Elkay releases second Corporate Responsibility Report
The report includes new forward-looking CR Reporting Metrics
DOWNERS GROVE, IL. December 27, 2021 – Elkay, a global leader in plumbing and water delivery products and custom commercial interiors, is pleased to announce the launch of their second Corporate Responsibility report.
"At Elkay, our commitment to sustainability and corporate responsibility is evidenced in all we do," said Chief Executive Officer Ric Phillips. "From our water delivery products that deliver free public access to fresh, filtered water and have saved tens of billions of plastic bottles from landfills, to the thousands of hours our employees have spent volunteering in their communities, I am proud of the impact our people are making to care for the planet and her people. The people of Elkay continue to step up and surprise me with the many ingenious ways they help our communities and their consistent generosity of spirit. I am proud of our team's accomplishments and the inroads we've made together to make a difference in people's lives the world over."
Announcing new goals
Elkay is building on its commitment to corporate responsibility and continuous improvement by announcing new goals to help measure, monitor, and drive its progress on important issues, such as diversity, equity, inclusion, and environmental impact.
Elkay's corporate responsibility goals for the 2020-2021 reporting period ahead include:
Analyzing & Reducing Greenhouse Gases
Metrics 302-1, 305-1, 305-2, 303-3
Elkay completed a preliminary Greenhouse Gas inventory in early 2020, inventorying Scope 1 emissions (direct emissions from operations, e.g., natural gas, air conditioning, refrigeration, purchased gases) and Scope 2 emissions (indirect emissions from purchased energy, e.g., electricity) from 2018 and 2019. During this reporting period, Elkay underwent various organizational changes that impacted our ability to create a reliable baseline year. In 2021, Elkay will be inventorying and analyzing greenhouse gas emissions across the organization to establish a reliable baseline. Then, we will begin laying out a strategy that will ready Elkay for setting science-based targets by 2024. Elkay is making changes to our energy and water use, improving the efficiency of facilities, and assessing how we can innovate our manufacturing practices to be less wasteful.
Improving Product Transparency
Metrics 416-1, 417-1
A pillar of the sustainability strategy is to achieve product transparency across the organization. In 2018, Elkay began offering Health Product Declarations (HDPs) on select products to provide our user community insight into the materials they interact with each day. This initiative has allowed Elkay to take a key step toward product stewardship. We are committed to improving transparency in our products and are looking to achieve 80% product coverage with Health Product Declarations or similar product sustainability documentation within the plumbing organization by 2026. Over the next two years, the plumbing organization will increase collaboration with EIS to begin offering transparency documents on key products by 2024. We plan to utilize the information in these transparency documents to optimize our products for human health and environmental impacts.
Protecting & Improving Safety & Health of Employees within our Supply Chain
Metrics 408-1, 409-1, 412-3, 414-1, 414-2
Elkay's plumbing organization expects our suppliers to operate with respect to their employees, community, and environment. In 2018, Elkay re-affirmed 49.1% of plumbing suppliers' commitment to the code of conduct in our biannual review; this represented approximately 80% of plumbing expenditures. The code of conduct works to protect employee safety, protect children and adults from forced or compulsory labor, and ensure our suppliers are engaging in fair employment practices. Over the next two years, Elkay will be expanding the content of this code of conduct and ensure it is integrated into the culture of each Elkay business organization, including EIS and MR Direct, resulting in coverage of 90% of Elkay purchasing dollars.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion — Improving Diversity of Candidate Pool
Metric 405-1
Elkay is committed to increasing the diverse* representation of our candidate pool for staffing our professional positions. We are currently pursuing the following improvements:
- Increase the percentage of diverse candidates presented to our hiring managers for professional positions in office locations to 25%.
- Increase the percentage of diverse hires for professional positions in office locations to 25%. We will monitor and evaluate our organizational performance data to determine specific continuous improvement opportunities as we go forward.
*For both targets, we've chosen to define diversity according to ethnicity, based on where we are in our journey. It should be noted that we are also seeking to increase non-male representation. Both metrics are being tracked concurrently.
Highlights of the 2018-19 Report include:
- Celebrating record milestones of serving nearly 7.5 billion gallons of fresh filtered water to thirsty humans while preventing over 46 billion plastic bottles from going into the environment.
- Increasing transparency by producing Health Product Declarations for our plumbing products
- Establishing a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council, resulting in new DEI performance metrics, company-wide leadership training, and numerous Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).
- Launch Fountains for Youth program to provide fresh, filtered drinking water to schools in need — and teach children and their parents about healthy hydration habits for life
- Surpassing a $5.6-million donation milestone through ELKAYcares employee giving campaign since its inception in 2011
- Creating Sternberg Philanthropy Award to recognize employees for outstanding commitments to community service and civic engagement.
- Increasing the company's development investments in our people through formal Training and Development Programs and Employee Education Assistance by 38% and 58%, respectively.
"Beginning a Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility endeavor is a massive undertaking," said Sr. Manager Compliance & Sustainability, John Watson. "Establishing new measurement and reporting methodologies across multiple functions and then adjusting your business practices to improve upon those metrics year over year takes a strong commitment on the part of leadership – and across the entire organization at every touchpoint where processes can be improved. I am proud of our people and their commitment to doing the hard work to make the world a better, safer, healthier place and our company a better citizen of our planet – and I look forward to witnessing and reporting on our future progress toward our newly established goals."
A full copy of Elkay's second Social Responsibility Report prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) core option and covering the 2018-2019 reporting period can be downloaded at https://bit.ly/32ivjjq.
About Elkay
Family-owned since 1920, Elkay has been making innovative products and delivering exceptional customer care for almost a century. While proud to be America's No. 1 selling kitchen sink company, Elkay expanded its commercial offerings more than four decades ago and today delivers faucets, water coolers, drinking fountains, Smartwell Water Delivery Systems, and the award-winning ezH2O bottle filling stations, in addition to world-class stainless steel and quartz sinks. Like your family, Elkay has values and traditions that endure - like our commitment to sustainability and giving back to our community. Headquartered in the United States in Downers Grove, Illinois, Elkay employs over 2,300 employees worldwide, working from 25 locations across the U.S., China, Europe, and Mexico. For more information, visit www.elkay.com.
About Elkay Interior Systems
Your Commercial Design and Manufacturing Services Partner
Leading the commercial interior design and manufacturing industry by reimagining the customer experience + daring to innovate with a people-first approach.
Inspiring connections by creating unique environments where you eat, work, sleep, learn, and socialize with friends and family, is why we exist. Elkay Interior Systems (EIS) is a tight-knit team of industry-leading designers, commercial-grade manufacturers, innovative engineers, resourceful project managers, and sourcing experts committed to every stage of your project by guaranteeing quality and reliability.
We stand out from the crowd with our 40+ years of global experience in the restaurant, hospitality, retail, and education markets. Our strategic structure sets up experts at every stage of the design + build process to efficiently support our worldwide partners and offer services that magnify our clients' profits.