Casella Waste Systems, a regional solid waste, recycling and resource management services company, amended its existing $650 million credit facility that links borrowing costs to progress in achieving certain annual sustainability goals. The company also announced an amendment to its credit facility associated with the early adoption of Term SOFR as its reference rate, replacing LIBOR in advance of its anticipated cessation later this year.
“As a leading provider of resource management services, sustainability has been at the core of our business for the last 45-years,” John W. Casella, chairman and CEO of Casella Waste Systems, said. “The implementation of the sustainability-linked credit facility further strengthens the alignment of our business strategies with continued advances in sustainability.”
The company established the following two measurable key performance indicators as part of its sustainability-linked credit facility:
- Improving its safety performance by lowering its Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR)
- Growing its resource solutions business by reducing, reusing, or recycling more tons of solid waste material.
“We believe that the safety of our people is our number one priority as a team, and we are committed to continually improving the safety of our workforce,” Casella said. “Improving our TRIR metric through continued focus, training, and select investments, not only enhances our safety culture, but could also lead to increased employee engagement and retention of key operational roles.”
“As an enabler of the circular economy, our resource solutions team helps our customers in meeting sustainability goals, while simultaneously providing adequate returns in the business,” Casella said.
The performance of each of these metrics will be measured annually against targets established within the amended credit facility. The company’s interest rate margin may adjust on the drawn or undrawn portion of the credit facility’s revolver based on attainment or failure to attain each metric.
The credit facility is provided by a consortium of financial institutions with BofA Securities and TD Securities serving as sustainability coordinators.