Innovation

One of the company’s longstanding service initiatives has been its catch basin program. Rain water goes into a pit at the bottom of the basin. When it rises to a higher level, it flows into the sewer. This mix of standing water, leaves, garbage, etc., is the perfect breeding ground for mosquitos. Previously, Clarke technicians would drive large SUV’s up and down streets throughout their assigned districts, individually dropping a treatment pellet into the catch basin through the sewer grate. While the pesticide treatment was effectively quelling the birth of mosquitos, it was time and resource intensive. Throughout the Illinois operation, 16 Clarke technicians, were each driving a big modified Chevy Silverado to allow the tech to perform the treatment from the passenger side. Product administration required lots of stop and go, thereby making this program very inefficient. The big vehicles were averaging only 8 - 9 miles/gallon of gasoline.

Over 10 years Clarke transformed its entire Illinois-based fleet for catch-basin work to hybrid vehicles transporting technicians to administration sites where they use bicycles to administer the pesticide pellets. While the number of treatments being provided is similar to years past, many dramatic efficiencies have been achieved. Now, 100% of the Illinois program operates with seven Prius hybrids (each getting 40 - 45 miles/gallon, transporting techs to administration site. Because bikes can easily zigzag to both sides of the street, dispensing averages increased from 450 to 600, enabling Clarke to treat 400,000 – 500,000 catch-basins as part of its contracted services.

Inspiration

There are two inspirations for this innovation. First, operating within an industry self-described as slow to change, Clarke had in years past thought of its mosquito control services in much the same way as they had presented the company identity mark—an upside-down dead mosquito. Not much innovation there. However, despite mosquito control companies seeming to operate in their own siloes/spheres, in 2008 Clarke’s operational team heard about a mosquito control company in Salt Lake City that was doing mosquito control work using bicycles. Clarke sent a team out to meet with this company to learn about their program. They brought back sufficient information to pilot this new Catch Basin by Bike to treat the 7,000 catch basins in n Bloomingdale Township, Illinois .

Parallel to this period, Clarke was beginning its own “journey to flourishing,” as its later appreciative-inquiry (AI) fueled company transformation would be called. Bill Quinn, the operations analyst who oversees the catch basin service, is quick to point to Clarke’s all-company meeting in 2008 and its successive AI summits (2012 and 2016) as the source of generative brainstorming. Innovations like this one start simple and grow into a cascading array of allied innovations, largely through the sustained curiosity about “how might we?” as a question the company routinely asks itself at every level. One long-term employee at a recent intern/employee orientation stated, “AI is now part of the narrative of Clarke.”

Overall impact

Quinn sees the impact of this simple innovation in terms of the company culture. He states, “The biggest thing [the catch basin fleet transformation] has done is that it proved to the operations team—and to whole company—that we don’t have to do things the way we’ve always done them.” Julie Reiter, Vice President of Human Resources & Sustainable Development, echoes this insight when she notes, “You can’t walk 10 miles in a single step; it’s a balance of tenacity and impatience when you’re creating change at the scale of the whole.” This internal transformation has led Clarke to now describe its mission as a global environmental products and services company to make communities around the world more livable, safe and comfortable by pioneering, developing and delivering environmentally responsible mosquito control and aquatic services to help prevent disease, control nuisances and create healthy waterways. That’s a long way from the image of an upside-down dead mosquito.

This one innovation, in retrospect appearing perfectly timed, helped to accelerate conversation of other innovation at subsequent company-wide summits. A decade ago, catch basin technicians were manually recording administration data, which would then be turned in to the company to be manually entered into spreadsheets and databases. Now, bike technicians are capturing information in apps on their phone, data which is then automatically uploaded into the company database and immediately available for analysis and reporting to customers. “Doing this with the bike program helped the company think about other applications,” says Bill Quinn.

Business benefit

Because Clarke made a full commitment to the catch basin bike program, the following benefits have accrued:

1. Reduced gas use/improved carbon footprint: Clarke has decreased program-specific gas use by 94% since implementing the pilot in 2008. Quinn reports this has prevented the consumption of at least 2,154 gallons of gasoline, avoided 191 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and saved the company nearly $4,700 annually in gasoline-related expenditures.

2. Vehicle maintenance: Formerly wed to a method of product administration that was very hard on its vehicles, routine maintenance was expensive. Clarke has since removed 16 trucks from its Illinois operations, with resulting savings on maintenance.

3. Human resource benefits: Seasonal employees in the former truck-based program were hard to find and keep. The work was boring, repetitive, and often isolated. Now, Quinn reports that this seasonal team is the easiest crew to fill. People get paid to ride a bike around, making it an attractive seasonal position for college students and people between jobs. He also notes seeing better retention of seasonal employees from year to year.

4. Public relations benefits: Quinn reports that Clarke customers have actually chosen the bike program vs. truck administration. Additionally, they have anecdotal stories from bike technicians who occasionally encounter residents who inquire what they’re doing on the bikes. Technicians report that people are typically quite impressed with the environmentally supportive approach to mosquito abatement.

Social and environmental benefit

Societal benefits accrue to the catch basin work. While many people in highly developed areas think seldom about mosquitos as anything but a nuisance, recent outbreaks of West Nile and the Zika viruses point to the potential dangers of mosquitos left to breed disease in catch basins. Adopting innovative programs that reduce environmental impact is a compelling differentiator for Clarke as a responsible public health provider. In fact, the Clarke team was promptly called in when the Zika outbreak in Florida was at its worst in 2016.

Through this program, Clarke has demonstrated that doing well by doing good is a win-win. As noted earlier, significant operational expenses were reduced by transforming the Illinois fleet from SUVs to Priuses and bikes. More important is the environmental benefit of reducing the company’s carbon footprint.

Other districts mosquito control organizations and agencies have studied Clarke and some have switched over to catch basin by bike. This trickle effect is another demonstration of a cascading array of innovation benefits. While there is no current industry-wide data base, Clarke leaders know that word of mouth sharing among contemporaries is helping to scale up the impact of this one innovation. They point out that the more planned, sustainability minded, communities that are built, the more effective this program becomes—regardless of its location.

Interviews

Julie Reiter, Vice President of Human Resources & Sustainable Development

Bill Quinn, Operations Analyst