Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

At WM, being an employer of choice positions us to attract and retain the best talent — now and into the future. Our enterprise-wide, coordinated approach supports growing a career through internal and external learning and development programs. We provide our employees with access to quality education through multiple avenues, including both internal and external comprehensive training programs and courses designed to support career growth.

To support career mobility and address the tight labor market, we have adopted a “grow our own” strategy to continuously upskill our own employees to create a strong talent pipeline. We make training and upskilling available through robust, focused development programs, including several entry-level professional development programs created to build competency in critical leadership and professional roles. Our skills training programs range from self-guided online classes and refresher courses to multi-month development programs designed to upskill employees into new business areas. We also look for opportunities to support education, not only for our employees, but also for their families. Our Your Tomorrow education program offers tuition coverage for select programs for both WM employees and their dependents.

Between funding and nonprofit-led, school-based programs, we strive to extend access to education in our communities as well. In 2023, we granted over $8 million in scholarships, across North America. We continue to fund sustainability-related research grants, and work with local organizations to support sustainability education.

Another way we support our communities is through our Innovative Employment Pathways (IEP)® program, which works with nonprofits to break down barriers and help bring disenfranchised individuals into entry-level jobs. Through programs like this, we can provide jobs with upward career potential.

Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

At WM, we are committed to work to use water sparingly and responsibly. Most of our water comes from municipal systems rather than groundwater wells or fresh surface water sources, and primary uses include drinking, sanitation, vehicle washing, dust suppression and landscaping. We continually look for ways to reduce water consumption across our operations, through implementation of graywater initiatives, conservation methods such as fixture replacement or water consumption monitoring, and by implementing globally accepted environmental design guidelines such as LEED and Green Globes. In some market areas, truck wash programs are shifting to use of recycled water to reduce reliance on municipal water.

WM’s modern landfills in the United States utilize extensive engineering controls and practices to protect both surface water and groundwater and were developed under the federal RCRA standards, which require a range of measures to prevent environmental contamination, including the use of engineered liners, covers, collection and treatment systems for leachate (water that accumulates in landfills as it filters through waste). We maintain a comprehensive network of more than 6,000 groundwater-monitoring wells around our facilities, and every landfill uses monitoring strategies to ensure that adjacent surface water and groundwater is protected.

All WM facilities across North America comply with local development code and municipal ordinances regarding mandatory provisions of fully functioning water supply, adequate sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in its facilities. All our workers, regardless of their status of employment, gender orientation, age, race and nationality have 100% access to WASH.

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

At WM we envision a future where resources become renewable energy as part of a low-carbon, circular economy. To help build that future, we have significantly advanced and are continuing to deliver on our plan to invest over $1.4 billion between 2022 and 2026 to build 20 new WM-owned facilities that will convert landfill gas into pipeline-quality renewable natural gas (RNG). By capturing and converting landfill gas into RNG, we can allocate a portion to our own fleet and offer a lower-carbon energy source to communities and customers. We are also conducting cutting-edge research on landfill gas measurement with the aim of capturing more gas and continuing to improve decarbonization efforts in the years to come.

Long-term growth potential exists in the capture of landfill gas for beneficial use applications. Once captured, landfill gas can be processed by removing contaminants to isolate the methane and converted to a lower-carbon energy source. There are multiple opportunities for utilizing captured landfill gas including electricity generation, direct use by third parties as heating fuel and processing it into renewable natural gas. Renewable energy from landfill gas provides our fleet, communities and industrial customers with a lower-carbon energy source and reduced emissions.

At WM, we are constantly exploring opportunities to be more sustainable and use renewable energy in our operations. We continue to explore opportunities to increase efficiency in our facilities, such as converting to LED light fixtures. In 2023 we reached 55% renewable electricity used in operations by retiring renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated from our own landfill gas-to-electricity facilities.

WM also leverage organic waste to produce energy. Through our CORe® process, WM can convert food waste into an engineered bioslurry product (EBS®) used as a feedstock to help generate renewable energy. Adding EBS® to a wastewater treatment plant’s anaerobic digester can significantly increase the energy output from the system. WM also operates two FOG2Fuel^SM facilities which convert fats, oils and grease (FOG), typically from restaurants and food manufacturers, into a feedstock for biodiesel production.

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

To build a future-ready workforce in a competitive marketplace, we work to recruit from untapped talent pools, help to reduce barriers for prospective candidates and emphasize the importance of training and education opportunities for employees at every level of our organization. We also emphasize the importance and practice of safe actions.

Our team members’ safety comes first at WM, illustrated by our safety rates that consistently beat the industry average. Our renewed safety vision — Get Home Safe Every Day — engages employees in safe actions and behaviors. To help keep employees safe, we also invest in sophisticated technologies, including automated collection equipment on trucks, which helps prevent injuries from manual collection methods. On the road, collection trucks are equipped with automated driver assistance systems, which engage technologies such as audible alarms, active braking interventions and stability control to prevent vehicular accidents. In our facilities, we explore and invest in upgrades like optical sorting, screening and fire detection, further reducing manual movements and integrating automation technology where feasible.

The Innovative Employment Pathways (IEP)® program has remained a keystone program which works with nonprofits to break down barriers and help bring disenfranchised individuals into entry-level jobs. Through one of our pilot programs, we provided job training and guidance so participants could be hired as helpers and grow into one of our most critical roles: commercially licensed drivers. In 2023, we successfully hired, trained and transitioned two IEP® participants from contingent helpers to full-time WM drivers. Through programs like this, we provide jobs that have upward career potential.

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

Our landfills, recycling facilities and renewable energy facilities provide communities and businesses across North America with safe, reliable environmental infrastructure.

We work with research universities and nonprofit organizations to measure fugitive landfill gas emissions more accurately, using several measurement tools, including satellites, drones and ground sensors. We support the development of a safer industry by sharing best practices with our peers through our membership in organizations like the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) and the National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA).

Additional efforts include:

• Executing sustainability growth investment plans of more than $2.8 billion in recycling and renewable energy infrastructure from 2022 through 2026
• Integrating automation technology into new and existing facilities to enhance safety, speed and accuracy, with the goal of increasing the amount and quality of material we recover for reuse
• Expanding capture of landfill gas for beneficial use applications which leverage methane content to generate renewable energy
• Piloting the development of new technologies and opportunities to capture and reuse hard-to-recycle items, like textiles and plastic film
• We are also conducting cutting-edge research on landfill gas measurement with the aim of capturing more gas and continuing to improve decarbonization efforts in the years to come

Reduce inequality within and among countries.

In 2023, we intentionally focused on expanding our applicant pool by initiating competency-based hiring to focus on identifying candidates who exhibit core competencies required for success. This approach allows WM to screen candidates for knowledge, skills and abilities, rather than relying on tenure, prior industry-specific experience or educational milestones.

WM expanded its applicant pool to reach individuals outside the waste industry. With programs like Women in the Driver’s Seat, designed to attract women to driver roles, we hope to bring more women to our frontline workforce. To attract veterans, we attended over 80 military-focused hiring events in 2023 and continue to work with organizations focused on connecting military job seekers with potential employers like WM. We also continue to grow our Innovative Employment Pathways (IEP)® program.

We continue to work to foster a culture of belonging within WM. To do this, we regularly assess employee job satisfaction and sense of belonging, assess and analyze feedback, and make improvements based on this feedback. One way we prioritize collecting feedback is through our annual Voice of the Employee (VOE) survey where employees provide valuable insight into strengths and opportunities that help drive outcomes across the enterprise. We have also established four employee resource groups which are focused on supporting employees from traditionally marginalized backgrounds through professional development, cultural awareness and advocacy, increasing frontline employee engagement, and building external partnerships.

In our communities we seek to reduce inequalities through collaborating with local companies and organizations. For example, WM has developed a robust supplier diversity program with an aim for 10% addressable spend to go diverse suppliers. Additionally, we engage the local community to help reduce impacts of our operations on local communities. Built on 13 years of foundational focus, our dedicated, cross-functional internal environmental justice working group is responsible for overseeing our enterprise-wide strategy and roadmap to guide our broader environmental justice program. In 2023, these efforts culminated in an internal Environmental Justice Summit where stakeholders from across our business joined a day-long event to collaborate and discuss challenges, lessons learned and opportunities to support meaningful community engagement.

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

WM is a leading provider of comprehensive environmental services, including landfill, recycling, organics processing and landfill gas-to-energy. Our services support the circular economy by capturing an increasing proportion of recyclable and organics materials to reuse opportunities.

To provide customers and communities with more sustainable solutions, such as recycling and organics services, we are investing in new facilities and upgrades to existing facilities. As part of our more than $1.4 billion planned investment in recycling infrastructure, we brought eight new or upgraded recycling facilities online in 2023, including five single-stream residential, two commercial and two construction and demolition facilities. Through the recent completion of several acquisitions, building new composting facilities and investing in technological innovation, we are driving organics recycling solutions that can benefit communities by diverting materials from landfills, reducing emissions and enriching soil. In 2023, we opened nine new organics processing facilities.

Long-term growth potential exists in the capture of landfill gas for beneficial use applications which leverage methane content to generate renewable energy. To help build that future, we are investing more than $1.4 billion through 2026 to build 20 new WM-owned facilities that will convert landfill gas into pipeline-quality renewable natural gas. By capturing and converting landfill gas into renewable natural gas, we can allocate a portion to our own fleet and offer a lower-carbon energy source to communities and customers.

For more than 30 years, we have worked alongside Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC). Together we have established more than 300 projects across over than 70 sites, protecting nearly 13,500 acres of habitat. In 2023, we expanded our efforts to demonstrate the possibilities for facilities who want to use a space as small as a tennis court to make a big difference. We did so through development of two proof-of-concept microforests, which are dense, fast-growing and biodiverse plantings on a small footprint. These two pilots are located in urban areas, offering environmental benefits such as reduced air pollution, runoff control and water filtration.

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

At WM, we are working towards a future where materials are repurposed. As the largest recycler of post-consumer material in North America, WM has the infrastructure and network to drive circular economy solutions. We offer opportunities for residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers to engage in recycling and organics programs to increase diversion of waste from landfills.

In 2023, we recovered more than 15 million tons of recyclable materials, including paper, glass, metal and plastic. Our 49 organics recycling facilities recovered 3.7 million tons of material. To achieve this, we increased our capacity by opening eight new or upgraded recycling facilities and nine organics facilities adding 878k tons of material recovery capacity.

In addition to our core services, WM works to find customers for our recycled material commodities. We seek to find primarily domestic customers for a variety of plastic types, paper and cardboard. To do this, we work with companies and organizations to help them find opportunities to use recycled material in their products. Further, to reinforce our commitment to a circular economy we issued a policy in 2020 stating plastics collected on residential routes and processed at our single-stream recycling facilities will not be exported outside North America.

In our own operations, our supply chain team works to procure responsibly and sustainably made products and find new ways to capture and reuse unique materials. For example, we work with companies to transform a portion of the plastic bottles we recover into clothing, shoes and accessories, including uniforms for WM team members.

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

At WM, we envision a future where resources become renewable energy as part of a low-carbon, circular economy. As we seek to enable a future where energy is renewable, we have committed to reducing our direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, in addition to developing solutions for our customers on their own transition to a low-carbon economy.

To demonstrate our commitment to reducing our own emissions, we set a near-term Scope 1 and 2 target which has been validated and approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), in line with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, the first in our industry to set a target of this kind. By setting ambitious, science-based targets to reduce our GHG emissions, we are committed to progressing towards those targets with actionable emissions reduction plans and enabling solutions for others to reduce their emissions.

In 2023, we reduced our direct Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 12% over a 2021 baseline. We achieved this largely by implementing significant gas collection and control system expansions at several landfills, as well as increasing temporary cover and final cap acreages.

To further support decarbonization, our sustainability efforts can help our customers reduce their own carbon footprints. WM aims to play a key role in the transition to a low-carbon economy by: offering resource recovery, expanding and opening new markets for recycled content and capturing and processing landfill gas to generate renewable energy. We also offer support to customers looking to meet their sustainability objectives by identifying opportunities for hard-to-recycle items and creating circular solutions for managing recyclable materials.

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

Giving back to our communities is deeply ingrained within our culture. The scale of our business and our geographic reach enables us to positively impact millions of people by protecting and providing access to green space, supporting educational opportunities and filling gaps in communities. In 2023, nearly $18.7 million in charitable contributions helped positively impact more than 525,000 people through targeted social impact programs.

Beyond our core business of providing environmental solutions, we also aim to give back to our areas and support causes that prioritize thriving communities and environmental stewardship. Additionally, we strive to educate individuals on the significance of living sustainably and preserving the natural areas in our communities.

We have been working with the Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) for more than 30 years to support conservation efforts at our sites across North America. Our 70+ WHC-certified sites are home to wildlife preservation, biodiversity and environmental education initiatives through nearly 300 projects, protecting nearly 13,500 acres of land. Projects include planting pollinator gardens, tree systems and microforests, which are dense, fast-growing and biodiverse plantings on a small footprint, that can be as small as the size of a tennis court. In 2023, WM developed a microforest toolkit which includes guidelines to help sites successfully leverage a nature-based solution at their property. Leveraging nature-based solutions helps us lay the groundwork for future generations to lead the sustainability movement.