Sustainability

Schmidt Baking is committed to be a leader in the industry for sustainability, aligned with a strategic approach to ethics, environment, and economics.  We take seriously our responsibility to protect our environment. This commitment to social responsibility is part of our long-term vision of sustainability through good stewardship of the environment today.

Our use of resources is guided by four major principles:

Principle #1: Proactively manage solid waste by reducing, reusing, and recycling to conserve our natural resources. 

Principle #2: Encourage environmental values and practices by our employees, vendors, and suppliers both at home and in the workplace.

Principle #3: Ensure accountability to laws, rules, regulations, internal policies and procedures through annual self audit reports reviewed by the corporate office and ownership.

Principle #4: Proactive involvement with local, state, and federal environmental authorities as well as industry specific associations to assure our compliance as well as helping develop standards for environmental compliance within our industry.

We believe these efforts will continue to increase efficiency, enhance value, and protect the environment by working together with our employees, business partners, suppliers, and customers.

We have annual environmental audits in each operation performed by our corporate engineering department. We use this information to ensure we are in compliance in all areas of environmental concern. Our goal is to be an industry leader in the area of sustainability, minimizing our footprint on the environment.  

• The Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Washington, D.C. calculates that recycling creates 36 jobs per 10,000 tons of material recycled compared to 6 jobs for every 10,000 tons sent to disposal / landfill facilities.
• One 60 watt bulb uses 480 watts of energy in an 8 hour day.
• The average residence uses 107,000 gallons of water per year.
• 2 barrels of oil will create enough fuel to run the average car for 1260 miles – or the distance between Baltimore, MD and Key West, FL. We saved enough oil to make 2715 round trips to Key West.
• It takes 75,000 trees to print the Sunday Edition of the New York Times.
• Recycling paper uses 60% less energy than manufacturing paper from virgin timber.
• 1/3 of the waste stream that ends up in a landfill each year is paper.
• Every year Americans dispose of enough office and writing paper to build a wall, 12 feet high from New York to Los Angeles.
• Paper can not be recycled indefinitely, but it can be recycled five times before the fibers weaken to the point of being non-usable.