Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability is a large part of Centene’s day-to-day business operations. From the energy-efficient buildings that house our operations to enterprise-wide recycling initiatives, and now, our hybrid and remote work culture, Centene cares about protecting the environment.

Employees and Environmental Stewardship

Centene employees at the American Rivers cleanup initiative Environmental sustainability is a large part of Centene’s day-to-day business operations. We pursue opportunities to minimize our impact on the environment. From the energy-efficient buildings that house our operations to enterprise-wide recycling initiatives, and now, hybrid and remote work culture, Centene cares about protecting our environment.

Centene partners with local communities, nonprofit organizations and other businesses to create positive environmental impact. As part of the Centene Foundation’s partnership with American Rivers, an organization that protects rivers and conserves clean water, Centene employees have opportunities to demonstrate environmental stewardship. In 2022, employees collected litter during the Protect Our Planet Virtual Cleanup Challenge. Participants explored their neighborhoods to clean up litter from sidewalks, parks, and waterways, and then uploaded photos of each piece of litter into a record-keeping system in a mobile app. Additionally, employees in Sacramento, California, supported the American Rivers National River Cleanup® initiative by collecting more than 1,200 pounds of trash from Discovery Park, which is where the American River meets the Sacramento River.

Eco-Friendly Facility Operations

As part of the adoption of a more modern, flexible work environment in 2022, we began reducing our real estate footprint by establishing strategically located talent hubs in communities we serve. The talent hub locations are designed to support enhanced workforce flexibility for improved in-office work, collaboration, and engagement among our teams. A result of our enhanced workforce flexibility is a reduction in daily employee commuting and the need for physical office space, which both lead to lower emissions and energy consumption.

St. Louis, MO

The campus of Centene’s global headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, features one LEED Gold Certified building with a vegetated roof and over 22,000 square feet of native plantings. The rooftop green space reduces storm water runoff while decreasing energy consumption and reducing the heat island effect.

Sustainable Partnerships

EcoServ by InstallNET

When making facility changes or office downsizing, Centene works with programs like InstallNET's EcoServ to resell, reuse, and recycle office furniture for buildings or office spaces no longer in use. With the activation of talent hubs and office space reductions throughout 2022, the EcoServ team has helped Centene divert over a million pounds* of waste from landfills.

_{*According to EcoServ's Program Impact Report for January-December 2022}

Guckenheimer

Summit Bistro at Centene Plaza Centene's Bistro Cafés offer a full range of nutritional meal options that support human health and sustainable high performance, from the farm to the fork.

The connection between food, health, and the environment is evident.

Centene provides high-quality dining and catering services at several of its office locations across the U.S. Employees enjoy healthy meal selections for breakfast and lunch and delicious and nutritional catering options for meetings and special events.

Centene's food service partner, Guckenheimer, sources food locally, in-season, and organically whenever possible.
Each café prioritizes the use of a full line of eco-friendly plates and utensils, reusable or 100% compostable.
Guckenheimer also uses eco-effective systems to convert waste into renewable resources, such as turning food scraps into compost for local farms and converting cooking oils and grease into biofuels.
One building on our St. Louis campus initiated a compost tracking system in 2021 and logged an estimated 21,000 pounds of composted waste during the tracking period through our food waste diversion program.

Centene understands that health is driven by the conditions in which we were born, grow, live, work, and age. Sustainability forms a key part of our work in social responsibility. Watch the video below to find out more about our work in sustainability along with our other social responsibility focus areas.