Essential products. Environmental protections.

Manufacturing and a healthy environment aren’t mutually exclusive. We believe responsible management of our environmental resources is vital to providing products and services that help people improve their lives, while using fewer resources and respecting the environment.

I’m proud to work for a company that cares deeply about how we use our resources and how we treat the world around us. As we innovate and manufacture the essentials that help people make their lives better, we take our stewardship role seriously.

Sheryl Corrigan, Director of Environmental, Health & Safety

See the past, present and future of purposeful stewardship at Koch

To us, sustainability shouldn’t be a buzzword.

The sustainability of a business hinges on the responsible stewardship of the resources it requires to operate. Across our companies, sustainability means constantly innovating: To make products using fewer resources. To keep people safe and protect the environment. To minimize waste. To reduce energy intensity. To manage supply chains responsibly. And to create better pollution prevention technology for us and others.

An estimated 99% of single-use paper cups end up in landfills. One Koch company set out to change that – by innovating a breakthrough to recycle plastic-coated cups that were previously unrecyclable.

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Five steps we take.

Every day, we work to create more value, using fewer resources than the day before. We do it by managing our resources in a way that benefits our customers, employees, partners, community members and society with a philosophy of mutual benefit. With more than 300 manufacturing sites across the United States, we’re one of America’s largest manufacturers. To stay in business for the long term, we must constantly improve and innovate – both in the products we make and how we make them.

Reducing Waste

Ninety-one percent. A total of 415 million pounds. That’s how much of the production-related waste our reporting facilities recycled, recovered for energy or treated in 2019. From 2012 to 2019, we've reduced our production-related waste footprint by 53%. It’s a commitment reflected in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) TRI National Analysis Report. And we’re nowhere near done yet.

Naheola Mill | Georgia-Pacific

Our Georgia-Pacific Naheola mill in Pennington, Alabama, has diverted nearly 88% of its waste. In 2019, the facility diverted 82,552 cubic yards of process waste – enough to fill 25 Olympic-size swimming pools – and reused it for energy and new recycled paper products.

Saving Energy

Efficient processes require saving energy. That's why we’ve invested more than $600 million, and years of hard work and innovation into energy saving initiatives, and we'll continue to do so. In fact, over the last five years we’ve saved enough energy to power more than 360,000 households for an entire year. As an active partner and leader in the industry, we were recognized as Energy Star Partner of the Year in 2017.

AC Kinetics Experiment | Georgia-Pacific

We are testing algorithms that could cut 1/3 of the energy consumed by AC induction motors and applying the technology to our tissue production line. AC induction motors consume 45% of the world's power generation.

Recycling Resources

Each of our companies promote effective resource management and recycling throughout its operations. Our fiber sourcing practices are even certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative® Fiber Sourcing Standard. For example, paper recovery and recycling is a big priority for us. Georgia-Pacific invested in their ability to recycle recovered paper, which increased our capability to recycle mixed paper into new paper products by more than 50%. In addition, one of our businesses, Georgia-Pacific Recycling, is one of the world’s largest buyers and sellers of wastepaper.

Green Bay & Muskogee Mills | Georgia-Pacific

Georgia-Pacific’s Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Muskogee, Oklahoma, recycled paper mills are now recycling previously unrecyclable paper cups into new paper products.

Preventing Pollution

Since 2012, we have implemented more than 1,000 pollution reduction activities – practices that reduce the amount of materials entering the waste stream, including changes in the design, manufacturing process, purchase or use of materials. Our companies are applying new technologies to monitor emissions leaks and correct and prevent them in real time. And our companies are investing in improvements -- one Georgia-Pacific facility has decreased its sulfur dioxide emissions by 94%.

Corpus Christi Refineries | Flint Hills Resources & Molex

Flint Hills Resources and Molex teamed up to create a network of hundreds of digital sensors, or sniffers, that constantly take measurements, and feed the mountains of real-time data via wireless antennas into the cloud to identify leaks. The new system has the potential to reduce emissions by as much as 70 tons, which is comparable to the annual emissions of more than 5,000 vehicles, per year.

Community Partnerships

We’re all about making life, including wildlife, better. Seventeen Koch sites, comprising nearly 205,000 acres, have earned Wildlife Habitat Council Certification for commitment to habitat conservation and environmental education. This is just one of the many ways we’re partnering with our communities for positive change.

Beaverhead Ranch | Matador Cattle Company

Matador Cattle Company was awarded two of the Wildlife Habitat Council’s (WHC) highest honors for its conservation and preservation efforts in 2019 at its Beaverhead Ranch. Beaverhead Ranch encompasses 345,000 acres of owned and leased land in southwest Montana. Matador Cattle Company’s enduring commitment to environmental stewardship was recognized by WHC for its programs in wildlife habitat enhancement, restoration and conservation.

Koch by the numbers.

Check out the data around our ongoing commitment to environmental responsibility and the strides we’ve made in increasing efficiencies and conserving resources through the years.

Data courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency. See full 2019 TRI National Analysis.

From conservation to innovation.

We’re committed to responsibly providing products and services that help people improve their lives, while consuming fewer resources. Here are just a few of the ways we’re working to make life’s essentials – and our world – better.

Energy transformation.

Koch companies are reducing greenhouse gas by replacing coal-fired boilers with natural gas boilers. For example, our Georgia-Pacific Broadway Mill in Green Bay, Wisconsin, decreased its sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 94% between 2007 and 2017. Overall, GP’s facilities drove a 59% decrease in SO2 over the same period. Additionally, new biomass systems, such as the one installed at GP’s pulp and paper mill in Alabama, process paper-making byproducts (tree bark, sawdust and other organic material) as energy sources. Fifty-five percent of GP’s energy needs come from renewable biomass sources, making biomass their largest source of energy. Read Story

Drawing of hands holding a growing plant

Replenishing forests.

Koch company Georgia-Pacific works with others in the forestry and environmental community to support wildlife and forest enhancement projects in communities near our operations. Efforts include protecting endangered species, restoring forest ecosystems and promoting wildlife diversity. GP is committed to a 1:1 philosophy — for every one tree used, at least one tree is regrown in the United States. We’ve planted well over one million trees through direct investments in conservation projects, as well as more than 400,000 trees on properties surrounding GP facilities.
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Smarter transport.

We’re using smart software in logistics to improve environmental performance. The smart software efficiently plans routes and minimizes the miles spent driving with an empty trailer, thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions from daily operations. In one year, this helped cut the fuel consumption of trucks across multiple facilities by 615,000 gallons of fuel, saving nearly 6,250 metric tons of annual CO2 emissions. These improvements earned the EPA’s SmartWay® Excellence Award in 2019 and 2020 for improving energy efficiency and supply chain environmental performance. Read Story

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Honors

Koch has a long history of mutually beneficial collaborations with the EPA - from awards and recognition to programs aimed at enhancing safety and reducing emissions at operating facilities.

Koch Industries earned the EPA’s 2021 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year Award for best-in-class energy management practices and achieving energy efficiency certifications in multiple industries.

In 2017, Koch Industries earned ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for advancing energy management and actively participating in ENERGY STAR’s industrial network.

A 40% water reduction in just 10 weeks earned Georgia-Pacific’s consumer products mill in Palatka, Florida, ENERGY STAR Top Project for 2020.

Georgia-Pacific’s Naheola paper mill in Alabama was chosen by the ENERGY STAR Industrial Partners as a Top Project for 2019 for plant upgrades that reduce emissions.

Four Georgia-Pacific paper mills have reached the ENERGY STAR Challenge for Industry goal of improving energy efficiency by 10% within five years.

Flint Hills Resources' Pine Bend Refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota, achieved ENERGY STAR certification in 2019 and 2020. It is one of the nation’s most efficient refineries.

Koch Fertilizer’s Enid, Oklahoma, facility, one of the largest in North America, achieved ENERGY STAR certification in 2020 for its energy efficiency performance.

Koch Fertilizer’s Beatrice, Nebraska, facility was one of the first two fertilizer plants nationwide to achieve ENERGY STAR certification when it became available in 2019, and again in 2020.

In 2020, Georgia-Pacific's Leaf River cellulose mill in New Augusta, Mississippi, became the first U.S. pulp mill ever to earn ENERGY STAR certification.

Guardian Industries' flat glass manufacturing plant in DeWitt, Iowa, earned 2020 ENERGY STAR certification for being in the top 25% of its peers for energy efficiency.

Wildlife Habitat Council Certification.

Seventeen Koch sites comprising nearly 205,000 acres have earned Wildlife Habitat Council Certification for commitment to habitat conservation and environmental education. Most recently, our headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, earned Silver Certification for conservation efforts undertaken at the campus.

Building homes for wood ducks, planting pollinator plots for migrating monarch butterflies, capturing rainwater for irrigation and composting cafeteria waste for landscaping are a few of the environmental stewardship activities that earned Koch headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, its Wildlife Habitat Council certification.

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Matador Cattle Company has been awarded the Wildlife Habitat Council’s highest honor, the Gold Program Award, and the WHC Land Conservation Agreements Project Award for conservation and preservation efforts at its Beaverhead Ranch in Montana, which include the restoration of the Westslope Cutthroat Trout in its creeks on the 345,000-acre ranch.

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For two decades, employees at our Pine Bend refinery in Minnesota have worked with environmental groups to support the restoration of approximately 200 acres to more natural prairie, forest and savanna. Over the last decade, 113 different species have been spotted there, including the rare rusty-patched bumblebee. Our refineries in both Minnesota and Texas are Wildlife Habitat Council Certified.

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Demonstrating Responsibility

Every day, we work to create more value, using fewer resources than the day before.

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Safe Operations

Keeping everyone safe, including our employees, communities and everyone else, is job one.

Governance

Beyond complying with laws and regulations, we strive to respect others and always do the right thing.

See more ways we work to be responsible.

In our view, the role of business in society is to create products and services people want and need, but to do so responsibly. This means finding ways to use fewer resources, operating safely, protecting the environment and always acting ethically.

Essential products. Environmental protections.

To us, sustainability shouldn’t be a buzzword.