Emissions intensity at Counselor Top 40 distributor Cintas (asi/162167) is down 40% compared to the baseline year of fiscal 2019. Plus, the Cincinnati-based company offers more than 200 different styles of apparel made of recycled material.

Cintas (asi/162167) recently released its sustainability report for fiscal year 2024.

Those are just two of the highlights from Cintas’ recently released sustainability report, which details its sustainability ambitions in fiscal year 2024 – which ended on May 31, 2024.

“The future is bright at Cintas, where the core values of sustainability have been central since our inception,” said Todd Schneider, president and CEO. “We continue to embrace our vision of ‘A Shared Drive for Better’ through operational improvements and efficiencies that positively impact our employee-partners, customers and shareholders for years to come.”

With more than 200 apparel styles made from recycled materials, Cintas noted that it has more than 600,000 of these sustainable garments currently in use. The company is also working on textile circularity, giving an option to recycle prior apparel program garments to create reclaimed fiber for nonwovens and various filling applications when clients switch to a new apparel program. The distributor’s scrap-to-recycle program has seen more than 10,000 garments recycled and diverted from landfills since January 2023.

When it comes to energy use, Cintas has been on a steady path of reducing emissions intensity by 40% since fiscal 2019. Last fiscal year, the company reduced emissions intensity by 7.7%. The distributor also noted that it reduced its electricity use by 16% from fiscal year 2019. Cintas launched a solar energy pilot last fiscal year, installing a solar array in a plant in Piscataway, NJ, in October 2023, offsetting the plant’s energy use by 23% for fiscal 2024.

Charitable giving is also a focus for Cintas, which noted in the report that it has raised more than $20 million for various causes since fiscal year 2019. For FY 2024, the distributor raised more than $106,000 through employee-partners, over $328,000 in fundraising and sponsorships, and more than $233,000 in assistance relief to employee-partners. Cintas also reported that it had donated more than 957,000 pounds of product to charitable causes last year.

“Our strong culture of running our business ethically and responsibly is a key tenet to our success through the years,” said Mark Bolen, vice president of engineering and sustainability at Cintas. “It’s imperative that we review our progress through our lens of positive discontent so that we can continue to challenge ourselves to seek out continued improvements that create a lasting impact.”

With estimated 2023 North American promotional products revenue of $218.6 million, Cintas ranked 13^th on Counselor’s most recent list of the top distributors in the industry.

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