City Logo with the title "Sustainable City"

Sustainability Efforts

What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is the practice of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. This involves being mindful of resources and the impact of those resources can have on people and the planet. There are three pillars to sustainability, economic (profits), environment (planet), and social (people). A company committed to sustainability should use these pillars to drive their business practices. At City we have built our business to be more sustainable and are doing continuous improvements to our company to reach our goals.

How We’re Sustainable

“City has been doing sustainability since before sustainability was cool,” says our COO, Rich Kramer. From the beginning we have always focused on optimizing our processes to be more efficient and in turn, more sustainable. We know how important it is to take care of the planet and give back to our community so we have always kept that concept at the front of our business model. Because of this, we’ve implemented quite a few processes to help us reduce waste and reach our sustainability goals, let’s check them out:

Environment

Water Reduction

The first place we focus in on sustainability is in our facility. We wash all of our uniforms and linens in a batch tunnel washing machine. This machine reuses and reduces water and is one of the most sustainable options in industrial laundry. Our tunnel uses only 1.6 gallons of water per one pound of textiles. Bigger companies in industrial laundry using the traditional washer extractors use 4 gallons of water per one pound of textiles. As you can see this is a significant difference in water usage.

Reuse of Materials

Another area of sustainability we focus on is reuse of our materials. We aim to reuse our textiles as much as we can in order to prolong their use. Some stained and discontinued linens are dyed black to give them a second life. And others are reused as cleaning cloths for our facilities. We also sell old linens for drop cloths, and old mats are reused in businesses for personal use. Because we can reuse our materials we save items from entering the landfill.

Distribution

Another major way we focus on sustainability is in our distribution stream. We start by ensuring our delivery vehicles are in top operating potential by providing regular maintenance. This helps reduce the potential of possible harmful emissions that can come along with vehicle use. We also optimize our delivery routes to reduce our emissions and fuel usage so we aren’t driving around any more than we need to do our jobs.

Community

Another important part of sustainability is the people. As a third generation, family owned business we know how important community is. Because of this, we are always looking for more ways to give back to our community. One thing we started is Coats for Christmas. This was a way to provide warm coats to those in need during the colder months. We also back the Braden Kramer Foundation which supports fighting childhood cancer. And we’re involved with our local United Way. We’re always trying to support members in our community because we know we wouldn’t get far without the support of these very important people.

We Can Help You Be More Sustainable

Here at City, we can help you be more sustainable. How? Switch to an industrial laundry service for all your work attire needs. It is proven that industrial laundry services are more efficient than at home laundry, as there is less water and energy waste. We serve a variety of industries to meet your needs. Uniform programs also reduce waste in another way, with your uniforms in our care we can easily monitor the progression of those uniforms and keep them in tip top shape for longer. By providing regular maintenance and proper cleaning these uniforms will last longer than clothes not involved in a program therefore leading to less waste in replacing and maintaining uniforms.

We Want Your Input

We are always trying to think of more ways to reduce our environmental footprint. We’re actively exploring ideas that can help us reach our goals which is why we would love to hear from you. What do you look for in a sustainable company? We want to implement more processes that will help us reach our goals for the future. Do you have any personal goals for how you want to be more sustainable?

For more on our social responsibility statements click here.

Posted in