Sustainability

Sustainability at GFL

Our Sustainability Action Plan which we first published in 2022, supports our vision and also builds on the important and unique role that our industry plays in supporting our customers in reducing their carbon footprint and enhancing their climate resilience. It also is an important part of our climate strategy that focuses on:

• Providing sustainable solutions to our customers that enable them to increase avoided GHG emissions within their own footprint. These solutions include resource recovery solutions through the materials recovery and recycling solutions we provide, and the beneficial use of landfill gas as a source of renewable energy.
• Reducing direct GHG emissions from our operations, primarily through increased gas capture at our landfills, the use of alternative fuel vehicles in our fleet, and the use of renewable electricity at our own facilities.
  • We recently increased our GHG emissions reduction target to a 30% absolute reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 from a 2021 base year. We derived our increased target level by aligning with the following science-aligned pathways: the Global Methane Assessment (GMA), the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), and the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) pathway to Net Zero. We are the first in our industry to adopt this hybrid approach to setting targets and we believe that this is the best approach to ensure that our target is both achievable and consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement. We intend to work with a third party to confirm our alignment with the Paris Agreement in the coming months.
• Increasing the sustainability innovations that come from within our business by continuing to invest in our employees and our entrepreneurial and innovative culture.

Since our inception, we have made significant investments in new technology and in the innovation of our management and operating processes. These investments reflect our commitment to providing sustainable solutions that are also value-enhancing initiatives for our business. Examples of these investments include:

• Material recovery facilities or MRFs that employ advanced sorting technologies and drive diversion from landfill, preserve virgin resources, reduce GHG emissions and contribute to a lower carbon future. GFL’s Sustainability Action Plan includes our goal to increase recyclables recovered at our MRFs by 40% by 2030.
• Landfill gas to energy facilities that capture biogas and convert the captured gas into electricity or renewable natural gas (RNG) for use by households and commercial establishments or as a source of fuel for vehicles. Our Sustainability Action Plan includes our goal to double our beneficial use of biogas by 2030.
• A growing compressed natural gas (CNG) fleet that uses clean natural gas to power solid waste collection vehicles. CNG emits less greenhouse gas per kilometre (or mile) than traditional diesel fuel. Our Sustainability Action Plan includes a goal to increase the percentage of CNG trucks in our fleet with at least 50% of our annual replacement of diesel solid waste vehicles with CNG or alternative fuel vehicles. In addition, by 2030, at least 85% of our CNG fleet will be powered by RNG fuel, including RNG produced from our landfills.
• Organics facilities that recycle organic waste to produce high-quality compost products, fertilizers, and other soil supplements. By providing a commercially viable environmental solution, communities are able to help reduce their GHG footprint by keeping organic waste out of landfills.

Collectively known as ‘Team Green’ – a name that unites all GFL employees – our talented workforce has enabled us to grow into the environmental solutions leader we are today. Employee-related goals that form part of our Sustainability Action Plan are aimed at building upon our health and safety priorities, improving employee engagement, providing our employees with opportunities to develop their careers and implementing our diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging roadmap. Our commitments include:

• GFL’s Safe For Life Program which is our roadmap to achieving our Total Recordable Incident Rate goal of 2.0 of less.
• Our Women in Waste (WIW) program, a strategy aimed at increasing the participation of women across GFL. Building on our experience with WIW we also continue to implement our multi-year strategy and roadmap to build greater Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEI&B) across GFL.
• Plans designed to increase employee engagement and retention that include our first employee engagement survey that we conducted in 2024, living wage assessments, a fund to support employees experiencing financial difficulties due to natural disasters and our Green Leaf Scholars Program, a scholarship initiative exclusively tailored for the dependents of our full-time employees who want to continue their education in a college, trades, university, or vocational school program that we launched in 2024.

GFL has also been committed to giving back to our communities. Our community involvement goals in our Sustainability Action Plan increase and broaden our community outreach. This includes our Full Circle Project, GFL’s charitable giving program, which allows GFL’s customers to identify charitable categories for our annual giving commitment and our employees to build long term relationships with local charities within the customer identified categories.

For the latest progress on the implementation of our Sustainability Action Plan please see our 2023 Sustainability Report. We have also released our 2023 Climate Report which is our first report disclosing information in line with the recommendations from the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).  These reports along with associated and historical reports are provided below.

2023 Sustainability Reports and Documents
2023 Sustainability Report
2023 Climate Report

2022 Sustainability Reports and Documents
2022 Sustainability Report

2021 Sustainability Reports and Documents
2021 Sustainability Report
Safe for Life Program
GFL EMS Framework

[1] https://gflenv.com/news-media-events-detail/gfl-awarded-seal-award/