Environmental Compliance
Costco continually works to enhance and streamline training programs to ensure compliance with environmental regulations worldwide, as well as our internal policies and programs.
Over the past several years, we have implemented a comprehensive environmental compliance program, including but not limited to storm water, sanitary water use, wetlands, environmental mitigation, endangered species, air quality, etc, for any and all inspections, maintenance and reporting for all of our properties, including our warehouses (retail locations) as well as our industrial properties (manufacturing, distribution, logistics, etc.).
Environmental compliance, coupled with our corporate sustainability initiatives, and working with our operators, facilities and property management team remain a high priority for us.
We continue to develop a global team who work in conjunction with representatives from numerous departments throughout the company to review and identify opportunities to enhance compliance and sustainability programs and policies, as well as to ensure our company remains in compliance with regulatory requirements. Team members also support location operators in daily operations, training and educational opportunities. Finally, team members have been instrumental in helping us implement our Climate Action Plan.
In 2021, we held our third-annual Global Sustainability Summit. The purpose of these summits are to share best practices, review compliance, and discuss upcoming projects, with the goal of creating a consistent and global approach to environmental compliance, while also respecting local laws and regulations.
We continue to build on our existing environmental compliance platform through the Sustainability Technical Assistance Review (STAR) to formalize standards and requirements in five key focus areas. The STAR rolled out in September 2020 across the United States. By working toward STAR goals, Costco is building the capabilities to track compliance and dynamically monitor resource use at all our warehouses – at an individual and aggregate level. Our aim is to integrate the people, systems, policies, data, and standard operating procedures in support of the following five focus areas: (1) ensure environmental compliance, (2) minimize water usage, (3) minimize energy consumption, (4) increase waste diversion, and (5) reduce carbon emissions. Enhanced dashboarding and reporting capabilities added in 2021 allow us to respond more quickly as opportunities present themselves.
In 2021 we digitized our environmental regulatory documents, waste manifests, and several checklists to aid in both accuracy and efficiency while reducing operator fatigue.
Beginning in September of 2020, Costco began to establish its own Central Monitoring program (Central Station) to bring refrigeration, burglary and fire monitoring of locations in-house.