Retailers generate 20% of all commercial municipal waste generated in the United States, approximately 25 million tons annually, or the equivalent of 85 NFL Stadiums filled with waste. The retail industry understands the impact of these materials and has made commitments to reduce waste to landfill.
Retailers, however, experience unique challenges when managing their waste. They often have hundreds of physical locations, operating in distinct markets across the United States. Each market has unique regulations, including California’s climate reporting act, and a diverse network of waste haulers, recyclers, and reuse opportunities. Collecting, organizing, analyzing, and managing data related to these waste activities is a tremendous burden.
It is not uncommon for large retailers, and their data collection teams, to spend over 10,000 hours annually, at costs exceeding $500,000 a year, collecting and compiling data into excel spreadsheets. Despite the time committed to these efforts, the data compiled is often incomplete, estimates are inconsistently applied, weights are provided in various units of measure, and the output does not meet audit standards.
Z3 offers a unique solution to address these retail challenges
The Z3 solution offers retailers an opportunity to increase the accuracy of data, improve the timeliness of collection, reduce administrative labor costs, and identify actionable insights.
Z3 begins by building a profile of the Retailer’s waste infrastructure across each of their locations and ingesting 2 years of compiled historical data. Via a Letter of Authorization process, Z3 contacts each hauler to determine specific disposal locations and to gather missing data. Utilizing Zenbi, our automated data collection service, Z3 begins receiving monthly data from each location and generating timely analytics and reports.
The Z3 service offers the Retailer a winning solution.
- Thousands of hours of manual data entry eliminated, offering significant savings.
- Identification of underutilized hauler services, leading to a reduction in hauling expenses.
- Auditable compliance with CA SB 253 and other Federal, State, and local reporting requirements
- Identification of opportunities to increase Waste Diversion across all locations, helping to achieve 2030 targets.
The Z3 solution offers sustainability teams the opportunity to focus on implementing and managing diversion programs instead of collecting data. The operations teams experience cost savings while reducing GHG Impacts. Z3 helps create wins for everyone!
Connect with the Z3 team to specifically discuss how we can help you.