Engineering Innovative and Forward-Thinking Solutions
People, Products, & Community
Our employees are integral to our success and ability to innovate. Driven by the pursuit of excellence, our teams set high expectations to deliver exceptional products, and we work collaboratively to meet efficiency and safety standards. Our commitment to employee retention, training, and workplace safety support our mission to maintain a culture of innovation that ultimately enables our business success.
We hold a deep commitment to trust and collaboration, which guides our customer and employee relationships. Our goal to maintain warranty expense below 1% of total product revenue is one way to solidify our reputation for superior product quality, performance, reliability, and safety. Our goals to maintain low employee turnover, and zero recordable incident and lost time rates are just two examples of how we will support our employees while aggressively growing as a company.
Current goals
Goal 1
Goal 2
Goal 3
Deliver products and solutions customers can trust
The safety of both our employees and our products remains a high priority for Energy Recovery. This goal formalizes our commitment to maintain our product quality standards and monitor the quality of new products as they are deployed in the field. When our customers choose Energy Recovery, we want them to be assured that our products deliver peace of mind in addition to energy efficiency, and safety is paramount to that promise. Learn more about how we maintain our quality standards via our Quality Management System (QMS).
Maintain warranty expense below 1% of total product revenue
Target:
Maintain below 1%
2023 Value:
Less than 0.1%
Status:
Percentage of manufacturing operations certified to ISO 9001 Quality Management System standards or equivalent
Target:
Maintain at 100%
Status:
Completion of product safety risk assessments for all new products by 2026
Target:
100% of new products by 2026
Status:
Protect our employees by providing a safe and healthy working environment
The safety and physical well-being of our employees is a top priority. We actively encourage and reinforce safety protocols and a culture of reporting throughout our workforce with the goal of identifying and eliminating potential hazards before they become incidents. We have added lost time incident rate (LTIR) as a new KPI to help maintain our robust safety culture and commitment to operational and financial efficiency. The LTIR will allow us to identify patterns and trends that will support our continuous improvement efforts to reduce risks, minimize costs, and retain safe working conditions for our employees.
Aim towards total recordable incident rate of zero
Target:
Zero
2023 Value:
2.39
Status:
Achieve 100% of planned annual safety trainings*
Target:
Execute 100% of planned trainings
2023 Value:
96%
Status:
*This KPI is considered achieved for 2023 due to previous target of achieving 95% of our planned annual safety trainings.
Aim towards a lost time incident rate of zero
Target:
Zero
Status:
Social investment program
Just as our company is dedicated to long-term growth by delivering efficient and sustainable products to our customers, we are committed to supporting the local and global communities where our employees live and work. Our Social Investment Program is led by a cross-functional task force and is centered around contributing to three pillars that map back to business objectives:
water
Our business and technology were built around providing affordable access to clean water around the globe. We believe our social investments should reflect that goal as well.
education
At the heart of our growth is our innovative spirit, powered by the engineers that push limits in the design, manufacturing, and applications of our technology each day. By contributing to education, we will continue to support brilliant young minds that will help make this world more sustainable.
Disaster Relief
Throughout our history, we have stepped in to support our communities in difficult times. We have contributed to wildfire relief efforts in California, provided emergency drinking water in Texas, and participated in COVID-19 relief efforts around the world. We are proud to show up when it matters most.
2023 Highlights
19%
of employees participated in volunteer events
3
canned food drives hosted to benefit community food banks
Over 100
volunteer hours towards community events like tree planting, park clean ups, and sponsored fundraisers
Responsible Sourcing
We recognize that our supply chain starts with our sourcing decisions. We obtain raw, processed, and pre-machined materials from our suppliers for our various products. We have staked our name on the precision of our manufacturing and the impact our products have on the world, and as such, supplier selection, qualification, and compliance are highly important. In 2021, we launched a program specifically to prevent trafficking in our supply chain and align our operations with international best practices, including the International Labour Organization’s framework, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) guidelines, and specific United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In collaboration with a third-party supply chain compliance firm, we poll our top suppliers annually and provide education according to the survey results. This education specifically targets unresponsive and non-compliant suppliers and prioritizes areas that present considerable risk to both our business and society, such as anti-trafficking and slavery, conflict minerals, and human rights policies.
Learn more about our responsible sourcing efforts
Highlights
Community Spotlight
Volunteering with the Alameda County Community Food Bank
As part of our commitment to the communities where we operate, 14 Energy Recovery employees from accounting, finance, operations, and engineering volunteered at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in November 2024. The team worked together to sort food items and pack both perishables and non-perishables, helping neighbors facing food insecurity.
In total, 398 bags of food were sorted, curated, and packed for distribution. Our employees not only felt a deep sense of fulfillment from assisting the food bank and supporting the community, but they also enjoyed teamwork and camaraderie to kick off the holiday season.
Employee Spotlight
Shaun Casuat
HSE Engineer
Shaun Casuat’s history with Energy Recovery stretches back years before he joined the company as an employee. He first visited the San Leandro office as a local high school student on a field trip and returned as an industrial engineering major at California State University, East Bay, for a school project, which then led to an internship. He was already very familiar with the company when he was hired full-time as a Health, Safety, Environment (HSE) engineer, and with demonstrated experience in Smartsheet and Power BI, he set to work on creating centralized and accessible data visualization dashboards for the HSE team including waste, incident reporting, and safety inspections.
Shaun took personal initiative to work across multiple departments to implement new digital recordkeeping systems, which he then compiled into an aggregated dashboard that allows us to visualize our progress at a glance and identify areas where we could improve, such as alumina waste disposal. The dashboards also keep track of our safety, facilities, and sustainability reporting system, creating a streamlined workflow to respond to all employee suggestions and feedback.
It’s satisfying to see the improvements that have come from this dashboard. Having the data on hand makes it much easier to communicate the need for certain improvements and demonstrate the value of a proposed project. With the alumina waste, we knew we could be doing better but having the data gave us that extra motivation to look for and implement a solution. If there’s a way that we can operate more efficiently, that’s beneficial for the whole company.
Shaun Casuat
Employee Spotlight
Pawandeep Aujla
Talent Acquisition Manager
When Talent Acquisition Manager Pawandeep Aujla joined Energy Recovery at the end of 2022, she took the initiative to formalize the company’s summer internships and grow them into a fully-fledged cross-functional program, giving interns a memorable learning experience.
Under Pawandeep’s guidance internships shifted to a project-based focus, with each intern assigned a tangible objective that aligns with the company’s ongoing business goals. Projects in summer 2023 included digitizing the company’s manuals, developing waste reduction protocols, and improving the efficiency of our R&D test loops. This approach provides interns with a hands-on, results-driven learning experience that clearly demonstrates their skills and actively contributes to Energy Recovery’s overall strategy. Interns came together at the end of the summer with their teams for a “Presentation Day” to celebrate their progress, share their learnings, and collaborate cross-functionally.
Beyond direct work experience, Pawandeep curated activities to cultivate camaraderie and networking among the interns, who were spread across different teams. These social activities encouraged interns to integrate in the company culture and made the work environment more welcoming to students new to the corporate environment.
An internship is a stepping stone for students and new grads to develop and learn the skills they need to start their career. I want them to leave with an experience that they will remember, whether it is a valuable lesson they learned, a mentor, or a hands-on skill that they can look back on.
Pawandeep Aujla
Employee Spotlight
Mo Mojadedi
Office Operations Coordinator
On a routine job walk, Mo quickly implemented the Stop Work Authority policy when he stumbled upon a group of contractors using a ladder that was too small for the task at hand. By jumping into action and insisting they procure the properly sized ladder, Mo prevented a potential serious accident or injury.
Anything that is done here has to be done in a safe manner, and all of our company training reinforces this. We want to do business the safe way, not the fastest way.
Mo Mojadedi