We are fortunate with what we have, and wanted to give something back

At Jacobi, we believe that our company has a social and ethical responsibility for our employees and the communities in which we operate. In Columbus, Ohio, we formed a committee with representatives from all parts of the company to bring together diverse ideas on how we can improve as a sustainable company. We met with Dana Loyer, who runs our CSR work on-site, to talk about our efforts.

Hi Dana, could you start by telling us what your role is at Jacobi?

I’m a Sales Manager, responsible for municipal and home water filter markets.

In Columbus, you have initiated a number of actions to become a more sustainable company. How did it all start and what are your goals?

It all began about a year ago when we formed a committee with representatives from Sales, Quality, Production, HR, and Finance.

Ahead of our first meeting, I asked everyone to bring three ideas for three categories: ways to give back to the community or donate our time, ways to donate monetarily, and ways to invest in our facilities to make it more renewable and innovative. Our goals for this committee are to get involved in the community around us and improve upon sustainability within our company.

Could you give us some examples of what you have done?

There are so many organisations you can get involved in here in Columbus. And we wanted to keep our efforts in our backyard. Columbus Recreation and Parks Department is very involved in the communities they serve and seemed like a natural choice to get involved in as our first project.

We decided to go with the Adopt-a-Centre Programme, and the centre we chose is located relatively close to the Jacobi warehouse. The neighbourhood is in need of warm meals during the holidays, warm winter clothing, and toys/gifts for the families.

Why do we do engage ourselves in this type of action in the first place?

I think that the pandemic has really started to hit the hearts of many. Looking outside of yourself, I believe that we are all fortunate that we have our careers at Jacobi. Thinking about what our community is going through has been motivational for us to get involved. When we looked at the world closest around us and talked to our co-workers, we saw a possibility to make a change within the community centres. They do fantastic work with both kids and the elderly who are heavily affected by the pandemic.

Thanksgiving food drive organised by Columbus Recreation and Parks Department.

You also mentioned sustainable actions within our own company; what have you managed to do in that area?

We agreed that a recycling programme would be beneficial, so we started a three-phase programme. Phase one was to understand our current efforts, and how we could improve, phase two was designing the programme, and phase three was the implementation. From there, we will conduct annual reviews of our green initiative’s effectiveness.

One initiative was working with a company called Shred-it. We shred any old documents older than five years with their help. But they also take tons of other supplies, old computers, ink cartridges and office equipment not needed anymore.

In another project, we partnered with an organisation called Hope Timber Pallet & Recycling. We switched from new pallets to recycled pallets. Apart from doing good for the environment, we also had cost reductions since the recycled pallets were much cheaper. They also take away our old broken pallets, rebuild and reuse them, which is a wonderful initiative, instead of just throwing them away.

Which initiatives may we see in the coming issues of this magazine?

Our internal recycling programme has only just started. We are looking in every corner of our company for improvements, and some projects need some work before we are able to implement. For example, the super sacks we pack our activated carbon in can be recycled. We are looking for a company to partner with who can recycle them, but some preparations are needed to be made. The sacks will need to be washed sustainably, and we need to make some investments and training for a baler. We currently throw out 50-100 sacks a week, so we see a good potential there.

One of the big ideas is to put solar panels on our whole site. We have a cost quote ready, and we know that it will pay for itself after nine years. It’s a bit early to go into details. Still, we are doing a thorough examination of the possibilities of carrying out the project.

Once you get started with initiatives like this, when people see their ideas become a reality, the possibilities are endless. There are so many things we can and will do to become an even more sustainable company.

Thank you for this chat, Dana. We are looking forward to writing more about the actions made at our site in Columbus. If you would like to find out more about these activities or even start your own then you can get in touch with Dana for more information on dana.loyer@jacobi.net.

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