Championing Sustainability The Standard has a legacy of sustainability and an Trash and Recycling Centralization Project Reduces Waste environmental focus. One of the most visible elements of this commitment began nearly 25 years ago when The Standard’s home offces in favor of centralized a group of employees shared their vision for the future trash and recycling stations located on each foor. of sustainability at the company. They participated in a discussion course offered by the Northwest The goal was to greatly reduce the amount Earth Institute and soon formed The Standard’s of plastic waste generated by individual cans. frst employee resource group, the Green Team, to A typical offce foor contains more than 100 deliver on a shared vision of supporting environmental individual garbage cans. Previously, cleaning protection efforts at work and in our communities. crews inspected every garbage can on every foor each weeknight. If crews found so much as one The Standard continues prioritizing and strengthening piece of trash — a tissue, a coffee cup, a napkin initiatives that protect the environment and combat — they removed the plastic liner, threw it into the climate change, recognizing that the health and trash and added a new liner. That alone created a security of our customers and employees as well as lot of unnecessary plastic waste. Trash is a big problem for the planet, especially our business success are linked to the health of the plastic trash. Discarded plastics are piling up and planet. Under the new program implemented in 2022, threatening ecosystems. Worse, microplastics employees deposit trash and recycled items Sustainability at Work — the tiny, toxic particles of degrading plastics — have been found almost everywhere. (glass, plastics, cans and newspapers) in Ensuring we leave our company, our communities and centralized bins. The stations are near printers and our planet better than when we found them guides the copy machines on every offce foor. The project Thanks to the tireless advocacy of the Green Team commitment of the Green Team, company leaders and greatly reduces the amount of plastics and other employee resource group, in collaboration with the all employees in sustainable business practices that recyclables improperly discarded, eliminates company’s Facilities team, The Standard’s trash reduce our environmental footprint. unnecessary waste, encourages employees to and recycling centralization project resulted in less move and interact with others more often during Energy plastic, fewer garbage cans and cost savings. the day and saves the company money by During 2022, The Standard purchased 11,076,988 allowing cleaning crews to focus on higher-value kilowatt hours of renewable clean wind energy to One of the biggest wins for the project was the custodial tasks. power our home offce buildings in Portland and at removal of more than 1,000 individual trash cans in our nearby campus in Hillsboro, Oregon. Computers, monitors and printers are set to sleep after inactivity, and linear lighting in offces uses motion-sensor technology and high-effciency LED bulbs. 2022 Environmental, Social and Governance Report 19