Kohler's Laura Kohler talks with Green Builder Media CEO Sara Gutterman about the company's evolution from a 2008 net zero pledge into a full ESG strategy built on better lives, better planet and better communities. She details zero-waste manufacturing, watershed replenishment, the Safe Water for All program, supplier scorecards and the Kohler WasteLab.
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Sara Gutterman: Koehler has been a leader in corporate sustainability for many, many years. For as long as we've been working together, which is almost two decades. So. Can you talk about the evolution of your sustainability strategy?
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Laura Kohler: We came out in 2008 with a goal of net zero. 2035. And many, many companies weren't doing it back then. And we put a stake in the ground and said, we're going to try to do our best to get there. And we've been on a journey on reducing waste, reducing GHG and reducing water consumption ever since then. And we really believe strongly that it is our responsibility as a global brand to do our best.
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Laura Kohler: We believe in better, and that is really the overarching philosophy of the lens that we look through better lives, better planets, and better community.
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Sara Gutterman: Tell me about some of your current environmental, social and governance initiatives. What are you most excited about?
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Laura Kohler: I would say what guides us in in the environment is that continued work? If you just take that piece of it, really, how do we help our manufacturing facilities around the world reduce their footprint on energy usage, on waste? So we're working on zero waste coming out of manufacturing, which, you know, we have over 50 facilities around the world.
00:01:21:07 - 00:01:50:03
Laura Kohler: So that's a huge initiative and really reducing water consumption. But in those manufacturing facilities, we've targeted seven around the world that have that happen to be in very dry watersheds. So we really work hard with those manufacturing facilities to reduce the water intake. So their production process needs to be super well designed. And then we replace water back into the watershed.
00:01:50:03 - 00:02:12:09
Laura Kohler: And then I would say let's go over to better lives. So that's really I would say a centerpiece to that is our diversity equity and inclusion work. And how do we really continue to drive Cola as an inclusive environment to work in and helping drive diverse representation? Because why it actually drives innovation.
00:02:12:10 - 00:02:29:12
Sara Gutterman: Water clearly is one of the most urgent topics of our time. So can you talk a little bit about how Coachella is addressing water conservation, quality and availability, not only in your manufacturing process, but through your products and in the communities that you participate in?
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Laura Kohler: We're in our second decade of Really Water Sense Awards from the EPA here in the United States. That means a lot to us. So we continue to innovate as we introduce new products around how do we deliver a great experience, but using as little water as possible. But the other thing we're doing for communities is called safe water for all.
00:02:51:24 - 00:03:10:26
Laura Kohler: So helping communities have access to safe water. We know that women and girls are adversely affected when they don't have access to safe water, and it's really important for our associates and our engagement to really rally around how do we help those communities have better access?
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Sara Gutterman: How is Koehler working with your vendors, customers, and other stakeholders in your supply chain to reduce your collective carbon footprint?
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Laura Kohler: You know, really helping our suppliers with kind of transparent information on how they're doing, what they need help with so that we when we work with our stakeholders, we can really, truly, honestly say what our footprint is and how we're improving it year over year. So a supplier scorecard is something we've been working hard to continue to expand and deepen.
00:03:43:05 - 00:04:15:27
Laura Kohler: Then we try to convene conversations around the responsibility of design, and really talking with architects and designers about how we can partner with them to help the consumer make great choices when they have the opportunity to renovate or build from scratch. You know, you have to use different strategies to go after different pieces of that supply chain and realize that it is all partnership and working together to deliver really a better promise of sustainability in the future.
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Sara Gutterman: Are you seeing increased demand by your customers for ESG related strategies, sustainability products, environmental product declarations and just generally water conserving products?
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Laura Kohler: It is increasing in speed and intensity. Whether you're in the architect designer community, whether you're talking to developers, whether you're talking to big retailers, it is fascinating. In six months since I've been in the role, my kind of my tour of these, these partners has been incredibly energizing because they are going to demand from from companies like Coachella even more product information and just knowledge around sustainable solutions.
00:05:05:06 - 00:05:35:19
Sara Gutterman: About at the municipality scale, we're seeing things like water taxis explode here on the Front Range in Colorado, where I am by 400% in some municipalities, and we're seeing other municipalities require net zero water plans before builders and developers can get permits. It's color involved in any of those discussions from a kind of a planning standpoint or code and legislation standpoint.
00:05:35:27 - 00:06:05:03
Laura Kohler: Well, I would say yes and probably more in the future. So we're we're building a large, large facility in Arizona and very much in conversation with local officials around access to water, energy and how we give back. There are organizations like Dig Deep, which is supporting the Navajo Nation, and we are in partnership with Dig Deep to really help provide community solutions for access to water and sanitation.
00:06:05:05 - 00:06:35:04
Laura Kohler: And then really part of alliances like, you know, the US Water Alliance is doing great work with utilities, and there's a lot of our business partners that are jumping in and being involved with them. So I think it takes your own focus at the local level. When you're building a facility or working in a, in a in a region of the world that lacks access to water, it takes the NGO, non-governmental organizations and partnering with corporations like Coachella.
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Laura Kohler: And then it really takes the industry alliances to bring people together to really work, to solve. So it's multi-level multi strategy.
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Sara Gutterman: What does the roadmap ahead look like for Coachella? Are there any specific ESG or sustainability metrics or commitments that you'd like to call out?
00:06:51:22 - 00:07:17:14
Laura Kohler: We want to unlock consumer adoption of more environmentally friendly products, so that's very important to us. We have embedded design for environment with our design teams and engineering teams, and now we want to manufacture for more improvement over the product before that. And that's called positive by design. So really pushing positive by design in a big way. We want to be easy to work with.
00:07:17:16 - 00:07:40:06
Laura Kohler: Right. So continuing how much information and education and response can we give to developers architects, designers so that they have what they need. We want to scale initiatives like color waste labs. So color waste labs, an internal small business that takes the waste from from our potteries and our foundries and puts it into new products. So it's 100% recycled product.
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Laura Kohler: I think you're going to see more recycled elements in our products as well. But expanding Waste Lab and then really continuing partnerships, external partnerships where we can innovate together and go farther, faster.