DEIA Benchmarking Study Now Open

By Linda Norris-Waldt, Deputy Director & Director, Advocacy, Corporate & Chapter Relations 

The United States Composting Council (USCC) released its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access (DEIA) Benchmarking Study on Thursday, March 7, 2024. The study will remain open until April 15, 2024.

The USCC, like many of our member organizations, is on a journey to enrich our organization with diverse employee voices. We want to improve equitable industry growth by prioritizing access for underrepresented persons to programs. We want to learn how to include and welcome new faces at our table, whether it is our board, staff, committees, or programs.

We encourage you to dive into two opportunities our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access Committee have labored to offer this quarter: Compost DEIA Training and our just-launched DEIA Benchmarking Study. 

By collecting demographic data and organizational practices—from hiring, to purchasing, to the image your organization projects—the study will shed much-needed light on who is represented (and who is not) in the composting industry, what is restricting access to equitable industry growth, and what the appropriate course of action is for each participant.

Not only will USCC be able to assess aggregated (and anonymous) data about the industry as a whole, but you can evaluate your own organization’s practices and develop new management strategies based on the private report you receive on your organization’s practices compared to the industry as a whole.

We made your participation even sweeter! Early study participants have the chance to win one of three prizes:

1. 10.2” Apple iPad (9th Generation)
2. Free one-year USCC membership (up to Bronze level)
3. Free conference pass for COMPOST2025 in Phoenix, AZ

You can find out more about the study and the training that we urge you to ask every one of your team members to take by visiting the main DEIA web page at compostingcouncil.org/uscc-deia.

Studies show that diverse viewpoints bring better bottom-line results to organizations. Be sure you’re keeping up with how to hire, do business with, and provide opportunities to people from all communities with the tools USCC is developing.