From Lighting to Leadership
What began as a simple customer request has transformed into a powerful business differentiator for manufacturing company Beekley Corporation, headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. Beekley’s journey from earning the bronze Ecovadis medal to participating in GreenGain and embedding sustainability across operations reveals how small manufacturers can turn environmental initiatives into a tangible competitive advantage.
A few years ago, Beekley Corporation began to take incremental sustainability steps that were focused on operational efficiency. “We started small a number of years ago by replacing our incandescent lighting with LEDs and installing automatic switches, first in our manufacturing facility and then in our offices,” recalls Maureen Gallo, President.
They deepened their commitment when Candice Leblanc, Senior Director of Beekley’s Prestige Lane hospitality division, received a request from a major customer asking the company to complete an Ecovadis sustainability assessment. But rather than viewing the assessment as a compliance checkbox, company leadership saw an opportunity.
They hired a consultant to help navigate the comprehensive survey, and the results surprised them — the company earned a bronze medal right out of the gate.
“We were doing more than we realized,” Gallo explains. “From there, we decided to get serious about this journey because we’re competitive and we want to keep improving.”
Building Infrastructure for Impact
Beekley’s competitive drive and a clear business case led to systematic changes. The company incorporated sustainability goals into corporate objectives. Then, they established a cross-functional sustainability committee with representatives from top management, manufacturing, engineering, procurement, regulatory, and hospitality divisions.
The committee used the gap analysis from their Ecovadis assessment as a roadmap to identify opportunities across the organization. Kate B. Chase, Director of Quality and Regulatory, who leads the sustainability committee, notes that the company recently launched a greenhouse gas emissions tracking program, demonstrating their commitment to measuring what matters.
Turning Investment into Advantage
Beekley jumped at the opportunity to join the GreenGain program which provided sustainability training, mentorship and voucher funds to purchase two environmentally friendly plate printing machines. The new plate making equipment eliminated one of the facility’s few remaining sources of hazardous waste, dramatically reduced water consumption, and reduced energy consumption of operating the equipment by ninety percent.
The old paper plate system had been generating significant waste with every start and stop of the machine. The new process streamlined operations while removing environmentally hazardous chemicals from the production environment entirely. This modernization has been an operational and environmental breakthrough for a company operating since 1934.
Where Sustainability Meets the Bottom Line
Beekley’s commitment to sustainability has been validated in their conversations with customers. “As contracts are coming up for renewal, sustainability is a hot topic – and now we have a lot to say,” Gallo reports.
What started as a response to one customer’s inquiry has become a competitive differentiator across their customer base. In procurement negotiations and contract renewals, Beekley can now demonstrate concrete progress such as reduced hazardous waste, lower energy consumption, third-party validation through Ecovadis, and systematic tracking of environmental impacts such as carbon.
Lessons for Mid-Size Manufacturers
Beekley’s approach offers a roadmap for small manufacturers:
Prepare for the evolution. Large buyers are increasingly targeting Scope 3 emissions, which means supplier emissions—especially from manufacturers—are under the microscope, and sustainability criteria are being built into supplier scorecards and RFPs.
Start with what you’re already doing. Many companies underestimate their existing sustainability efforts. A formal assessment can reveal hidden strengths and provide a baseline for improvement.
Make it cross-functional. Sustainability touches every department. Bringing together diverse perspectives helps identify opportunities that siloed teams might miss and ensures initiatives align with operational realities.
Leverage available resources. Financing programs such as Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) can provide flexible and affordable up-front capital for green property improvements. Explore technical assistance and incentives through university partnerships, utility companies and state programs to reduce the cost and complexity of sustainability initiatives. Participate in programs like GreenGain.
Connect improvements to business operations. The best investments are often those that also improve efficiency, reduce waste, enhance safety, or streamline processes. Connecting to business outcomes such as customer satisfaction and competitiveness in RFPs are also powerful levers.
The Path Forward
Beekley’s Ecovadis bronze medal was just the beginning, they are already working toward silver. More importantly, continuous improvement is an intricate part of how they operate.
Beekley’s sustainability journey provides key insights for manufacturers encountering new sustainability requirements from customers, board members and investors demonstrating that sustainability investments can become strategic business advantages, rather than compliance burdens. Beekley is moving beyond reactive responses, to build systematic capabilities that create value in customer relationships, operational efficiency, and employee engagement.
When contracts come up for renewal and customers ask about sustainability, the question isn’t whether you’ll have something to say—it’s whether what you say will set you apart from competitors who are still figuring out where to start.