ways to reduce waste. Wash water is used to minimize the amount of water needed in the manufacturing process. In 2022, we redirected almost 3 million gallons of wash water and wash solvent into low-grade products thereby keeping it out of the waste stream. Additionally, we recycled over 380,000 gallons of paint that would otherwise become waste.
Our distribution centers ship hundreds of thousands of gallons of paint per day. We have implemented many recycling programs to help decrease waste, including recycling systems for wooden pallets, corrugated cardboard, shrink wrap, tin cans and, in some locations, colorant cans from the tinting process. Over 90 tons of shrink wrap alone was recycled by our distribution facilities.
Conservation
Our research and development center in Flanders, NJ, and our manufacturing facility and distribution center in Pell City, AL, have earned a Conservation Certification® from Wildlife Habitat Council® (WHC), a nonprofit group dedicated to restoring and enhancing wildlife habitat. Employee volunteers
at these locations manage a total of 67 acres, providing habitat for native birds and pollinators and removing invasive species.
The outdoor classroom at our Pell City, AL, site uses the Fishing Creek Wetlands Habitat as the grounds of a formal conservation education experience for local middle and high school students, focused on topics linked to classroom subjects and state STEM education requirements. Themes include water quality monitoring, wetlands species
identification and inventory, planting and native food sources.