Category: GreenBlue

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GreenBlue

Taking the Nature Challenge

We’re doing it.
GreenBlue’s Executive Director Nina Goodrich heard about the David Suzuki Foundation’s challenge to spend 30 minutes outside each day in May. Nina said she was interested and asked us to join her. It seemed a perfect fit for a company dedicated to helping businesses achieve sustainability goals, so most of our staff of 17 said, “Yes.”
(It didn’t hurt that those 30 minutes can be used during work hours.)
According to the Foundation website, there are many reasons to spend time in nature: “The more we connect to nature, the smarter, healthier and happier we are,” and “Getting outside even makes us nicer and more likely to clean up the planet.”
If we’ve piqued your interest, look into signing up for the challenge yourself. Better yet, get your coworkers to join you, just like Nina did. Check out the David Suzuki Foundation website for more information and great ideas.
We decided to kick off our nature challenge with a picnic.

There are almost as many plans for how to spend those 30 minutes as there are people taking the challenge. A lot of us plan to walk and garden, others to play disc golf and run. The IT group will have its weekly meetings outdoors. Besides gardening, I know I plan to get reacquainted with my hammock. Many of us are blogging about our experience, so if you’d like, follow our adventures, thoughts and photos. Maybe we’ll all learn something.
http://danielle-daily.tumblr.com/
http://501cit.tumblr.com/
http://ninagreenblue.tumblr.com/
http://keebster776.tumblr.com/
http://ruthannoutside.tumblr.com/
 

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GreenBlue

Your Company’s Commitment to Reducing Eutrophication Just Became Easier

It’s pretty likely that your company’s sustainability goals do not include a commitment to reducing the amount of eutrophication associated with its activities. In fact, I’m willing to wager that most readers might not even know what eutrophication is. That’s okay. It’s a bit science-y, and it doesn’t elicit half as much response from consumers as, say, carbon footprints and waste generation. For the purposes here, let’s just say that it’s a water quality problem caused by an overabundance of algae, which is caused by excess nutrients introduced by certain emissions. Maintaining good water quality is an important part of sustainability, so in short, eutrophication is a pollution problem that we ought to address.
The typical mentality used to address pollution is to think that it should be prevented at the source. Usually it is advocated that companies should try their very hardest to drive those emissions down to zero, and that usually means awaiting new cleaner technologies. The newer mentality, however, applies the idea that any output, wanted or unwanted, is a resource. This mentality was made famous by the recycling industry and the problem of solid waste generation, but it certainly also rings true for the problem of eutrophication. After all, eutrophication is caused by an overabundance of nutrients, and nutrients are certainly a resource.
To put this mentality into practice, a startup company called Algix is partnering with the University of Georgia and SPC member Kimberly-Clark. Their plan: capture the nutrient-rich water emissions from industry and agriculture, let nature take its course in a controlled environment, and then harvest the algae before releasing the water. Then instead of causing eutrophication problems in our freshwater resources, the algae is used as a feedstock for bioplastic conversion. Pretty neat, huh?
Along with Novomer’s efforts to create plastics from carbon dioxide emissions, it goes to show that “pollution” is an unwanted problem only until we can figure out how to make something out of it. Once the value of eutrophication-causing emissions are understood, your company’s commitment to reducing eutrophication might be a bit easier – and possibly even profitable.

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GreenBlue Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Top Five Fun Facts – April

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. The 2012 Urban Mobility Report found that traffic congestion costs Americans over $120 billion in delay time and wasted fuel. The report highlights that congestion caused urban Americans to travel an additional 5.5 billion hours and purchase an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel over the course of the year. Washington DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco experienced the longest delays.

2. Exposure to Radon in the home is responsible for an estimated 20,000 lung cancer deaths each year. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers and is produced by the decay of naturally occurring uranium in soil and water. Check your detectors!
3. According to the Global Language Monitor, Global Warming/Climate Change was the top phrase of the first decade of the 21st century. For the year 2012, Climate Change/Global Warming claimed the number 2 spot behind Gangnam Style.
4. March 31st marked the opening day for Major League Baseball. Over the course of the 2013 season, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimates baseball fans will consume over 20 million hot dogs. Estimates for the top selling ball parks include:

Hot Dog

  • LA Dodgers (2.4 million)
  • Boston Red Sox (1.5 m)
  • Texas Rangers (1.3 m)
  • Detroit Tigers (1.3)
  • NY Yankees (1 m)
Sausage

  • Boston Red Sox (421k)
  • NY Mets (405k)
  • Giants (400k)
  • Nationals (400k)
  • Brewers (400k)

5. The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. The success of that day helped increase awareness of environmental issues and helped gain support for the development of organizations like the US EPA. The Earth Day Network is a good resource to help you plan and contribute to Earth Day events

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GreenBlue

Can the oceans clean themselves of plastic (with some help from us?)

Check out this tremendous idea to clean up the ocean’s garbage patches from Dutch teen Boyan Slat. This is a great opportunity to take action and test an innovative idea to solve a problem long plaguing the plastic industry.

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GreenBlue

Advisory Services to Offer Standardized Packaging Design Assessment

We are excited to announce the addition of a new service to our Advisory Services offerings—a standardized packaging design assessment. Companies interested in designing more sustainable packaging can now take advantage of this service to receive an environmental life cycle profile of new packaging formats or an overall assessment of their current packaging portfolios in order to identify opportunities for improvement. GreenBlue will leverage its COMPASS® (Comparative Packaging Assessment) software tool to perform these assessments.
“While companies can purchase COMPASS licenses for use by their internal design teams, this new Advisory Services option offers a convenient alternative to companies that do not have large packaging portfolios or do not have internal life cycle assessment capabilities but want to take a holistic approach in their design decision making,” said Katherine O’Dea, GreenBlue’s Senior Director of Advisory Services and Innovation.
The new package design analysis service is being offered for primary or secondary packaging options. Using validated, generic industry life cycle data, the assessment will account for environmental impacts associated with the materials and processes used to bring packaging to market, while allowing decision makers to incorporate environmental parameters alongside economic factors. The confidential assessment will be based on a set of consumption, emissions, and packaging attribute metrics. The report generated, which will include a brief comparative sustainability assessment with dashboard graphics of up to four proposed designs, will provide an excellent tool to educate customers about a company’s sustainability efforts.
“The COMPASS assessment method and data have been thoroughly vetted by independent verification and member companies of GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition, and are supported by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency. COMPASS helps incorporate life cycle thinking into the packaging decision process,” said Minal Mistry, GreenBlue’s Senior Manager for Sustainable Solutions and the tool’s primary architect.
GreenBlue Advisory Services helps business leaders embrace sustainability by applying a deep understanding of sustainability to each company’s particular needs to develop innovative yet practical sustainability solutions. Launched in 2010, Advisory Services complements GreenBlue’s sector approach to making product’s more sustainable. While that industry approaches allows GreenBlue to drive broad change, its Advisory Services engagements allows the organization to deepen its impact on industry by providing one-on-one sustainability guidance to companies. Under O’Dea’s leadership, Advisory Services clients to date have included major brands like Clorox, Coca-Cola, NASA, Nike, and SC Johnson.
Companies interested in learning more about this new packaging design assessment service should contact O’Dea at katherine.odea@greenblue.org or 434.817.1424 ext. 329. This service will be available starting February 25, 2013.
 

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GreenBlue

Katherine O’Dea Named GreenBlue's Director of Innovation

We are delighted to announced the appointment of Katherine O’Dea as Senior Director, Advisory Services and Innovation. O’Dea has been an integral part of GreenBlue for the past six years as a Senior Fellow and Director of Advisory Services. While O’Dea will continue to build GreenBlue’s Advisory Services program under this new role, she will also take a lead in mobilizing and coordinating the organization’s innovation efforts.
“I am very pleased to have Katherine in this new leadership role to develop opportunities for GreenBlue to shape the business of sustainability,” said Nina Goodrich, GreenBlue’s Executive Director. “Katherine is the perfect choice to explore new opportunities that will enable the organization to bring strategic sustainability thinking to new industry stakeholders.”
O’Dea brought nearly two decades of experience and leadership in corporate sustainability with her when she joined GreenBlue in 2007 as a Senior Fellow. In that capacity she contributed to various projects for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, GreenBlue’s flagship project, including the Sustainable Packaging Indicators and Metrics Framework, which later served as the baseline for the Global Protocol for Packaging Sustainability. She also authored practical guidelines for the incorporation of recycled content into both plastic and fiber-based packaging formats.
More recently, O’Dea spearheaded the launch of GreenBlue’s Advisory Services program in 2010, which complements GreenBlue’s industry sector approach but allows it to deepen it’s impact by providing customized sustainability guidance to individual companies. Advisory Services helps business leaders embrace sustainability by applying a deep understanding of sustainability to each company’s particular needs to develop innovative yet practical sustainability solutions. Under O’Dea’s leadership, Advisory Services clients to date have included major brands like Avery Dennison, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, NASA, Nike, and SC Johnson.
In 2013, GreenBlue’s Advisory Services will be rolling out new “off-the-shelf” offerings, including an affordable package design analysis using GreenBlue’s life-cycle based COMPASS® tool. In addition, the program’s material assessment capabilities will be enhanced with the upcoming launch of GreenBlue’s Material IQ™ database, which will help companies better understand the tradeoffs and implications of their material choices.
“I have had the pleasure of working for and with a number of interesting environmental and sustainability organizations in my career, but my work with GreenBlue has been particularly rewarding,” said O’Dea. “It is an organization that is continuously pushing the envelope, and the current leadership team I am joining is highly motivated, energized, and creative. It is also an exciting time for GreenBlue as we are rolling out a new five-year strategy, launching some new tools and resources, and expanding our educational programs internationally.”

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GreenBlue

GreenBlue Names Katherine O’Dea Director of Innovation

GreenBlue Veteran Joins in New Capacity to Help Lead Organization into Next Phase
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, February 13, 2013 – Sustainability nonprofit GreenBlue has announced the appointment of Katherine O’Dea as Senior Director, Advisory Services and Innovation. O’Dea has been an integral part of GreenBlue for the past six years as a Senior Fellow and Director of Advisory Services. While O’Dea will continue to build GreenBlue’s Advisory Services program under this new role, she will also take a lead in mobilizing and coordinating the organization’s innovation efforts.
“I am very pleased to have Katherine in this new leadership role to develop opportunities for GreenBlue to shape the business of sustainability,” said Nina Goodrich, GreenBlue’s Executive Director. “Katherine is the perfect choice to explore new opportunities that will enable the organization to bring strategic sustainability thinking to new industry stakeholders.”
O’Dea brought nearly two decades of experience and leadership in corporate sustainability with her when she joined GreenBlue in 2007 as a Senior Fellow. In that capacity she contributed to various projects for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, GreenBlue’s flagship project, including the Sustainable Packaging Indicators and Metrics Framework, which later served as the baseline for the Global Protocol for Packaging Sustainability. She also authored practical guidelines for the incorporation of recycled content into both plastic and fiber-based packaging formats.
More recently, O’Dea spearheaded the launch of GreenBlue’s Advisory Services program in 2010, which complements GreenBlue’s industry sector approach but allows it to deepen it’s impact by providing customized sustainability guidance to individual companies. Advisory Services helps business leaders embrace sustainability by applying a deep understanding of sustainability to each company’s particular needs to develop innovative yet practical sustainability solutions. Under O’Dea’s leadership, Advisory Services clients to date have included major brands like Avery Dennison, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, NASA, Nike, and SC Johnson.
In 2013, GreenBlue’s Advisory Services will be rolling out new “off-the-shelf” offerings, including an affordable package design analysis using GreenBlue’s life-cycle based COMPASS® tool. In addition, the program’s material assessment capabilities will be enhanced with the upcoming launch of GreenBlue’s Material IQ™ database, which will help companies better understand the tradeoffs and implications of their material choices.
“I have had the pleasure of working for and with a number of interesting environmental and sustainability organizations in my career, but my work with GreenBlue has been particularly rewarding,” said O’Dea. “It is an organization that is continuously pushing the envelope, and the current leadership team I am joining is highly motivated, energized, and creative. It is also an exciting time for GreenBlue as we are rolling out a new five-year strategy, launching some new tools and resources, and expanding our educational programs internationally.”
About GreenBlue
GreenBlue® is a nonprofit that equips business with the science and resources to make products more sustainable. GreenBlue currently works in three program areas: chemicals, packaging, and forest products, as well as working one-on-one with companies through GreenBlue Advisory Services. The organization’s initiatives include the Sustainable Packaging Coalition®, CleanGredients®, Forest Products Working Group, Environmental Paper Assessment Tool® (EPAT), COMPASS®, and the Paper Life Cycle.
About Katherine O’Dea
Katherine O’Dea joined GreenBlue in July 2007 as a Senior Fellow with over 18 years of experience in sustainability in both the private and nonprofit sectors. Katherine was previously Executive Director of INFORM, Inc., an environmental research and education nonprofit, Chief Operating Officer for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, Vice President of Business and Environment Programs at Business for Social Responsibility, where she managed BSR’s Apparel Working Group and launched the Clean Cargo Working Group, as well as Founder and Principal Consultant of Ecologistics. Over her career, Katherine has worked on numerous sustainability projects for leading organizations such as The Coca Cola Company, Dell, Dow, DuPont, Ford Motor Company, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, Nike, and SC Johnson, among others. Katherine hold a BA degrees in Philosophy and English from Emmanuel College and has also completed graduate work in Philosophy and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University and earned a certificate from the Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme at the University of Cambridge.
Contact
Ashley Holmes
GreenBlue Development and Communications Associate
434.817.1424 ext. 323
ashley.holmes@greenblue.org

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GreenBlue

My Top Sustainability Wishes for 2013

Happy New Year, In-the-Loop readers! In lieu of a resolution, I would like to start 2013 by sharing some of my top sustainability wishes for 2013:
Designing for Success
I look forward to seeing continued successes in targeting sustainability during the design phase. GreenBlue continues to work to make this process clear and easy so companies can understand the implications of their design decisions and materials they work with. At GreenBlue, 2013 will see the development of existing and creation of new resources across packaging, sustainable materials, and forest products.
Global Collaboration
Success in global collaboration and international policy was largely absent in 2012. As reported in GreenBiz, failures at Rio+20 and the Doha Climate Change conference were themes in their greatest frustrations of 2012 interviews. It’s a lofty wish for national and international policy, but one that I hope for every year.
Tackling the Big Scary “E”
No doubt Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a hot button in the packaging and recovery communities. The issues are complex, the space is crowded, and the opinions vary. Not to mention the complexities added by existing and incongruent EPR programs, bottle bills, landfill bans, and other legislation. I hope that all parties can come together, outside of industry silos and have frank conversations that get to the heart of the problem: effective and efficient product and packaging recovery.
More Corporate Champions
Nothing is more exciting than contagious success.

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GreenBlue

Top Five Fun Facts: December

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. According to the National Christmas Tree Association, there are nearly 15,000 Christmas tree farms, and over 100,000 full or part-time jobs are created by the industry. The average growing time for a Christmas tree is seven years.
2. Switching over to a $1 coin piece could save the government more than $4 billion over a 30-year period. The Government Accountability Office reports that this is directly a result of the difference between the cost of producing coins or notes and their face values. A $1 note is expected to last about 4.7 years, while $1 coin is expected to be in circulation for 30 years.

Figure 1: Discounted Net Benefit to the Government of Replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin (Source: US Government Accountability Office)
3. About 91% of long distance (100+ miles round trip) holiday travel in the US is by personal vehicle. Air counts for nearly 6%, and bus, train, and other modes account for the remainder.  In 2001, when Christmas and New Year’s Day fell on Tuesday, the Saturday and Sunday preceding Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were generally the busiest travel days of the entire 17-day holiday travel period.
4. In 1996, the US made up over 66% of the world’s online population. Today, it only accounts for about 12%.
5. The 2012 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree (an 80 year-old Norway Spruce) is 80 feet tall, wrapped with 45,000 LED lights spanning about five miles, if strung end-to-end, and is topped with a 550 pound Swarovski crystal studded star. The estimated cost of the tree and ornaments comes in at around $75,000.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

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GreenBlue

Changing Behavior to Reduce Food Waste in Restaurants

This post-Thanksgiving NPR segment discusses the massive amount of food waste produced by restaurants and their customers. Though the National Restaurant Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and the Food Marketing Institute have formed the Food Waste Reduction Alliance to tackle this problem, they admit they still have a long way to go. According to the report, a half pound of food waste is created for every meal served in a restaurant. That includes both the waste from the kitchen as well as what’s leftover on the patron’s plate. Wasting food while many people go hungry is one problem, but also consider the water, fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel needed to produce, package, and transport that food, and then add on the potent greenhouse gas methane emissions generated by all that food waste sent to landfill, and food waste becomes a much bigger problem.
Solving all of these problems is not a mystery. In fact, there are a lot of great practices that can easily be put in place. The best solution, not surprisingly, is spurring behavioral changes in chefs, restaurant workers, and the public so that food waste gets diverted to clever uses in the kitchen, food banks and soup kitchens, or composting facilities—not to landfill.
Composting facilities are springing up all around the country and are trying their best to convince restaurants to separate out their food waste instead of trashing it. Our own Black Bear Composting near Charlottesville has a small but growing clientele of local restaurants and schools (as well as GreenBlue). How great would it be to see the Food Waste Reduction Alliance pursue the US Composting Council or industrial composting facilities like Black Bear or Seattle’s Cedar Grove as new members? And what about getting some celebrity chefs to speak up about this and make changes in their own kitchens, the way many spoke out against serving longline-caught swordfish? Do you have any other ideas for how we can reduce food waste in our restaurants?