How Rheem Employees Drive Sustainability Progress

At Rheem, we’ve made a genuine commitment to protect the environment. This commitment comes with big goals, and our progress on these goals is driven by the passion that our leadership and employees have for sustainability. Rheem’s sustainability engagement program, called GoodWorks, activates the power of the more than 11,000 people in the global Rheem family, giving every employee the ability to do good and make a huge impact, no matter what their role is.

Engaging Our Employees in Sustainability

We developed GoodWorks on a foundation of best practice research with the aim of creating a structure that would empower employees at every level, drive accountability and ensure that great ideas are supported, implemented and replicated across our global sites. Most importantly, GoodWorks recognizes that our employees are integral to our sustainability strategy.

“We’ve made significant progress on our global sustainability goals, but we saw an opportunity to go even further by utilizing our most valuable resource – our people,” said Sara Corbett, director, brand strategy & sustainability.

From the inception of GoodWorks in 2020, employees from across the globe have gotten involved in sustainability initiatives and inspired action within our company and the water heating industry. GoodWorks powers our sustainability innovation, increases our positive environmental impact and even supports employee recruitment and retention. When we surveyed salaried U.S. employees who had recently joined Rheem, 47% reported that the company’s commitment to sustainability had been a motivating factor in their decision to work for Rheem, and more than half of those respondents said it highly or very highly impacted their decision.

Structuring Sustainability for Success

Our GoodWorks program begins at the grassroots level. Hourly and salaried employees from any department who are passionate about sustainability can volunteer to be GoodWorks Explorers at their work location. Explorers meet regularly to brainstorm ways to make sustainable site improvements, engage coworkers and advance our 2025 sustainability goals. To move big ideas to the next level, they share updates at quarterly GoodWorks Ambassador meetings.

Representing each global business, GoodWorks Ambassadors have formal sustainability responsibilities. Ambassadors meet regularly to discuss progress on our sustainability goals and bring updates to business unit and division leadership at quarterly Sustainability Steering Committee meetings. Finally, an Executive Sustainability Committee, composed of our company’s top leaders, meets biannually to address global progress, discuss new ideas and approaches and review key sustainability opportunities and challenges.

The GoodWorks structure elevates and celebrates sustainability progress occurring at every level of our global business and across our family of brands.

“GoodWorks and our Sustainability Steering Committees are vital because they promote three key goals that will ensure our initiative is best in class: engagement, alignment and accountability,” said Corbett.

Learn More About Sustainability at Rheem

Want to learn more about our commitment to sustainability and our employees’ accomplishments through GoodWorks? Check out our recently released 2021 Sustainability Progress Report.

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