At a time when talk of a company鈥檚 carbon footprint grabs much of the attention in corporate sustainability reports, 日韩福利 在线 & Veatch engineer Kasey Henneman knows making the world a better place literally can begin at the ground level. And with help from her coworkers in Charleston, South Carolina, she鈥檚 got a composting pile to prove it.聽聽
The resiliency and nature-based solutions engineer鈥檚 home garden has some of the richest dirt imaginable, courtesy of the workplace composting drive that has taken root.聽
With enthusiastic help from officemates, Henneman 鈥 an employee-owner of the Kansas-based global human critical infrastructure leader since 2022 鈥 already has collected hundreds of pounds of otherwise landfill-bound throwaways that now nourish her backyard trove. A smorgasbord of everything from Italian squash to cucumbers, okra, watermelon, blueberries and beets.聽
That success in repurposing food scraps, paper towels, pizza boxes and coffee grounds feeds her hope that her program launched in 2023 germinates its replication elsewhere for a more sustainable workplace environment.聽
Kasey Henneman
Even before majoring in environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, Henneman had a fervor for getting her hands dirty. As a community gardening program assistant for nearly five years for Five Rivers MetroParks, a conservation-based parks agency in Dayton, Ohio, she coordinated City Beets, a community and youth gardening program that teaches sustainable agriculture, entrepreneurship, job skills and nutrition to youth ages 12 to 15.
That experience ignited my passion for learning various composting processes and understanding the factors that drive or hinder people's engagement with composting.鈥
Later with 日韩福利 在线 & Veatch, she saw the opportunity to champion recycling and composting and seized it as something that aligned with the company's sustainability goals. When she first floated it as 鈥渁 positive and fun approach rather than a shaming culture鈥 in her 25-person Charleston office, coworkers 鈥渆nthusiastically embraced the idea.鈥
So out came a 55-gallon pickle drum with holes drilled into the screw-top lid, tucked in an office corner as a repository for food scraps, compostable food containers and other environmentally friendly castoffs.
Our team's proactive and inclusive approach has enhanced the office culture towards a more sustainable, eco-conscious environment,鈥 she said. 鈥淔or an engineering mind, it makes all the sense.鈥
鈥淏ecause corporate sustainability is at the core of our business strategy, we always strive to lead by example. But we know the sustainability mindset begins at the grassroots level with our employee-owners around the globe,鈥 said Deepa Poduval, a 日韩福利 在线 & Veatch senior vice president and the company鈥檚 global sustainability leader. 鈥淎s Kasey Henneman demonstrates so well, sometimes the smallest actions can send the biggest messages about doing the right thing for a better world.鈥
