Sustainability at KGI
Committed to Environmental Stewardship in South Florida and Beyond
Overview
We are passionate about environmental sustainability as evidenced by our GreenLab initiative and related product offerings. Beyond GreenLab, we take measures to reduce the environmental footprint of our facility and operations, and invest in education and resources to a help support a cleaner and greener future for our business and community.
Sustainability in the Workplace
KGI is committed to reducing its environmental footprint. To complement energy and water conservation initiatives already in place, including motion detection lighting in the warehouse and high efficiency plumbing and lighting fixtures throughout our facility, we formed a Sustainability Team to seek out ways to reduce our footprint even further.
We are pleased to report the following recent accomplishments:
- Completed phase-out of all fluorescent and incandescent lighting in favor of higher efficiency LED lighting
- Expanded our longstanding recycling program to cover not only aluminum cans and plastic bottles, but also flexible packaging material like pallet wrap and polyethylene bags
- Established a companywide program for collecting and recycling various types of batteries
Commitment to Service
KGI and its team members are committed to volunteering and community service initiatives in the South Florida region, particularly in connection with environmental cleanup projects.
Most recently, our team joined forces with thousands of other volunteers worldwide on International Coastal Cleanup Day 2023. Multiple teams collected trash from local parks and beaches, including at Matheson Hammock Park and Miami Beach.
Included is a photo of the KGI team that helped to clean up Matheson Hammock Park on September 16, 2023.
Empowering Environmental Nonprofits and Promoting Green Schools
KGI is a proud sponsor of several local and international nonprofits that are dedicated to promoting environmental sustainability, but one organization is very near and dear to our heart, namely Dream in Green (DIG), a Miami-based, grassroots nonprofit focused on environmental education and behavior change.
DIG was co-founded by KGI's CEO, Nick Gunia, in 2006 to empower K-12 students through education and hands-on learning projects to respond to climate change and other environmental challenges facing our community. This resulted in the creation of the award-winning Green Schools Challenge program, which is currently in its 17th year of implementation, serving over 100 public and private schools throughout Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties, which hold the nation's 4th, 6th, and 10th largest public schools districts respectively.
Since inception, this program has delivered free curricula and educational resources to over 90,000 students and 7,300 teachers in over 340 schools in South Florida, 58% of which were in underserved, low-income communities. Through the collective efforts of these participants, the program has saved more than $4.1 million in utility costs for local school districts while reducing or offsetting 68.3 million pounds of carbon emissions.
KGI provides DIG with not only financial support, but countless hours of volunteer service. Learn more about DIG by checking out its Impact Report for the 2022-2023 school year.
TEDxMIA talk by Nick Gunia
Learn more about our CEO's sustainability journey and vision for engaging youngsters in the fight for a more sustainable future in this TEDxMIA talk.
