ESG reports cover a company's environmental, social and governance record, and your waste counts under environmental. To make it count, weigh what you throw away, then send less of it to landfill. The six steps below build that measurement, and it must catch bad news too. At a retail mall client, the Q2 2026 report showed recycling falling from 6.7% in April to 3.2% in June. The figures are published with the client's permission.
Each of the six steps produces a record you can check
| Step | The record it produces | A real example |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Waste audit | A baseline: the weight of each waste type, and where it goes today | Pangsapuri Optimus: months of records showed trips made against half-empty bins. Its monthly bill fell 20–30% |
| 2. Goals | One target, written against the baseline, with a date | Meewah recycles 8% today. Lifting that rate is its next target |
| 3. The 5Rs (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, recover) | Tonnes by route: recycled, and sent to landfill | Signature Market kept 68.598 of 93.09 tonnes out of landfill in 2025: 73.69% |
| 4. Technology | For every pickup: a photo, a timestamp and the weight | CCL Impex checks each collection's weight line by line. Recycling rose from 1–2 to 5–6 tonnes a month |
| 5. Your people | A label at every bin, and one figure shared each month | A retail mall client's report named what to check: cardboard and metal going into the general bins |
| 6. Monitor and report | A monthly or quarterly report, with each sum written out | The same report, for June 2026: 1.31 t ÷ (40.02 t + 1.31 t) = 3.2% recycled, down from 6.7% in April |
Every example is a real client record, and each named client links to its case study. They are single sites, not a forecast for yours.
The mall's quarter is the honest case. In its Q2 2026 report, waste sent to landfill rose from 33.50 tonnes in April to 40.02 tonnes in June. Recycling fell each month, from 6.7% to 4.1% to 3.2%, and the report said so.
The same report shows on-time collection rising from 81.0% in April to 95.3% in June. That month, 41 of 43 pickups arrived on the promised day. A system that measures shows both.
The GRI waste standard asks for three figures, all by weight
The GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) standards are a common rulebook for sustainability reports. The GRI waste standard asks for waste generated, waste diverted from disposal (reused, recycled or recovered) and waste directed to disposal. Each is a total weight in tonnes. So bin counts and invoices will not do. Your system has to weigh every pickup and record where it went.
Only some companies must report, and the steps suit all of them
Only listed companies, and non-listed companies with annual revenue of RM2 billion and above, must file a sustainability report. Our guide to ESG in Malaysia shows which group you are in. If you are listed, our Bursa sustainability reporting guide covers what to disclose on waste.
A supplier to one of those companies may be asked for the same figures. So the steps are worth running either way. If you run several sites, one partner for collection, recycling and reporting keeps every site's record in the same form.
Step 1: Conduct a Comprehensive Waste Audit
Weigh what you throw away, by type, at each site. Weigh it rather than count bins: a bin of cardboard and a bin of food waste look alike and weigh very different amounts. The result is your baseline, and every later step is measured against it. Our waste audit guide has the method and a blank baseline table.
Step 2: Set Clear, Measurable Goals
Pick one figure from your baseline, then write down where you want it and by when. One line is enough: recycle ____% of our waste by ____, up from ____% today. Set it from your own baseline, not from another company's headline. The measured rates in the table run from 3.2% to 73.69%, so a borrowed target means little.
Step 3: Implement the 5R Hierarchy
The 5Rs rank what to do with waste, best first.
- Refuse what you do not need, such as extra packaging.
- Reduce what you use.
- Reuse what you can, such as returnable crates.
- Recycle what is left: paper, cardboard, plastic and metal.
- Recover energy or material from what cannot be recycled.
For most businesses the first gain is recycling: keep each material apart at the bin, so nothing needs sorting later. What is left still goes to landfill, so weigh that too. One caution for your report: the GRI waste standard lists incineration with energy recovery under disposal, not diversion.
Step 4: Use Technology and Innovation
The tool matters less than the record it keeps. For every pickup you need three things: a photo, a timestamp and the weight. If the disposal site issues a weighbridge receipt, keep it with them. GarGeon Connect, our online portal, logs those three things at each pickup, then adds them up by site and by month.
Step 5: Engage and Educate Stakeholders
This step is your own team's work. Show the people who use the bins which material goes where, with a label at every bin. Give managers one figure each month, so that someone owns it. To make the case to them first, see why waste management matters to a business.
Step 6: Monitor, Report, and Continuously Improve
Read the figures every month and report them every quarter. A good report writes each sum out, so anyone can redo it. It also prints the months that went the wrong way. Our guides to waste data for ESG reports and waste management KPIs list what to record and how to work out each figure.
GarGeon supplies the audit, the pickup records and the report
We start with a free waste audit. It takes about a week: a site visit, then your baseline within days. After that, each pickup is logged with a photo, a timestamp and the weight.
Our sustainability reporting service turns those records into a monthly or quarterly report. Your waste data is exported in a form you can use in GRI, SASB or TCFD reports. All three are international frameworks for sustainability reporting.
GarGeon works through licensed collectors across KL, Selangor and Johor. If you keep your own collectors, you still get one dashboard and one report. Book a Consultation and we will start with the audit at your busiest site.
