• The Greater Good
• What is Natural?
  • The Natural Standard
  • Anatomy of a Product
• Environment
  • Green Packaging
  • Conservation
  • Green Office
• Social Responsibility
  • Giving Back
  • Gimme 5 Recycling
  • Healthy Child Healthy World
  • Employee Care
  • Education
• Social & Environmental Reporting
  • 2010 Report
  • 2009 Mid-Term Update
  • 2008 Report

Environmental Conservation

Preserving our Natural Resources

We know there are only a limited number of natural resources available and when they’re gone, they’re gone. That’s why we’re committed to conserving energy and water and making sure we don’t create more waste than we have to. There are lots of little things— and some big ones — we do every day to make sure we’re doing our part for the environment.

Energy

We’re committed to reducing energy use and finding cleaner ways to operate. So far, our initiatives include:

• Reducing waste and lowering energy usage by incorporating LEAN manufacturing principles throughout our organization and increasing our Overall Equipment Efficiency by 78 percent
• Offsetting all of our electricity use until renewable energy is directly available. By teaming up with North Carolina Green Power and Renewable Choice Energy, we’ve offset all our operations to 100 percent carbon neutral
• Partnering in the US EPA’s Green Power Program to buy green power and reduce the environmental impacts associated with our conventional electricity use
• Becoming a member of the US EPA’s Climate Leaders Program, an industry-government partnership that works with companies to develop comprehensive climate change strategies

Water

For four of the past eight years, our home state of North Carolina has faced serious drought. While Burt’s Bees is not considered a “significant industrial user” by the City of Durham, we take the drought very seriously and believe that every drop counts.

To do our part, we installed water conservation features in all of our bathrooms. In addition, rather than using water once and passing it along, we’re investigating the possibility of treating it onsite and then reusing it. If our plans come together as we hope and expect, our new water treatment process will generate water that we can reclaim for use in our boilers, chillers and toilets. By implementing this water treatment process, we’re hoping we’ll be able to reuse all of the 900,000 gallons of wastewater we produce, reducing our overall water usage by approximately 40 percent.

Our Conservation Partners

While we believe conservation starts at home, we also do our part to spread the message by working with the following conservation partners in our community and nationwide. Learn more about our work with our partners, including:

• The Nature Conservancy
• The Conservation Alliance
• The National Arbor Day Foundation