Think it’s impossible to assemble a car and have no materials end up in a landfill? Think again. Originally built in 1989, the Subaru of Indiana Automotive (SIA) plant in Lafayette, Ind., has proven that it cannot only drastically reduce the amount of material that finds its way to a landfill, but it has virtually eliminated it.

A pioneer in the area of environmental stewardship, Subaru set specific environmental targets each and every year. The initiative to achieve zero landfill began in 2002 and was projected to be achieved in 2007. In order to achieve this goal, Subaru began by sorting through its trash to determine what kind and how much waste it was sending to a landfill. Initial recycling projects started with the obvious, such as recycling aluminum cans, scrap steel, cardboard and plastic bottles. Believe it or not, many of the best recycling ideas came from Subaru employees working on the production line. They came up with ideas for reducing and reusing materials that had some of the biggest impacts on recycling efforts and ultimately led to drastic cost reductions for the company.

Incineration = Indy heating source
Although these ideas and efforts were greatly exhausted, the plant was still left with a small percentage of waste that could not be reused or recycled, like cafeteria waste. Eventually, the final piece of this puzzle was put into place when SIA decided to send this small percentage of waste to a waste-to-energy facility that incinerates the waste and uses the steam that is produced to heat portions of Indianapolis. These extraordinary efforts have not only demonstrated Subaru’s extraordinary commitment to its surrounding community, but it has also demonstrated its tireless commitment to being a trend-setting environmental steward.

As a testament to its resilience and overall vision, SIA achieved its goal of becoming a zero landfill facility on May 4, 2004, three years ahead of schedule. This was a result of the tremendous collaboration between Subaru’s parent company, upper management, Allegiant Global, and other sources. SIA became the first auto assembly plant in the U.S. to be ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9001 certified.

ISO 9000 (of which 9001 falls under) certification means that a company can certify that formalized business practices are being applied. Additionally, SIA went on to become the first auto assembly plant to be ISO 14001 certified, which is the international specification for the environmental management system. It specifies requirements for establishing an environmental policy, determining environmental aspects and impacts of products/activities/services, planning environmental objectives and measurable targets, implementation and operation of programs to meet objectives and targets, checking and corrective action, and management review. (source: Wikipedia)

Not only were the plant’s environmental strides something to marvel at, but so too was the surrounding site. SIA was originally constructed with the surrounding natural habitat areas preserved. This led to the designation by the National Wildlife Federation in 2003 of SIA’s entire 832-acre fertile farmland site as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat. SIA has also established several habitat areas that have allowed its wildlife inhabitants to thrive around the plant since it was first built—once again demonstrating Subaru’s commitment to not only decreasing its carbon footprint, but also to minimizing the impact to its natural surroundings.

The site also contains a natural wetland, which has created several retention ponds. As a result, the site has seen a tremendous growth in wildlife while continuing to illustrate Subaru’s “green clean” efforts.

According to Heather Ward, manager of Subaru’s corporate communications, “Environmental stewardship is not a trend to follow. SIA is proud to be the industry leader in environmental stewardship because simply, it is the right thing to do. We hope consumers appreciate our efforts, but ultimately we do it because it is not only the right thing to do by eliminating waste, but it can also help our profitability.”