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With more than 300 office locations around the world, we work hard to manage our waste efficiently, cost effectively, and responsibly. This means reducing the waste we create as well as increasing the proportion we reuse or recycle.
As with any global company, measuring total waste, strengthening recycling programs, and transparently reporting progress to stakeholders is not straightforward. Our biggest challenge is data collection. As an engineering company, we're data driven and believe in the maxim, "you manage what you measure." But because we outsource waste management, we have not yet developed the necessary data collection and tracking systems, and doing so with our waste management service providers is no easy task.
In our 2006 CSR report, we published the following waste management goals:
"Sun plans to develop an evaluation and measurement system for waste management programs at all of our facilities by the end of calendar year 2007. Once we establish the most appropriate waste management metrics and improve our process for data collection, we will begin to evaluate our performance against industry norms [and] . . . set waste reduction targets that we will publicly report on our Web site."
We're pleased to report that we're on track to develop a reliable evaluation and measurement system by the end of the 2007 calendar year. We're working closely with our worldwide facilities management partner, Jones Lang LaSalle, to understand the systems already in place and what gaps need to be filled.
Once we understand the current situation, we can take steps to reduce the waste we create and increase the proportion we reuse and recycle.
This process has uncovered some surprises. For example, we assumed that office recycling practices would be relatively uniform throughout our U.S. campuses. But the following table shows a wide range of recycling activities at our various U.S. locations. While we're still unsure of volumes, we are recycling the most types of material in Louisville, Colorado, and Hillsboro, Oregon. The recycling at Burlington, Massachusetts, and Broomfield, Colorado, covers fewer materials.
We recently introduced a joint battery recycling program with Jones Lang LaSalle at all our North American locations. We're working with the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC), a nonprofit organization that provides free boxes, labels, shipping, and recycling for rechargeable batteries.
In California, we're required to recycle nonrechargeable alkaline batteries. We plan to roll out this program nationally in the 2007 calendar year even though it's not a legal requirement in other states.
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