London Drugs uses Re‑TRAC Connect™ to achieve 93% diversion
Overview
Founded in 1945, London Drugs is a privately-owned chain of retail stores with a primary focus on pharmaceuticals, electronics, housewares, cosmetics, and carries a limited selection of grocery items. Each store has a dedicated internal recycling area where cardboard, plastic wrap, bubble wrap, metals, plastics and containers from store operations are collected in master bins for pickup and return to the warehouse, where they are separated and sent for recycling.
Increased transparency
Enhanced data analysis
Saves time
The Challenge
London Drugs needed greater insight into the diversion performance at each of the individual
store locations.
London Drugs started out by tracking its waste diversion using Excel spreadsheets. It relied heavily on recycling partners and waste haulers to provide information about the materials that were picked up and their respective weights. While this strategy was a good starting point to monitor the company's overall diversion performance, it was limited to analyzing aggregated data without any detailed information about what was happening at the ground level.
What London Drugs needed was greater insight into the diversion performance at each of the individual store locations. Without store-level data, London Drugs was unable to make informed decisions towards improving store-level diversion rates which naturally affected its company-wide performance.
The Solution
Maury McCausland, Sustainability Specialist for London Drugs, first learned about Re‑TRAC Connect™ while attending the Recycling Council of British Columbia's annual conference. After attending a presentation about waste diversion software, he was convinced that Re‑TRAC was the solution to his data tracking challenge. In early 2015, London Drugs adopted Tracker as its waste diversion tracking system. Within a week of the first training session, all 78 stores and its two service providers were tracking data in Re‑TRAC Connect. Maury established a set of best practices and sparked healthy internal competition between stores to encourage continuous improvement.
Re‑TRAC also provided them with comprehensive reporting capabilities to analyze the data. Now Maury can generate reports to see exactly what materials are being recycled at each store and how that contributes to their overall sustainability goals. He can compare performance across all store locations, measure monthly and annual trends, and monitor the company's progress towards achieving a 95% diversion rate.
The Results
Each store can generate reports to monitor its diversion performance, empowering them to make informed decisions towards improving their store's diversion rate.
Tracker helped London Drugs discover that they were not fully capturing all of their diversion activities. This discovery added nearly 3 percent to their diversion rate. Maury now has the insight he needs to effectively manage London Drugs' sustainability programs. He has quick access to each store's recycling performance and the company's current diversion rate.
Furthermore, he has the tools he needs to showcase London Drugs' commitment to achieving zero waste by 2015. It gives him an easy way to share the results with customers and explain how it was accomplished. By July of 2015, London Drugs has achieved a 93% diversion rate keeping the company on course to reach its goal of 95% by the end of the year.
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