Actually, Sustainability IS for Everyone Issue 36: KnowBe4's Zero Waste Journey

Waste management can be tricky, and zero waste goals can be daunting. With that in mind, I wanted to share KnowBe4 ’s zero waste journey, in hopes that some of our challenges and solutions are helpful to others.

KnowBe4 delivers virtual security awareness training, which means we have no parts or products to package and ship. That said, we still have waste to deal with. One approach that has served us well is shifting our mindset from ‘recycle’ to ‘reduce/reuse/repurpose/re-earth/recycle’ (re-earth is another term for compost). ?? By doing that, KnowBe4 now diverts six times as many items from the wastestream over what we diverted prior to starting our zero waste initiative.?

Most recently we started composting our break room coffee grounds, to the tune of about 31 pounds a week. ? We have partnered with a local urban farm in Clearwater, so that our coffee grounds are now being diverted away from the waste stream and are instead going to support their worm composting and traditional composting programs.

Other strategies that have worked for our organization are below:

• Created a Zero Waste Plan - this was super helpful in mapping out where we wanted to go, and how to get there;??
• Created a green purchasing policy - this made it much easier to make good ‘green’ choices;
• Launched employee training - things go much more smoothly when everyone is on the same page;

Quote: “Employee engagement and training is a must”? -Green Business Bureau

• Created a courtesy recycling program for employees; we recycle personal items on their behalf, such as plastic bags, reusable bags, e-waste, batteries, printer cartridges, office supplies, etc.;

The newest item added to our courtesy recycling program is crayons! ??? We teamed up with The Crayon Initiative to get crayons into over 240 children’s hospitals across the United States, including four in the Tampa Bay Area where our headquarters are located.        

• Early on we digitized forms and documents, which vastly reduced the need for? printing (and saved money on paper and printer cartridges);

• Created centralized waste stations, rather than individual desk bins; this has been statistically shown to increase recycling, including at our offices (centralized waste station pictured in cover photo);?
• Implemented a zero waste incentive program to collect creative, innovative ideas from our employees;
• Created employee contests and games to promote reducing waste (we have had No Waste November, a month-long Drop & Swap, and Waste Free February; this fall we will launch Plastic Free Fridays);
• Replaced disposable breakroom dishes with reusable ones;
• Swag that is eco-friendly and reusable, rather than disposable;
• Donate office furniture and recycle any metal cabinets or fixtures;?
• Upcycle promotional banners (we make reusable shopping bags out of marketing banners for our employees).

To address the waste that pollutes the environment across the globe, we do the following:

• Organize group cleanups of beaches, parks, downtown areas, neighborhoods, ocean/scuba cleanup, etc.;
• Organize remote individual cleanups globally that coincide with environmental days, such as World Cleanup Day and Earth Day;
• Create employee contests and games to promote cleaning up litter (we run a month-long contest called “Cleaning Earth - Together” at least once a year);?
• Partner with our local city government and local environmental non-profits to do regional cleanups.

Most of all - whatever we do, we make it fun! People are much more productive, and likely to engage in any program, if they are having fun while doing it. In fact, KnowBe4’s motto is “do it right the first time, do it fast, and have fun while doing it”. #rightfastfun

Takeaway: Shift your mindset from ‘recycle’ to ‘reduce/reuse/repurpose/re-earth/recycle’