Dive Brief:

• Covanta has released its third company sustainability report, focused on environmental performance, resource management, community relations, and workforce engagement. Highlights include: reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 18.2 million metric tons in 2014, reduced facility stack emissions by up to 53% since 2007, and a nearly 20% increase in metal recovery.
• Covanta has most recently implemented and expanded services and initiatives in areas such as energy recovery and safe destruction of unwanted drugs through a program called Rx4Safety. In keeping with the industry focus on safety, the company recognized 39 Covanta facilities and/or groups with the Occupational Excellence Achievement Award of the National Safety Council.
• Among Covanta’s primary objectives moving forward are safety and health performance including developing, implementing and tracking workplace safety culture performance metrics; ensuring 100% compliance limits at its facilities and reduced emissions levels that surpass regulatory requirement; and executing sustainable waste management efforts with a push to reduce greenhouse gases.

Dive Insight:

The newly released Sustainable Energy in America Factbook punctuates the impact of renewable energy, which saw an increased capacity of 224 MW. Sustainability is an intended aim of generating these energy sources and of developing infrastructure to support them.

As one of the world’s largest owners and operators of infrastructure for waste-to-energy conversion, sustainability is a common thread throughout Covanta’s operations, through its partnerships, and in its community outreach.

"When we meet our sustainability goals, we move closer to achieving our overall corporate objectives," said Covanta CEO Stephen J. Jones in the report. "By employing a philosophy that integrates sustainability into all parts of the company, we have innovated, continually improved, and grown our business."

Paul Gilman, Covanta’s chief sustainability officer, added,  "... We strive to ensure that our services, facilities and activities are planned and managed in an environmentally responsible way that is good for our business, for society and for the planet ... We are confident that by continuing to make sustainability a priority throughout our business, we will continue to protect and preserve the planet and human health, as well as address other important social and sustainability issues."