Elkay Begins Tracking Their “Honorable Endeavors”

Elkay Manufacturing Company today released their inaugural Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report, documenting the company’s commitment to their communities, employees, customers, and the planet. The report, named Honorable Endeavors, follows the Global Reporting Initiative G4 model and outlines the company’s focus on promoting social and environmental responsibility while building stronger communities.

“Nearly a century ago, our company founders established the values by which we would run our business,” says President and CEO, Tim Jahnke. “These include ‘being in business forever,’ recognizing that ‘our strength is in our people’ and ensuring that the way that we make a profit is always ‘an honorable endeavor.’ Elkay’s values compel us to conduct our business honorably, to invest in our people and our communities, to ‘deliver quality in all we do’, and to contribute to maintaining vibrant communities, a healthy planet, and an abundance of natural resources necessary to live up to the promise of ‘being in business forever’. Corporate Social Responsibility is one way we measure our success in living up to our values.”

In connection with publishing the inaugural CSR report, Elkay has also established a cross-functional Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, which sets the organization’s metrics and standards for tracking, reporting and driving Social Responsibility and Sustainability.

Highlights of the report include: 

• Commitment to the community. Elkay demonstrated their commitment to the communities where they work and live through their annual ELKAYcares Employee Giving Campaign and paid Volunteer Time Off Programs, which have raised over $3 million over the past decade. In 2016, the company also raised over $400K to help their employees in Lumberton, NC recover from Hurricane Matthew. This past September, history repeated itself, and the community was flooded once again in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. They plan to provide an update on that recovery in the next CSR Report.
   
• Commitment to environmental sustainability. Elkay respects the natural world and is committed to protecting the resources that their business and their people depend upon. Examples of this commitment include the company’s water bottle filling stations, which were designed to save millions of plastic bottles from entering the environment. Since 2015, revenues from the sale of sustainable products have grown from $53.6 million to $100.6 million. As many of the company’s products are made from stainless steel, they are not only recyclable, but the materials used are from recycled sources.
   
• Sustainable and socially responsible sourcing. Elkay’s supply chain team updated the Supplier Code of Conduct in 2017. The document requires all Elkay suppliers to sign on to following international human rights, safety, and environmental protection standards. The company conducts live audits for all new suppliers to ensure these standards are followed “on the ground.”

Elkay plans to update the CSR report again in 2020 to include 2018-2019 information. In the year in between (2019), the company will publish a short form CSR infographic, conduct stakeholder research to drive the development of enhanced G4 metrics, recruit CSR Champions to execute the CSR strategy at a local and functional level, and launch new sustainability initiatives based on stakeholder priorities. 

For more information about the report, visit http://corporate.elkay.com/sustainability.

For more information about Elkay, visit: www.elkay.com

About Elkay

Elkay is 99-year-old family-owned and operated manufacturer of products for the building industry. Family-owned and professionally managed, Elkay has been making innovative products and delivering excellent customer care since 1920. Headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, Elkay today delivers world-class sinks, faucets, foodservice fixtures, water coolers, drinking fountains, and award-winning rapid bottle filling stations. Elkay Interior Systems is an international leader in the design and build of branded retail environments for some of the world's most fast growing and beloved restaurant and hospitality brands. To learn more about Elkay, visit www.elkay.com.

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Read the Report