Sustainability

Sustainability Vision

At Tennant Company, sustainability is intimately tied to our core value of stewardship and vision: helping create a cleaner, safer, and healthier world. Sustainability applies to both how we operate our business and the products we design and sell. We are uniquely positioned in that our products help our customers improve the lives of people and reduce the impacts of cleaning on the environment.

A sustainable business has the ability to:

• Develop the capacity to endure good times as well as bad
• Overcome resource constraints
• Adapt to escalating materials costs
• Respond transparently to stakeholder priorities and concerns

Core Value Stewardship

Our core value of stewardship embodies sustainability. Stewardship is about the responsible management of resources people, profits, and planet so that future generations can enjoy the same privileges we do today. The goal of our sustainability initiative is to make Tennant Company one that both endures and prospers as an organization and helps others do so as well.

Sustainability Focus

Tennant's Sustainability journey, guided by a strategy to focus on areas where we can make the most significant difference:

• Designing high quality cleaning products
• Reducing energy and emission
• Reducing waste
• Improving the lives of people with whom we interact.

Changing the Way the World Cleans

Developing products and solutions that help create clean, safe and healthy places in environmentally responsible ways.

Tennant's Cleaning Revolution

Tennant Company's sustainability vision is rooted in a commitment to transform the cleaning industry by developing products and technologies that protect human health while minimizing environmental consequences.

More than 6 billion pounds of chemicals are used every year in the cleaning industry many from scarce, non-renewable resources. Tennant is committed to doing what it can to reduce the impact of those chemicals on the planet and on the health of individuals who come in contact with them.

Our current approach to sustainable products is twofold:

• Continuously evaluating opportunities to improve efficiencies and limit waste with our existing products
• Developing new, high-performance solutions that minimize environmental impacts and benefit human health

Conserving resources to preserve our planet

Our goal is to reduce all forms of energy we use and emissions generated, globally applying best energy management practices and holding employees accountable for conservation.

Strategy

Energy is a rising cost both environmentally and economically. Tennant's energy strategy involves a combination of energy efficiency and conservation measures in both our internal operations and the way we design our products.

Conservation Initiatives for 2010-2011

• Lighting retrofit at Tennant's Holland, Michigan plant
• Installation of occupancy sensors that automatically turn off lights when the space is not in use reducing our annual lamp usage by 2,000 hours at Tennant's Minneapolis plant
• Replaced 750 metal halide lamps with 208 watt high-bay fluorescents in our Minneapolis production area and warehouses

Results of Energy Audits

• Electrical consumption reduced by an estimated 1,068,000 kilowatt hours per year
• Overall annual savings of $72,000
• New fluorescent bulbs have increased foot candles to the work surface from 39 to 83 lumens on average.

Lightening Our Load

We seek to reduce the materials we bring into our facilities while also increasing the percentage of solid waste we recycle. We employ a "Reduce Reuse Recycle" approach to our waste management policies and practices, and prioritize materials reduction at the source whenever possible.

Manufacturing Efficiencies

At Tennant, we are continuously looking for new ways to improve efficiency, reduce cost, and decrease environmental impacts in our manufacturing processes.

Take a look at some of the changes we have made as a company:

• Elimination of excess inventory and overall improvement in operator movement and productivity
• Improvement of output and flow of the plant
• Reduction of internal use of shipping pallets by approximately 50 percent
• Reduction of unnecessary costs in our fabrication department by approximately 40 percent since 2007
• Shift to orders in made in real-time, based on actual customer demand.

With the launch of "DigiTools," Tennant's sales representatives can now use customizable templates to develop online or hard copy materials. Moving to an "on-demand" printing environment has eliminated a significant amount of the waste.

As a result of our combined efforts, Tennant was able to reduce annual marketing printing costs by 54% since 2008.

Creating a cleaner, safer world to live, work and play

Dedicated to improving the lives of the people we touch and the communities in which we do business.

The success of all four of Tennant Company's sustainability pillars depends heavily on its people. Tennant's commitment to people is underscored by a desire to improve the lives of everyone who comes in contact with our company or products:

1. Employees: We strive to make Tennant a great place to work by continuously engaging with our employees to identify opportunities to improve their job and workplace satisfaction.
2. Customers: We work tirelessly to enhance the customer experience by providing the highest possible quality products to improve the health and safety of their environments.
3. Community: We have a proven history of actively cultivating community connections through the work of our Foundation and employee volunteerism programs. When we thrive, our communities thrive.

Employee Engagement

In 2008, Tennant Company launched a global program to provide employees with the opportunity to provide feedback to improve their employment experience. In response to the survey, Tennant Company has implemented changes to enhance employees' overall experience and workplace satisfaction, including:

• A renewed focus on employee communications
• An expanded employee rewards and recognition program
• Improvements to training and development programs