Recycling program expands to Claims

Fueled by employee participation, we continue to expand our recycling program.

In 2010, the 11,000 employees in our largest facilities had easy access to paper, plastic, metal and polystyrene recycling. We’re now working to expand this access to the 14,000+ employees in our more than 400 claims offices.

“Rolling out recycling programs to our claims offices has been a challenge because not all of the buildings are owned by Progressive,” explains Sally Frye, director of Real Estate Services.“ We needed to survey the landlords and employees in claims offices who were not in a Progressive owned building to find out if they were interested in starting a recycling program and, if so, how.”

And employees are, indeed, taking the initiative.

“We decided as a group about six months ago that we needed to come up with a recycling program,” says Claims Assigner Nancy Cordova of our Crown Point, Ind. claims office. “I set up three bins in our break room for paper, plastic and aluminum. And every other week, I take it home and have it removed with my own recyclables.”

By the end of 2010, 26 percent of our claims offices had a recycling program that employees set up themselves.  “This is a start,” Sally notes. “We hope to improve on this number as we implement recommendations based on each location’s needs.”