Store Brands Decisions, in collaboration with GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), today is presenting “Sustainability for Store Brands Packaging. Store Brands Decisions
Month: February 2012
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Action in the Classroom
The Green Cup Energy Challenge was a friendly competition and group conservation effort to measure and reduce electricity use and greenhouse gas emissions. Over the January/February utility billing cycles, 166 schools from 22 states reduced their energy demands by over 5% from the average use in the previous three years. This effort saved over 1 million kWh equating to over 1.5 million pounds of CO2 emissions. When also considering the educational experience, this challenge is providing incredible benefits.
There was also a video portion of this challenge which produced some great results. The winning video (decided by popular demand) is below.
Have you noticed any of the new package recycling labels? Some manufacturers are voluntarily using the labels in an effort to make recycling easier. One of the biggest problems with the status quo labels is related to plastics — specifically, complaints from consumers and recyclers who say many people don’t understand the chasing arrows resin ID codes. The new Package Recovery Label System was developed for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Plastics News
Starting in June, observant consumers at Costco warehouse stores will notice new recycling labels on the cans, bottles, bags, overwrap and boxes for some 12 Kirkland Signature private-label items…The labels are an ambitious test of the voluntary Packaging Recovery Label System being piloted by a handful of companies this year, with the goal of eventually becoming an industry standard. Supermarket News
I recently came across Mandy Barker’s photography exhibit, SOUP, a series of photographs of plastic debris salvaged from beaches around the world. It’s a stunning look at the problem of marine debris. Take a look at the beautiful images that will hopefully inspire some greater action to tackle this enormous problem.
All images: Mandy Barker Photography, SOUP
In just over two months, GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition will host over 300 sustainability professionals for the packaging event of the year. We’ve just announced this year’s agenda, an exciting lineup of speakers with sessions ranging from envisioning a world without packaging waste to millennials, social media, and packaging. We hope you will consider joining us in Toronto on April 23-25!
Meeting Information and Registration
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Recycle Runway – Red Carpet Ready?
I was connecting through the Atlanta airport last week and noticed the Recycle Runway special exhibit as I moved between terminals. Atlanta is the country’s busiest airport, with over 43 million passenger boardings in 2010, so I imagine a lot of you have seen the exhibit as well.
Recycle Runway is the work of artist and environmental educator Nancy Judd. It features clothing—dresses, coats, shoes, and hats—made from discarded materials, such as yellow police crime scene tape, pieces of aluminum cans, and plastic grocery and dry cleaner bags. A piece commissioned by Delta Airlines entitled “The Environmental Steward-ess” was made completely of discarded items from a plane, including worn leather seat covers, Delta magazines and safety cards, old plane tickets, airplane blankets, and even pretzel wrappers.
I love fashion and I freely admit that two guilty pleasures of mine are watching shows like Project Runway and reading fashion magazines when I am on plane trips, so this exhibit caught my eye as I passed. The “Jellyfish Dress” in particular started me thinking. The dress’s skirt is meant to resemble the tentacles of a jellyfish and, if you didn’t know to look closely, you might never realize it was made of plastic bags.
My first thought was “no one would actually wear those on the red carpet!” I had visions of an environmentally-intentioned starlet in the midst of a Björk-swan-dress disaster or one of those wacky Project Runway challenges where they have to make a dress out of lettuce or pet supplies. Could creating fashion out of discarded materials truly be a viable, widespread option for reducing waste to landfill and getting the most use from the materials we use? Will these types of recycled material dresses ever be publicly embraced and a common sight at proms, weddings, and movie premieres across the country? I just couldn’t imagine it.
Then I realized: though we definitely need more waste recovery solutions, the point of Recycle Runway isn’t to be realistic and wearable. The point is not to divert materials from landfill to supply clothes to a recycled-fashion store at every mall across the country. The point is to be outrageous and grab attention. The Jellyfish Dress might not appear on the red carpet at the Oscar Awards later this month, but it definitely raises awareness about plastic marine debris. And that goes a long way towards educating people to think twice about the materials they buy and discard.
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Top Five Fun Facts: February
Eric DesRoberts continues his monthly series of facts and tidbits he’s uncovered during his research to better understand products and packaging. You can also check out his past Fun Facts here.
1. Thirty- two million kids participate in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs. Though I haven’t had a chance to read through the 280-page document, the Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs are said to increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grains. Expect to see more sauce stains.
2. The US installed enough turbines to generate roughly 6,810 MW of energy in 2011. Cumulative US wind capacity is just below 47,000 MW. One MW can power approximately 250 homes for a year. These pictures are from a recent Essentials of Sustainable Packaging course road trip that drove past a wind farm and a nearby storage location for turbine parts.
3. Making a 0.07 ounce microchip uses 66 pounds of material. Some of which are toxins, flame retardants, and chlorinated solvents.
4. Novo Nordisk, a company out of Denmark, was ranked the number 1 company on the Global 100 sustainability list. Life Technologies Corp was the highest ranking US company rounding out the top 15.
5. The Greeting Card Association estimates 150 million greeting cards were sold for Valentine’s Day in the US. I can’t remember too many greeting cards I’ve purchased or received. So much for those lasting impressions.
There’s been a lot of talk around the office lately about what the next decade has in store for the sustainability movement. One trend we’ve discussed is the development of new corporate structures that make it easier for businesses to pursue social and environmental good. There’s been a lot of media focus recently on Benefit Corporations (or B Corps), especially as Patagonia recently became the first company in California to elect this new corporate status. B Corps are required by law to create a positive social impact, in addition to profits for their shareholders, by taking into consideration how all their business decisions impact their employees, the community, and the environment.
Less discussed is another similar social enterprise structure emerging in the United States: the low-profit limited liability company, also known as the L3C. Could this new corporate model help advance more businesses toward sustainability in the coming years?
Similar to B Corp designation, the L3C framework is a new way of for businesses to be more socially and environmentally responsible without sacrificing their immediate bottom line. The L3C is a hybrid between the nonprofit and for-profit models in that it is essentially a profit-generating entity with a socially beneficial mission. Like an LLC corporation, L3Cs have the same liability protection and are not tax-exempt; however L3Cs have access to forms of capital that traditional corporations don’t qualify for, all in order to further social and environmental goals. Americans for Community Development describe the L3C as a company that “combines the best features of a for-profit LLC with the socially beneficial aspects of a nonprofit… the for-profit with a nonprofit soul.”
More specifically, philanthropic sources of funding, such as foundations, have the ability to invest in L3Cs through “Program Related Investments” (or PRI funds) and reap small returns (unlike with traditional grants) while still ensuring their tax-exempt status. Because foundations can invest in L3Cs and are willing to take on more financial risk in exchange for social returns (especially during the early stages of these ventures), the risk/return profile becomes much more attractive for traditional market-driven investors. The L3C structure is essentially a way to leverage market forces as an effective means of achieving social goals at scale that the more traditional nonprofit model may not be able to accomplish.
Currently, Vermont, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, and Wyoming are the only states that have enacted legislation allowing businesses to incorporate as L3C corporations, with additional legislation pending in other states. Maine’s Own Organic Milk Company (or MOOMilk), which promotes farm preservation in Maine while producing and distributing organic milk, is a great example of a new L3C business.
The impetus for B Corps, L3Cs, and other emerging corporate structures is the belief that current laws governing corporations may be too restrictive for the more socially-minded organizations interested in long-term sustainability investments, as they may not be able to meet their social goals while facing pressure from shareholders to achieve increasing profits quarter after quarter. While there are still many unanswered questions about these new types of businesses, such as how they will be monitored to ensure they are making a social impact, these enterprise models in which positive social and environmental outcomes can be coupled with attractive financial returns may ultimately prove to be an important mechanism to catalyze large-scale social transformation. It remains to be seen if these models will actually change the way businesses operate, however it is clear that a new type of corporation and a better way of doing business is needed if we are to transform our economy.
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Sustainable Energy for All
In January, the United Nations declared 2012 the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. The action calls on governments and the private sector to expand energy access, improve efficiency, and increase the use of renewables the world over. One person out of five—1.4 billion people—lack access to modern electricity, and twice that number still rely on wood, coal, charcoal, or animal waste for cooking and heating. “Sustainable energy for all is within our reach,” announced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. “It is the golden thread that connects economic growth, increased social equity, and preserving the environment.”
The concept of energy “for all” builds on the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, eight ambitious aims that connect poverty eradication with environmental sustainability. In industrialized nations, we tend to think of sustainable energy as a choice, for example, between a hybrid or combustion engine in our cars. In undeveloped regions, however, sustainable energy means the difference between life and death.
In 2008, for a book on design as activism, I outlined five principles for a more inclusive concept of sustainability that embraces the entire global community. In light of the UN’s new initiative, these seem worth revisiting.
Five Principles Toward a Humane Environment
1. People come first
The problem of the planet is first and foremost a human problem. To reverse the devastation of nature, reverse the devastation of culture. We can better the environment by bettering ourselves. The UN has set poverty eradication and universal health as the world community’s first priorities. Every industry has a responsibility and an opportunity to promote this goal.
2. Now comes before later
Definitions of sustainability focus on the future—the “seventh generation” rule. While we cannot squander our resources today and leave little for tomorrow, we also should not forget our responsibility to the generations currently occupying the earth. If the living do not survive, their heirs will never exist. The present cannot be sacrificed for the future.
3. More for more
Prosperity must be measured with all of humanity together. No one is completely settled if anyone is truly suffering. As Martin Luther King, Jr., put it, “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Or in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Though we are many bodies, we are but one soul.”
4. The triple bottom line is bottom up
Social justice may be defined as first helping those most in need. Social, economic, and ecological value must be built from the ground up, beginning with the most disadvantaged among us. “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,” said John F. Kennedy, “it cannot save the few who are rich.”
5. Nature knows no borders
In the age of global warming, national boundaries have little bearing on the most pressing problems. Natural and human communities transcend politics. American environmentalist Aldo Leopold wrote, “All ethics…rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.” We share one world.
