Here at Hunter, our core value of Social Responsibility challenges us to conduct business by making decisions today that positively affect tomorrow, especially as our organization continues to experience rapid growth. That’s why we’re proud to announce new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals that will help us achieve a balance between the people we influence, the planet we impact, and the profits we earn.
Our seventh-annual CSR Report serves as an introduction to these ambitious goals, which were developed after nearly two years of research and input gathered from stakeholders both inside and outside of our organization.
Stakeholder Engagement Efforts
Beginning in late 2017 and throughout 2018, Hunter Industries partnered with an independent consultant to engage internal and external stakeholders to better understand which CSR issues were most important to them. This initiative expanded upon a similar effort in 2015.
We conducted employee and customer surveys, facilitated focus groups, and interviewed stakeholders one-on-one. Our comphrehensive engagement efforts resulted in survey feedback from 2,300 employees, distributors, contractors, specifiers, shareholders, and vendors. In addition, more than 200 individuals participated in focus groups or interviews.
Key Findings:
Seventy percent of our customers indicated that our CSR efforts positively affect their decision to work with Hunter and use our products.
The top six issues that emerged as important for Hunter to address were: Water; Employee Training; Health and Safety; Waste; Community Development; and Energy Use, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Renewable Sourcing.
Stakeholders want more public-facing communication about our CSR initiatives, progress, and goals.
Stakeholders believe public education around water and energy should be central to our CSR efforts.
Goals
Water
30%/by 2030
Reduce total water consumption by 30% and encourage suppliers to decrease their water use by 10% by 2030
The global challenges related to water availability and clean water are becoming ever more complex. With this goal, we want to show our commitment to managing water consumption efficiently across organization-wide manufacturing, office, and landscape applications.
Employee Training
80%/by 2025
Increase employee satisfaction with training and development opportunities to 80% by 2025 and 85% by 2030
Investing in our workforce sets us on the right path to success. Our current employee satisfaction level related to training and development is 68%. We know we can do better. Achieving this goal will require additional engagement to build purposeful programs.
Health and Safety
20%/by 2030
Increase the number of employees participating in wellness programs by 20% by 2030
As our employees invest their time and effort into the organization, we must do the same for them. We want to offer equitable and purposeful wellness programs to all employees to demonstrate our commitment to ensuring the health and well-being of our workforce.
Waste
0NET/by 2030
Achieve ZERO net waste at all facilities by 2030
Waste minimization and mitigation are key to alleviating our impact on local landfills. To meet our goal to divert at least 90% of our waste from landfills, we will continue collaborating with external waste managers and working with internal teams.
Community Development
$2.5M/by 2030
Increase charitable giving to
$2.5 million by 2030
Increase employee volunteer hours by 25% by 2025 and 50% by 2030
We will develop and execute five community development opportunities with supply chain, distributor, and customer stakeholders by 2030.
Energy
Scope3/by 2025
We must fully understand our Scope 3 emissions if we hope to reduce them
After conducting a science-based target initiative study around carbon emissions, we are now reviewing our impacts and building an action plan to reduce them.
A Word from Our CEO
Our seventh-annual Corporate Social Responsibility report marks a new era of sustainability at Hunter Industries. While realizing many of our CSR goals over the course of the past several years, we have also undergone rapid growth and restructuring following the acquisitions of Senninger and Dispensing Dynamics.
We have added several new facilities around the globe. Our employee population has grown significantly, and so have our environmental impacts. Simply put, our CSR roadmap needed a redesign. As we reorganized our corporate structure, we took the opportunity to unify our business and CSR strategies. Looking ahead, we expect sustainability to drive our business in ways we have not yet seen.
The crucial ingredient to a successful CSR program is transparency. Rather than setting targets internally, we decided to include external stakeholders as well, since their concerns help drive our business. We asked our board of directors, employees,
and more than 40,000 customers, specifiers, educators, industry association representatives, product users, government workers, and others impacted by Hunter's influence to rank CSR topics of concern. Six critical areas emerged:
Water; Employee Training; Health and Safety; Community Development; Energy Use, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Renewable Sourcing; and Waste.
With our objectives identified, we formed an internal group of employees from various departments and locations to establish organizational goals for each topic. Moving forward, this group — named the CSR Council — will build a framework and set action items to achieve these goals, sharing updates with stakeholders along the way.
Sustainability is the process by which we choose to achieve our ultimate goal of finding a balance between the people we influence, the planet we impact, and the profits we earn.
Gregory R. Hunter
CEO of Hunter Industries
It drives us to develop a strategic long-term vision and challenges us to grow into the organization that we want to be. We will not be able to achieve these goals on our own. That's why we look forward to continue working with all our stakeholders to navigate these efforts to imbed resilience and sustainability not only in our organization, but the collective industries we serve.
Company Profile
Founded in 1981, Hunter Industries is a family-owned manufacturer of best-in-class solutions for the landscape irrigation, outdoor lighting, dispensing technology, and custom manufacturing sectors. Headed by CEO Greg Hunter, our Global Operations team provides leadership for our entire company.
The core mission of Hunter Industries will always remain the same: to deliver valued products and services backed by unwavering customer support, grow the company conscientiously, and remain true to the culture that makes our employees proud to work at Hunter.
Landscape Irrigation and Outdoor Lighting
Hunter Industries offers thousands of products in over 120 countries, including a complete spectrum of water- and energy-efficient solutions for residential, commercial, and golf course irrigation systems, as well as industry-leading outdoor lighting solutions through our FX Luminaire and Holm brands.
Agricultural Irrigation
Senninger Irrigation is a leading designer and manufacturer of premier irrigation solutions for agricultural, horticultural, and industrial applications. With over 50 years of experience in more than 50 countries worldwide, Senninger is one of the most trusted names in the agricultural irrigation industry.
Custom Manufacturing
Hunter Custom Manufacturing offers innovative manufacturing, molding, and production services of the highest quality to build long-term relationships with valued partners from diverse industries. Our global footprint enables us to deliver finished goods around the world.
Dispensing Technologies
As leading innovators of the away-from-home dispensing category, Dispensing Dynamics is proud to continue its longstanding tradition of developing washroom dispensing systems that offer unsurpassed reliability, design, performance, hygiene, sustainability, and value.
