Wahl Trims Environmental Footprint

By Kate Bachman | August 17, 2015

Category:

Wahl's clippers

If you’re a man or have a pet, chances are, you’ve used Wahl® Clipper Corp.’s clippers, trimmers, and personal care appliances. The nearly century-old brand has become a household name, and its products are a staple of most bathroom cabinet shelves, barber shops, and salons.

The manufacturer’s grooming appliances are sold in 165 countries and are used aboard  the International Space Station. They are manufactured in seven plants, including two in the U.S. Wahl employs more than 2,200 people worldwide.

When third-generation President and CEO Greg Wahl (see Figure 1) isn’t rescuing endangered species or building trout habitats in his “spare time,” he’s mitigating wetlands or picking seeds and replanting them to expand biodiversity in the four acres that serve as a natural watershed on the company’s headquarters property. So when he says, “We’re sincere about reducing our impact on the environment,” there is good reason to believe him.

Greg Wahl

Figure 1: Wahl Clipper Corp. President & CEO Greg Wahl is an environmentalist-businessman whose family company hasn’t laid off a U.S. employee in 40 years and considers the environment one of the company’s stakeholders. “We’re doing this because it’s part of our core values. It’s why we’re on the Earth. It’s how we’re going to make a difference.” Wahl Clipper is currently enjoying double-digit sales.

The company’s impressive sustainability program to reduce energy, waste, and water use includes a computerized energy management system; white reflective membrane on the roof of a building at its headquarters campus that reduces heat load; extensive recycling and waste management (see Figure 2); rainwater harvesting and water submetering to track water consumption by production area; and soon a second-generation lighting upgrade. It uses environmentally friendly materials in the manufacture of its products and recycled content in its packaging.

Wahl's Green Committee

Figure 2: Melody Van Ryche heads up Wahl’s green committee. The company has an extensive waste management program including both industrial and cafeteria waste.

The crowning glory of Wahl’s sustainability program is an expansive 2,400-panel, 600-kilowatt solar photovoltaic (PV) array on one of its plant buildings, finalized in September 2013 (see Figure 3). (Read “How Wahl’s solar PV system works.”)

Wahl's solar PV system

Figure 3: Wahl’s 2,400-panel, 600-kilowatt solar PV array generates more than double the energy to run the building’s electricity demand.

Environmental Stewardship a Core Value

One might ponder on why the global grooming appliances manufacturer would consider sustainability so important. Wahl Clipper is in a consumer marketplace with hundreds of  competitors—many of which don’t operate with those concerns. “It’s usually good for management and the shareholders and everything else has to line up,” Wahl commented.

“We figured out that one of our stakeholders is the environment, and we are really big on stewardship as a company; we’re stewards for our employees and our stakeholders.” Wahl said that’s why every decision is made based on whether it is good for the company and good for the environment–and employees. It’s no shaving nick that the company hasn’t laid off a U.S. employee in 40 years.

“If we gave everybody a Prius hybrid, that would be good for the environment but not good for the company. Everything has to be paid for by something. So we have to have a viable economic structure to operate within. If we can focus on what’s good for both, it makes this a cool place.” He added that being a privately held company affords it the opportunity to invest long-term, rather than quarter by quarter.

Wahl said that the company has a very strong green culture that overflows into its actions. “As your company gets bigger, your culture is actually more powerful than all these environmental policies that you write up.

“A lot of companies have really cool environmental policies. We’re not doing this for a policy; we not doing this to get more sales,” Wahl said. (Although sales are growing and so too is the company.) “We’re doing this because it’s part of our core values. It’s why we’re on the Earth. It’s how we’re going to make a difference.”

Wahl said that environmental stewardship is personal for him, based on his love of the outdoors and his early career experiences. His first job out of grad school was near the Faville Prairie State Natural Area in Lake Mills, Wis., where his best friend was curator. That was the prairie referenced in Aldo Leopold’s influential A Sand County Almanac.

Continuous Improvement Perpetuates Green

The manufacturer is expanding its world headquarters in the small Illinois river town of Sterling where founder Leo J. Wahl started making the electromagnetic hair clipper he invented in 1919. The first hand-held clipper to house the motor in the device, it was an improvement over the remote-motor clipper of the day.

The company’s sustainability program stems as much from what Wahl, whose degree is in engineering, calls his obsession for continuous improvement as his passion for protecting the environment.

“I think that whatever we do, we should make something better. So some of our environmental stewardship comes from a process improvement obsession—being the best we can be in everything.”

Wahl said green and lean help make the company economically competitive. “A lot of things that are consistent with values-based lean manufacturing are very consistent with environmental sustainability.”

Wahl said that not all of the company’s plants are as advanced ecologically as the Sterling facility, but they are at various states of improvement. He said he envisions using the new building addition as a lab to run lean activities such as kaizen and value stream mapping end to end to develop global standards for producing efficiently and sustainably.

“I see us examining our environmental footprint to draft a standard that assigns points for improvements. And I see us applying that globally.

“We’re not perfect here,” he added. “Everything is continuous improvement. Being green is a work in process and not a destination.”

Wahl Clipper Corp., 2900 N. Locust St., Sterling, IL 61081, 815-625-6525, www.wahl.com

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Editor’s Note: Read more about Wahl’s sustainability initiatives: “How Wahl’s solar PV system works,” and How Wahl reached the heights of ROI on rooftop solar project.”

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