Waste Connections Cares… Cares About Our Employees and Their Families, Customers and Communities, Sustainability, Diversity and Inclusion, and Shareholders
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2020 ANNUAL REPORT 2020 ANNUAL REPORT ENVIRONMENTAL OUR VISION Our goal is to create an environment where self-directed, empowered Committed to environmental stewardship and employees strive to consistently fulfill our constituent commitments the advancement of new technologies. and seek to create positive impacts through interactions with customers, communities, and fellow employees, always relying on our Operating Values as the foundation for our existence. SOCIAL OUR PURPOSE Investing in our people by enhancing safety, Honoring our commitments provides our stakeholders peace of mind training and inclusion; supporting communities and establishes us as the premier waste services company in the through charitable programs. markets we serve. This creates a safe and rewarding environment for our employees while protecting the health and welfare of the GOVERNANCE communities we serve, thereby increasing value for our shareholders. Maintaining sound governance policies that align the interests of shareholders with the Board and Management. LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS Waste Connections Cares… cares about our employees and their families, customers and communities, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and shareholders. often share our belief that culture, values and human capital are our greatest assets and instrumental in delivering differentiated results. This belief guided We our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which focused on reducing employee concerns regarding income, healthcare and family obligations in order to provide continuity of service, a bit of normalcy for our customers, and superior operating and financial results. Waste Connections delivered another year of strong operating and financial performance in 2020, in spite of the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. The strength of our performance, continued improvements in safety and voluntary turnover, increased employee engagement, above average acquisition activity, and our advancement of objectives to both enhance sustainability and promote diversity and inclusion in 2020, all reflect our culture and values, and the efforts of every Waste Connections employee, whether in the field, in an office or working remotely. More importantly, we provided a differentiated level of employee and family support to address the year’s unprecedented health, economic and social challenges. Waste Connections Cares about our Employees and their Families, Customers and Communities From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognized that as an essential services provider, our communities would count on us, and we on each other, to honor our commitments. As such, protecting the health, safety and welfare of our employees was our top priority. Recognizing the potential for financial hardship and other challenges, we provided a safety net for our employees on issues of income and family health through the addition of over $35 million in discretionary spending primarily directed to frontline employee support through supplemental pay and bonuses. We covered COVID-19-related testing and medical costs, expanded and extended access to medical benefits, and provided wages for those with childcare issues. We also proactively raised our targeted minimum wage to $15 per hour, above many state and provincial requirements. To support and protect our employees, we established protocols and implemented operational changes focused on the health and safety of our employees and achieved seamless transitions to remote work environments for customer service representatives and other support personnel. Through these efforts, we enabled our employees to make the right decisions about the health of their families and the well-being of their colleagues, which resulted in continuity of service to the communities we have the privilege to serve. 2020 ANNUAL REPORT 1 In addition, we expanded our Employee Relief Fund for those experiencing financial hardship TOTAL SHAREHOLDER RETURNS : 184.2% and launched the Waste Connections Scholarship Program to assist our employees’ children in 184.2% pursuing their educational goals. We introduced new technologies to increase employee connectivity and engagement, particularly important during pandemic-imposed distancing. We also recognized the needs of the communities where we live and work, increasing our level 103.0% 104.4% of charitable support to assist food banks, families at risk, and organizations with a focus on addressing racial inequities at a local or national level, providing meals for healthcare workers 72.8% and higher risk populations, and donating critical personal protective equipment. We are so grateful for the expressions of gratitude, recognition and support for our essential worker employees from customers and communities as they recognize the role of our essential services in providing a sense of normalcy and certainty during unsettled times. TSX 60 S&P 500 DJ Waste Waste Index Connections Waste Connections Cares about Sustainability 5-Year Period ended 12/31/2020 At Waste Connections, environmental stewardship through sustainability initiatives has always been integral to and consistent with our strategy and focus on long-term value creation for our shareholders. In 2020, we published expanded disclosure around our Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) efforts in our 2020 Sustainability Report, which includes long-term, aspirational targets and our commitment of over $500 million over fifteen years for investments to meet or exceed our targets. We view ESG as an avenue for growth with attractive returns and CASH DIVIDENDS PER SHARE: 16.6% CAGR operational benefits. Advancing sustainability by generating additional offsets to our emissions, increasing resource recovery and on-site water management, continuing improvement to our safety $ 0.76 record, voluntary turnover and Servant Leadership scores is core to who we are at Waste Connections. $ 0.67 $ 0.58 Waste Connections Cares about Promoting Diversity and Inclusion $ 0.50 Waste Connections is a signatory to the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, the largest $ 0.41 CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion (“D&I”) within the workplace. We are committed to building and developing diverse teams that function in an environment of mutual respect, where employees feel valued, empowered to contribute and positioned for success. To this end, we have undertaken several purposeful initiatives, including the 2019 introduction of a formal Diversity Policy for our Board of Directors and Senior 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Management with aspirational targets for female Board representation, and the publication of additional disclosure on the composition of our workforce. In 2020, we furthered our efforts to incorporate D&I into our Servant Leadership training, focused our leadership summit on 5-Year Period ended 12/31/2020 understanding and mitigating unintended biases, incorporated D&I into assessments of managers by their employees, and enhanced our recruiting practices. We also supported the development and expansion of employee resource groups including our Women’s Network and Veterans’ S.E.R.V.E. Network. Waste Connections Cares about our Shareholders For shareholders, 2020 marked Waste Connections’ 17th consecutive year of positive total shareholder returns, with double-digit percentage returns, and our tenth consecutive year of double-digit percentage increases in our cash dividend. Our comparative performance over the five-year period ending December 31, 2020, continued to outperform sector and market indices. 2020 Results Given the COVID-19-related challenges we were able to overcome, 2020 was another remarkable year for Waste Connections, demonstrating the resilience of our business model and the benefits of a culture built on trust and accountability, as well as caring. COVID-19-driven shutdowns and other restrictions on business activity in many markets negatively impacted commercial solid waste and E&P waste activity beginning in Q2, with high decremental margins. In spite of these impacts and over $35 million in discretionary costs for employee support, revenue increased to 2 WASTE CONNECTIONS, INC. $5.446 billion in 2020, with adjusted EBITDA* of $1.662 billion, or 30.5% of revenue. Adjusted free cash flow* in the year was $841.9 million, or 15.5% of revenue and 50.7% of adjusted EBITDA*. Voluntary turnover declined 18% in 2020, and safety-related incident rates decreased 12%, with over 60% of our operating locations either posting zero safety-related incidents or driving year-over-year improvements. Our Total Recordable Injury Rate ended the year at less than half the industry average. We deployed approximately $1.05 billion for capital expenditures and acquisitions to reinvest in and expand our business and returned over $305 million to our shareholders through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. Our approximately $664.6 million in capital expenditures included $67.5 million for undeveloped landfill property, as we capitalized on attractive opportunities to preposition ourselves for future growth. To that end, we also completed 21 acquisitions in 2020 with approximately $180 million in annualized revenue encompassing new market entries or market expansions in 16 states in the U.S., including Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Tennessee, and Washington, and in Ontario, Canada. We ended 2020 with over $600 million of cash, $1.8 billion in liquidity, and the lowest leverage ratio among our large cap industry peers. We maintained