by Derek Markham | TreeHugger | May 14, 2015
The way to zero landfill for Subaru hasn’t been a simple one, as there is no single ‘silver bullet’ approach that got the company to where it is now, but is rather “1000 great ideas” put into place as part of the kaizen (continuous improvement) philosophy behind everything Subaru does. And most of those thousand great ideas aren’t necessarily coming from the top down, but are instead generated by empowering its employees to come up with solutions, because listening to the people doing the job is another part of the company’s philosophy.
One of the methods that Subaru uses to manage its waste is through meticulously tracking its waste, almost in real-time, with bar-coded containers that are tied to specific locations within the plant, which are weighed and tabulated to keep a running tab on the amount of waste coming from each assembly station. Certain items, such as the packaging for the engines that come from Subaru’s other plant in Japan, are sent back to be reused multiple times, which ends up not only saving on material waste, but also saving millions of dollars as well. In fact, reuse is a big part of getting to zero landfill, and while the old style of thinking in manufacturing was to look at reusing little bits and pieces as not being worth the time when running a huge industrial plant, Subaru has made it an integral part of its operations.
While it would be great to think that Subaru’s zero landfill policies (which define zero landfill as being the reuse or recycling of 98% of all potential waste) are just for the sake of the environment, the fact is that for any business, waste means money, and by radically reducing waste, it positively affects the company’s bottom line as well. Subaru of Indiana estimates that while it may cost about $7.5 million each year to manage its zero landfill program, the company derives some $11.5 million in financial benefits, so it’s clearly a win/win situation for the car maker.
Subaru is known for being one of the first zero waste production companies. Although the cars themselves are not the best for the environment, they are able to help in some ways through their production. This is a company that has been zero waste for a while and since then has been able to influence other companies with their processes. I liked that this business model is juxtaposed to those “green” brands that sell eco friendly products, however, they do not reflect this in their production processes.
