Innovation

Fairmount Santrol strives to empower Family Members (employees) to give back to their communities and provides each with 40 hours annually of paid volunteer time. In 2014, Family Members contributed approximately 20,000 paid volunteer hours to their local communities, including the 3,720 hours donated during its Appreciative Inquiry Summit activities. The company allows its employees to choose how they share their time, talent and treasure, enabling them to seek projects that feed their passions, with a focus on the categories of environment, health and wellness, and education.

Inspiration

The inspiration for many of Fairmount Santrol’s innovations is the result of practicing Appreciative Inquiry (AI). The company hosted AI summits in 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014 in an effort to unite and empower employees to think more broadly about how they can “Do Good. Do Well”, the company motto. They have also established a Business Innovation Team to serve as an idea funnel and vault for good ideas to be considered later.

Overall impact

In 2015, Fairmount Santrol’s community investment totaled approximately $2.6 million. The company's contributions significantly impact local communities by providing greater access to education, health services, wellness, and an improved quality of life for residents.

Some examples of employee volunteer projects include:

· aiding local schools in a variety of ways, including updating their facilities and/or technology;

· community clean up days and Adopt-a-Highway;

· ecosystem improvements, such as river cleanups, native plant gardens, local wildlife habitat protection, tree planting, and more;

· improving parks and playgrounds;

· supporting emergency services, such as local fire departments or EMS.

Additionally, many employees have gone above and beyond by donating countless hours of their personal time to community projects of personal interest to them.

Business benefit

Fairmount Santrol invests in its communities through cash grants, in-kind donations, and corporate volunteer efforts. Each of its dozens of plants contributes a minimum of 0.25 percent of its operating profit to serve the needs of its communities. That means the better the company does, the more it can do for its communities. As Director of Sustainable Development Beau Daane described it, the business benefit of these activities is “positive goodwill in the community, strengthened relationships with the company, and increased productivity and engagement” of Family Members.

Social and environmental benefit

In addition to the overall goodwill the company builds in its communities, projects include but are not limited to:

· Aiding local schools

· Assisting with building and expansion projects for hospitals and care facilities

· Supporting emergency services

· Updating technology for schools

· Improving parks, playgrounds and greenspace

Interview

Beau Daane, Director of Sustainable Development