Sustainability: AGC's Approach for Decreasing Waste

At AGC, sustainability is central to our identity as a responsible corporate citizen. We care deeply about minimizing our environmental impact and building a greener future. Our comprehensive waste elimination program focuses on the principles of sorting waste, reusing, and recycling at every stage of production and operation. By diverting waste from landfills through rigorous sorting, reusing, and recycling, AGC conserves resources, reduces emissions, and contributes to the circular economy. 

Waste Sorting

At AGC, we are committed to minimizing our environmental impact and creating a circular economy. We know that our lighting products and operations generate waste that can harm the planet if not managed properly. That’s why we have adopted a waste sorting system that allows us to separate different types of waste and dispose of them in the most eco-friendly way possible.

Waste sorting is the first step towards reducing waste and achieving minimum waste goals. It involves identifying and separating waste materials based on their composition, such as paper, cardboard, glass, plastic, metal, and hazardous waste. By doing this, we can:

• Reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and incinerators, which are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution.
• Recover valuable materials from our waste, such as metals, plastics, and glass, which can be recycled or reused to make new products or generate energy.
• Save costs and resources by reducing the demand for virgin raw materials, energy, and transportation.

Reuse

Most resources are finite, yet human consumption and waste generation continues to grow exponentially. That’s why a circular model that maximizes reuse is crucial.

Our sustainable design process considers the full life cycle of materials from the start. We engineer lighting products for durability and recyclability, ensuring that components can be repaired, refurbished, updated, and reused to maximum extend possible. 

We also reuse “waste” streams in our manufacturing facilities. Scrap metal, glass, and other reusable materials from production are collected and fed back into our processes. We even design custom lighting retrofit kits for customers to extend the lifespan of existing lights instead of sending them to landfills.

By maximizing reuse opportunities, we conserve precious resources, reduce carbon emissions and pollution, and keep materials circulating responsibly. We continue to seek new innovations to eliminate waste at the source while enabling renewal through reuse.

Recycle

Many components and materials cannot be re-manufactured after production and a long service life. However, these components contain precious aluminum, copper, and other non-renewable materials that can be recycled and utilized in next product generation. For example, 85% of the aluminum in our fixtures can be recycled. Rather than going to landfills, we ensure these valuable materials are recycled and recovered.

We are partnering with recycling processing facilities to properly process and recycle all waste from our manufacturing operations. Through these efforts, 100% of hazardous waste are disposed of responsibly. Other materials like metal, glass, and paper are also collected, stored, transported and treated. After treatment, over 80% of the materials can be recycled. This ultimately leads to lower carbon emissions and conservation of finite resources. Through responsible partnerships and a commitment to conservation, we do our part to protect the planet for future business.