April 28, 2023

This paid piece is sponsored by POET.

For 35 years, POET has lived out its mission to be good stewards of the Earth by utilizing the sun, the soil and the seed to produce clean energy and valuable bioproducts.

“From the beginning, sustainability and environmental stewardship have been core to our business and central tenets of our culture,” said Nathan Hay, vice president of people and culture. “Our team members work each day to benefit the Earth through low-carbon biofuels and plant-based bioproducts that are produced in sync with nature, and their passion for changing the world tends to extend far beyond just their day jobs.”

On Thursday, POET hosted its third annual Earth Day litter cleanup in Sioux Falls. Though it was delayed a week because of weather, nearly 120 team members volunteered to participate in the efforts at Fawick, Beadle and Tower parks and Drake Springs Family Aquatic Center.

While a majority of the volunteers collected trash in the parks, several helped with maintenance projects like clearing weeds and putting up the windscreen along the fence at Drake Springs. POET coordinated the event with Sioux Falls city officials, who arranged to dispose of the collected trash and recyclables.

“Our POET team is proud to call Sioux Falls home,” said Alyssa Broin, vice president of team and community impact. “We’re always looking for ways to get involved, and Earth Day is a great, hands-on way to live out our mission in the community. We have incredible team members, and it’s inspiring to see them take pride in leaving our city a little better than it was yesterday.”

And Sioux Falls isn’t the only POET location celebrating Earth Day; each year, POET hosts a companywide Earth Day volunteer event, with participation across its 33 bioprocessing facilities and its corporate offices in Sioux Falls and Wichita, Kansas.

A few other highlights from the many Earth Day activities across the POET’s network include:

• POET’s Wichita office volunteered to assist with planting a local farm and rooftop garden that donates produce to school lunch programs.
• POET Bioprocessing – Hudson visited the local elementary school to hold an Earth Day-themed coloring contest and gave a brief presentation discussing POET’s sustainability initiatives and why it is important to care for the Earth.
• POET Bioprocessing – Fostoria, Ohio, organized a community cleanup event that garnered participation from numerous local businesses and the Fostoria Fire Department.

“At POET, we strive to live like it’s Earth Day every day,” Broin said. “We want to leave behind a better world. This is just one small way we’re working to make that happen – but we know firsthand that small changes can make a big difference in the long run.”

To learn more about POET’s sustainability efforts, visit poet.com/sustainability.