Author: user

Categories
GreenBlue

Top Five Fun Facts: August

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. A recent Bureau of Labor Statistics finding showed that in 2011, the average US household spent more on pets ($502) annually than they did on alcohol ($456), landline phone bills ($381), or men and boys clothing ($404). Households comprised of only a husband and wife spent the highest amounts (just below $700).
2. Federal campaign rules allow Americans to make political candidates or committees the beneficiaries of their estates. Since Jan. 1, 2009, thirty-two people listed on federal campaign records as “deceased” have contributed more than $586,000 to congressional and presidential candidates and political parties.
3. August 12 marked the second annual World Elephant Day.  The street value of a single elephant tusk is approximately US$15,000 with the main market for illegal ivory being China. Poaching and habitat loss are two significant threats to Asian and African Elephants.

4. 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Almost 6 billion hours of YouTube are watched each month.
5. Earth Overshoot Day—the approximate date our resource consumption for a given year exceeds the planet’s ability to replenish – was believed to occur on August 22, 2012.  Since 2001, Earth Overshoot Day has occurred an average of three days earlier each year. Today, August 20, is Earth Overshoot Day 2013 and we have now consumed our annual resource allotment for 2013.

Categories
Sustainable Packaging Coalition

The “Plastic Numbers" Get a Makeover

Resin Identification Codes (RICs), also known as the “plastic numbers” or “recycling numbers,” are getting a makeover.

Contrary to popular belief, a RIC does not equal “recyclable.” RICs are plastic identification codes developed in 1988 by SPI. The goal of RICs was to assist recyclers in identifying materials. They were never intended as a consumer communication tool. However, consumers and local recycling programs quickly adapted to use the ubiquitous “recycling numbers,” even as consumer testing continues to show that RICs confuse consumers and they do not understand their meaning.

RICs became an ASTM International standard in 2008. ASTM uses industry consensus via subcommittees to develop standards.

To decouple resin identification from recycling labeling, ASTM International Subcommittee D20.95 on Recycled Plastics approved a switch from chasing arrows to a triangle.

But not so fast.

RICs are required by law in 39 states. Herein lies a speedbump. Each state writes statutes in its own way with its own requirements. Many specifically require numbers with chasing arrows and specific letters.

While the international standard changed, state laws did not. It may take some time before consumers see the change. Meanwhile, companies must navigate between fulfilling the different state statutes or following the new ASTM standard.

Concurrently, GreenBlue’s How2Recycle label continues to take off. How2Recycle is an on-package recycling label that helps companies provide clear recycling instructions to consumers. How2Recycle replaces RICs as a clearer first line of communication with consumers. We anticipate great growth and exciting announcements in the near future.

Categories
GreenBlue

David Suzuki takes a look at the link between toxic pesticides and dying bees

Check out David Suzuki’s excellent blog piece on the dramatic decline in honeybee populations.
It ties in really nicely with two recent In the Loop blog posts, one by Katherine O’Dea on the link between our food supply and honeybees, and the other posted by me about the challenges facing the honeybees on my farm.

Categories
Sustainable Packaging Coalition

CCF Brands and Ecologic Brands Join the How2Recycle Program

The How2Recycle labeling program is growing in popularity, and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition is thrilled to announce two new participants: CCF Brands and Ecologic Brands!

CCF Brands is the company that distributes eggs to Walmart under the familiar Great Day Farms label. CCF Brands has two types of cartons that will carry the How2Recycle label: a fiber carton and a foam carton. The fiber cartons, manufactured with either 100% recycled material or 100% reclaimed paper, will carry the “Widely Recycled” label, while the polystyrene foam cartons will receive the “Check Locally” label.

We have a double announcement for Ecologic Brands, as they have both joined the How2Recycle label and received the first license fee financial sponsorship for the “Store Drop-off” label. Ecologic Brands created the well-known eco.bottle that consists of an outer shell paper bottle made of recycled cardboard boxes and an inner plastic pouch. This inner pouch is made from LDPE plastic, one of the two polyethylene plastics (along with HDPE) accepted at thousands of drop-off locations nationwide, and will carry the How2Recycle “Store Drop-off” label.
As we mentioned in an earlier blog, the generosity of the ACC Flexible Film Recycling Group (FFRG) has made sponsorships available for new How2Recycle participants using the “Store Drop-off” label. Ecologic Brands is the first participant to have their License Fee offset by the sponsorship. There are still sponsorships available, so if your company has a product eligible for the “Store Drop-off” label, act fast to claim a sponsorship while the opportunity is still around!
CCF Brands and Ecologic Brands join the 13 other How2Recycle participants in the sustainability endeavor to improve recycling rates throughout the country. Interested in jumping on the bandwagon? Visit how2recycle.info for more information on the program and email Anne Bedarf to express your interest in using the label or apply for a sponsorship! 

Categories
Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Spotted: Aveda’s In-Store Message on Sustainable Packaging

I was at my local Aveda hair salon recently and spotted this shelf advertisement – touting not their product, but their packaging. Kudos to Aveda for making packaging sustainability part of their overall brand message! Coincidentally, we SPC staff have been talking around the office about the importance of brandowners telling their packaging sustainability story in a highly visible way as part of a good brand story. Has anyone seen other brands do something similar?

Categories
GreenBlue

Carbon Neutral Wine, Without Compromise

“What we’ve really tried to do here is produce great wine, which is something we are not willing to compromise on but do it slightly differently…” – Simon Back
The National Academy of Sciences expects climate change to shift wine producing regions over the next 40 years. While vineyards like Backsberg Estate in South Africa seek to prevent and mitigate some of these impacts, a red Bordeaux or a Napa Chardonnay may eventually be a thing of the past.
Backsberg Estate is South Africa’s first carbon neutral vineyard. As Living on Earth recently reported, Backsberg’s goal is to continue producing great wine, with a few adaptations. To reach this goal, Backsberg conducted a carbon audit on farming and winemaking activities. Some of their activities include planting trees for carbon sequestration, diversifying crops, and producing biodiesel on-site.
This climate shift could be bad news for my hometown of Charlottesville, VA. As part of the Monticello American Viticultural Area, local vineyards draw tourists and locals alike. Not only do we enjoy our Viogniers, but concerts and gatherings at local vineyards are a way of life. I wonder how our local varietals and wineries will be impacted?

Categories
GreenBlue

Making a Point for the Bees

There are many ways to get a point across. Many of us prefer a subtle approach that might include storytelling or dropping hints. Others like a more “in your face” approach, banging us over the head with a message in a way even the most disinterested can’t ignore. Then there is the approach of the Whole Foods market in Providence, Rhode Island. The produce department took one of the boldest approaches I’ve ever seen to illustrate the critical role bees or pollinators play in our natural, human, and business ecosystems. They emptied more than half of their produce bins, reducing product availability/choice by 52% to help consumers recognize what our produce choices without bees might look like if we don’t begin to reverse the decline in the world’s bee population. It’s a shame more businesses aren’t willing to put some profits on the line like that to drive home important sustainability messages related to their business and the risks of operating without a sustainability strategy.

More than 85% of the plant species on earth require bees and other pollinators to exist, and these plants include some of the most nutritious parts of our diet.

Categories
Eliminate Toxicity Recover More Sustainability Tools Sustainable Packaging Coalition

A Merging of Standards and Sustainability

In “At the Intersection of Standards and Sustainability,” published in the March/April 2013 issue of Standardization News, editor in chief Maryann Gorman wrote, “… modern development — manufacturing, infrastructure projects, building construction and so on — takes place in a vast and interconnected world of systems. Global supply chains, regional regulatory schemes and the emergence of integrated systems like intelligent highways and buildings mean that most materials are produced within overlapping economic, social, regulatory, environmental and material requirements. And it is at this intersection that standards and sustainability meet.”
For the packaging community, standardization for measurement of sustainability performance started its journey in 2009 with the release of GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition®-produced “Sustainable Packaging Indicators and Metrics Framework©.” The Framework synthesized the vast body of measurement literature into a core set of indicators relevant to the packaging supply chain. Then in 2011, the Consumer Goods Forum picked up this work and condensed the effort into the Global Protocol for Packaging Sustainability (GPPS 2.0), which provides a common language for packaging sustainability related measurements. Presently, the set of environmental attributes and life cycle indicators within GPPS are poised to be released into a global GS1 standard that will provide a platform for submitting and the sharing environmental measurements between producers and retailers in a consistent and unified manner.
The GS1 GDS-GPP Packaging Sustainability Standard is in review and comments phase and is scheduled for release this summer. With the rollout of this additional layer into GS1 standard platform, a producer can release sustainability-related data via the GS1 global trade item number (GTIN) barcode system, thus allowing buyers to gain access to those data without the producer having to fulfill multiple requests from buyers from different retailers for the same information. Such central data sharing will allow ease of communication along the supply chain and with luck, facilitate overall transparency, benchmarking, and tracking progress for product categories.
One clarification: the GS1 standard only standardizes the reporting and sharing of sustainability indicators related to a package based on its assigned barcode. It does not standardize the methods by which the measurements are calculated. That is a different conversation. Stay tuned for the standard’s release date this summer.

Categories
GreenBlue

30×30 Nature Challenge: The Challenge Within

On May 1, GreenBlue staff committed to participating in the David Suzuki Foundation’s 30×30 Nature Challenge to spend at least 30 minutes outside for 30 days in May. We can’t believe how the month flew by, but the unanimous reaction was that our outside time was beneficial and is likely the start of many new good habits. Here are a few of our group’s reactions to all that outside time:
Office Manager Keeby Ipsan:
When I first heard of the 30 x 30 challenge, I thought it was odd that people had to be challenged to get outside for 30 minutes every day for 30 days. How can people NOT be outside for at least 30 minutes every day? So, I thought this should be an easy challenge. The being outside part was easy. However, I found it a problem to blog (even small amounts) or post photos on a daily basis. I don’t normally carry my phone or camera while I’m working in the garden or walking the dogs. Mostly because I’m afraid they would be damaged in the process. But I did manage to get in enough photos to give others a glimpse into my daily outings. I have to give credit, in part, to my dogs for insisting on a daily routine walk. Such conscientious animals. The challenge did encourage the office staff to make the most of it with trips for gelato, ice cream, or frozen yogurt. Yeah! And we enjoyed taking chairs out under the trees for lunches and breaks. I think these excursions will continue, at least until it gets cold. The bigger challenge would be getting outside every day in January or February. Anyone up for snowball fights?
Project Associate Danielle Peacock:
Participating in 30×30 made me acutely aware and appreciative of the time I spend outside. While I try to make walks a part of my daily routine, the challenge pushed me to make time for myself outside every day. It was a chance to stretch my legs, garden, reflect, and brainstorm new ideas. 30×30 also gave me a chance to reflect on how my outside time positively impacts my life. Rainy days were the hardest, but gave me opportunities to take advantage of the rocking chairs on my porch. I’ve created a routine that I will continue.
Office Hound Dog Bernie the Beagle (selected daily musings, as transcribed by Senior Manager Minal Mistry):
May 4 – Mud salamander, Cold and slick, Splash in the creek.
May 14 – Western storm cloud, Grey and black, Sunbeam splits the dark.
May 22 – Two dove babies, One thrasher too, Each awaits mother’s beak.
May 26 – Azure blue sky, In cool of night, Firefly in May!
Project Associate Eric DesRoberts:
We donated our car (for safety reasons) about 6 months before the 30×30 challenge, at which point a 25 minute commute to work turned into a 2.5 hr public transit adventure through the metro DC area for my better half. We had always planned to get another vehicle, and last month that time came.
We put in a lot of time researching vehicles, dealerships, customer reviews, etc. but when it came time to check them out in person, the question became how are we going to get there? Think about all of the car dealerships in your area – could you walk to them? Would you feel safe or want to walk to them? Does it sound outrageous for someone to walk to a car dealership (as we did) looking to buy a car? It shouldn’t – you buy a car because you don’t have one (or something along those lines). At the same time, it does sound a little outrageous when you consider the patchwork of occasional crosswalks, walking signs, and sidewalks that suddenly end and leave you stranded or forced to cross 4, 6, or 8 lane intersections with traffic islands that have been replaced with turn only lanes.
The walkability of many of the communities I have recently lived in is not for the faint of heart. This is not the fault of town planners or city officials. I think that it largely reflects our preferences. We prefer an extra vehicle lane over a wider sidewalk, we prefer a parking lot grid to an overgrown field. Nature has become the stuff on the perimeter of these things – sometimes it is harder to find the nature than it is to find the time to enjoy it.
Read more about our experience with the 30×30 Nature Challenge.

Categories
GreenBlue

Game-changing Sustainability

What’s in a game? Depending on which game you are playing you might say: chance, imagination, strategy, fun, intrigue, concentration, challenge, excitement, competition, reward, sport, and team building. Interestingly, most of these words might also be used to describe the work environment in many of the companies ranked highest in annual “best places” to work polls. So, what if you could gamify your workplace for a purpose? What if you could capture all of those stimulating attributes of game-playing in an employee engagement process to embed sustainability into your company’s core values; into its very DNA? What if you could leverage the power of game-playing to establish a sustainability knowledge baseline and framework that would enable and motivate all your employees to contribute, ideate, and innovate more sustainable processes, products, or business systems?

I’d argue that you would likely see a creative disruption born of cause-based inspiration and the kind of business transformation that would take companies well beyond doing less bad (where sustainability has gotten most companies today) to becoming more resilient and restorative contributors to human and planetary health. Imagine a world where business and nature thrive in harmony. The only way we are going to reach that required state is when we all recognize that sustainability is everyone’s responsibility. That’s what gamification for sustainability can do.

Okay, so I can hear all you naysayers – and I was most definitely one myself not so long ago – questioning the premise of gamification for any purpose in the workplace, let alone applying it to something as fundamentally important as sustainable development. But, let’s look at some recent statistics on employee engagement and gamification. A 2012 Global Workforce Study conducted by Towers Watson found that companies with high levels of employee engagement reported same-year operating margins that were nearly three times higher than companies with low levels of engagement. Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, argues that turning a challenge into an interactive, even competitive, adventure provides employees with the purpose and motivation they need to get involved.

Still not convinced? Then see what others are saying about gamification and employee engagement, and think about the possibilities.  Sustainability leadership companies will recognize the power. Sustainability laggards will eventually play, too – but they’ll be playing catch up. Which do you want your company to be?

By the way, GreenBlue Advisory Services now offers The Sustainability Game as a powerful employee engagement tool. Originally developed as a “board” game to engage an internal corporate leadership team, we have evolved the game into an on-line, jeopardy-like competitive challenge that is a fun way to get all employees in an organization to better understand what sustainability is and why it is important to the organization and its bottom line. E-mail me to learn more.