Our Commitment to Social Responsibility

At Renewable Energy Group, we value our team members, the communities we work in and the people and businesses we work with. We operate globally and aim to maintain consistency across our business. We always prioritize the safety and integrity of our operations, from sourcing to delivery.

Valuing Safety, Integrity and People

We have an established safety culture that expects and empowers our employees to contribute to our goal of zero work injuries or incidents. We also require our employees and business partners to operate ethically. How we do business matters, which is why we have developed several policies to guide our actions. Ultimately, we recognize that all of the places we operate and all of the people that touch our business are integral to our success.

Fostering a Safety Culture

Safety is a core value at REG. It is top of mind in all we do, from sourcing through the fuel production process to delivery to our customers and all of the associated office support services.

We’ve formalized our goal of having an accident-free workplace with a program we call VisionZERO and have implemented several tools to help make this happen:

REG Vision Zero Logo
  • Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) management system — Each facility develops an EHS matrix to track safety and environmental activities, with progress continuously monitored, evaluated and shared. This system is complemented by a number of support resources, including our corporate policy, standards, procedures, directives and more to set expectations for employees.
  • Training — All REG employees undergo safety training, customized with in-depth training for those whose jobs include more potential hazards.
  • SEE Signals — A cognitive process to reduce or eliminate incidents. It requires that someone first stop to identify hazards, next evaluate what could go wrong and last execute the plan and prevent incidents. To keep this front of mind, the company utilizes a visual reminder of a stoplight at each facility and change the red, yellow and green lights as events occur around the company, keeping all employees attentive and attuned to company safety.
  • Safety committees — Composed of employees across the organization, each location has a safety committee with the intent to keep safety front of mind, to educate and to make safety applicable to our daily lives. The committees have also instigated a company-wide practice of beginning all meetings with a safety moment.
  • Recognition — Effective safety communication includes celebrating achievements throughout the organization, including incident prevention, corrective action plans, and finding ways to reduce risk. Three times a year we solicit input from across the organization and award employees that have exhibited exemplary safety performance or made contributions resulting in a safer workplace for all.

Corporate Compliance That Promotes Integrity

We are a global company operating under numerous laws, standards and norms. As part of our compliance efforts, we have implemented procedures, policies and training to ensure that both REG employees and our business partners operate with integrity. These include:

We also maintain an Ethics Helpline to report a possible instance of wrongdoing. 

Supporting Our Team Members and Communities

REG wants and encourages our employees to be constructive citizens both at and outside of work. It is important to us that we are good stewards in our communities.

Employees
We seek employee feedback on ways we can improve as an organization through initiatives like an annual survey and an employee-led wellness committee. We listen to our employees and take actions to evolve based on the results. This has led to improvement of our parental leave and support, expansion of our benefit options and development of a flexible work environment. We also maintain an engaged workforce through continuous learning with an internal training department and external training opportunities, both of which are designed to link employee career goals and business needs. We promote employee engagement with activities like photo contests to encourage people to get outside, hosting speakers on mental health, holding regular "coffee chats" on Zoom and putting together wellness bingo. We also participated in Iowa's Top Workplace survey, which provided useful insight into employee sentiment and ultimately won us a Top Workplace Award.

REG Employees Volunteering

 

Community
We support our communities with an employee-driven philanthropy committee that meets monthly to discuss organizations to support and corporate funds to allocate. Requests can be submitted using this form, and employees are encouraged to share causes of significance. Requests are evaluated on how they meet our three philanthropy pillars — youth, health and the environment — and other criteria such as proximity to our facilities and participant impact.

We also encourage employees to give of their time, with several corporate volunteer events organized throughout the year. Additionally, REG employees receive up to eight hours of paid time off each year to volunteer at a nonprofit organization of their choosing.

We have worked hard to maintain a culture of safety and responsibility to the environment and social communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. See more about our response efforts here.

Group of employee volunteers standing in front of a Red Cross van

Read Our ESG Report

Get more details on our commitment to being socially responsible, as well as to environmental sustainability and corporate governance, in our environmental, social and governance report.

Read Report

Renewable Energy Group, Inc.

416 S. Bell Ave
PO Box 888
Ames, IA 50010
515-239-8000 | 888-REG-8686

Des Moines Register Top Places to Work 2020

© 2022 Renewable Energy Group, Inc.