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
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.
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.
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.
I’m sure some folks have heard of Film Biz Recycling before, but I found their mission and impact so compelling that I wanted to share. Film Biz Recycling is a non profit organization, creating socially responsible and sustainable solutions from media industry waste. They are tapping into an otherwise “hidden” area of waste generation; capturing stuff from film sets and stage productions that might otherwise have ended up in a landfill. I give them major props for creativity and for their impact in this sector. I just wish I lived in Brooklyn so that I could go shopping in their warehouse!
Sustainability non-profit GreenBlue has opened membership for its newly formed Forest Products Working Group, which brings together companies that rely on paper, wood, and other forest products to share their knowledge and develop new and sustainable business solutions. Packaging Asia
This article is by GreenBlue’s experimenters extraordinaire: Project Manager Adam Gendell and Project Associate Eric DesRoberts.
Back in August 2011 we serendipitously came across an oxo-degradable LDPE film wrap (for those of you who may not be enveloped in packaging lingo, that means it’s a thin piece of plastic with special additives that are activated under prolonged exposure to sunlight and oxygen to make the plastic film decompose into plastic dust, which may then be biodegraded by microbes).
Degradable plastic packaging like this is pretty controversial in the packaging community. In favor of oxo-degradable plastic is the argument that it will cease to persist in the environment if littered. Against oxo-degradables are arguments that the plastic dust is equally hazardous to human and environmental health, that they pose a risk to the plastic recycling stream because they downgrade the durability of the plastic with which they are mixed, and allegations that the degradability additives simply don’t work as advertised.
At GreenBlue we strive to maintain a level head and objective viewpoint, so we decided to conduct a scientific, on-the-ground (okay, on the roof) experiment to test the validity of the latter allegation that oxo-degradable additives don’t work. We did not measure the amount of sunlight and oxygen present, nor did we conduct multiple trials, nor did we use a non-degradable LDPE film as a control. What we did do is open a roof-accessible window in the GreenBlue office, place the film on the roof, throw some rocks on top of it to weigh it down, write down the date on which the “experiment” commenced, and proceeded to forget about it. About a week ago we had noted that 180 days had passed*, so we pulled it back in the office. It looked like this:
The film was definitely still recognizable as its original self, but noticeable fragmentation had indeed occurred. The film was brittle to the touch, and little bits of plastic ranging from quarter-size to dust-size were everywhere as pictured on the sticky note below.
Did we prove or disprove anything? Not really. We successfully littered little bits of plastic on the office roof, so we earnestly hope that they will continue to disintegrate until they are small enough to become a meal for some microorganisms. Our “test” results have suggested to us that this particular oxo-degradable additive works as advertised, and we threw it back out onto the roof for further observation.
It’s possible that the film may in fact disappear one day, but these authors remain skeptical that degradable plastics are a step in the direction of sustainability. After all, that LDPE film was likely made from petroleum resources, of which we only have a limited (and coveted) quantity. Can we find other ways to combat litter so that we can keep that valuable material from becoming dust in the wind?
* 180 days is the standard amount of time in which a compostable plastic is required to disintegrate completely, but oxo-degradable plastic is not intended to be compostable. Oxo-degradable manufacturers acknowledge that the time period necessary for total disintegration is considerably longer than 180 days, so it should not be expected that the film was supposed to have disappeared when we pulled it back in the office.
This year marks GreenBlue’s 10th anniversary. One way we plan to recognize this milestone is to organize a series of articles about the future of the sustainability, products, and business. At the end of our first decade, what will the next decade bring for GreenBlue and the broader sustainability movement?
Through the coming year, watch this space for features and interviews with visionaries, thought leaders, business innovators, scientists, and educators. The question we’ll put to everyone will be this: Over the next decade, what will be the most important ideas and trends that will advance business toward sustainability?
To kick it off, we took a stab at answering this question ourselves looking at product sustainability. Together, the whole staff identified nearly a hundred topics and narrowed them down to a handful. Here are GreenBlue’s top five topics that we believe will become increasingly important for product sustainability in the coming years.
1) Water is the new carbon
The United Nations calls water scarcity one of the most significant problems of the 21st century. Nearly half the world’s population—3.3 billion people—lacks access to clean water or soon will, and it’s only a matter of time before the rest of us feel the pinch. As water scarcity competes with carbon emissions for the public’s attention, the sustainability dialogue could shift from global issues such as climate change to local, community-based solutions in developing regions. Major multinationals already are taking action. Since 1999, Frito-Lay has cut its water use by 40%, and Coca-Cola plans to become “water neutral” by 2020.
2) Nature’s services get a price tag
The phrase “natural resources” often implies just the earth’s physical assets—water, fuel, materials, etc. But equally important are natural processes—the cleaning of water through the hydrologic cycle, for example—called “ecosystem services.” First formally defined by the United Nations in 2005, ecosystem services are declining, and their loss could become a significant market driver. Last month, the International Finance Corporation began requiring clients to “maintain the benefits from ecosystem services.” A project draining wetlands, for instance, would have to account for its impact not only on biodiversity but also on the loss of pollination services for surrounding farmers. The economics of a spike in True Cost Accounting could dramatically change how we do business.
3) Product transparency hits the tipping point
Despite the economic downturn, the demand for green products continues to rise, and with that demand comes more pressure for companies to disclose what’s in their products so that consumers can make more informed decisions. “We are approaching a tipping point,” declared the Financial Times in 2010, “beyond which everyone will want to know the provenance of their products.” Companies such as Patagonia, Method, Interface, and SC Johnson have led the pack with ingredient disclosure, and more and more businesses will follow suit.
4) Producer responsibility escalates
More aggressive ways to reduce waste and recover material at the end of a product’s useful life are increasingly urgent. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), or product stewardship, puts the burden of recovery on product makers, because, as the US EPA puts it, “manufacturers have the greatest ability, and therefore the greatest responsibility, to reduce the environmental impacts of their products.” Long required in many other countries, EPR is a growing trend here at home. To date, about two-thirds of the 50 states have product-specific EPR laws, and in 2010 Maine became the first state to enact a blanket EPR rule that in theory could apply to any product. The take-back programs of many electronics manufacturers and retailers, including IBM, Panasonic, Apple, Staples, and Best Buy, are reaping extraordinary financial benefits from the valuable scrap materials. From 2004 to 2009, Dell recovered 275 million pounds of computer equipment, and in the first year of its program Xerox saved over $50 million.
5) Planned obsolescence becomes obsolete
The making of products, compared to their use, has an enormous environmental impact. Manufacturing consumer electronics, such as cell phones and computers, accounts for about 80 percent of the total energy consumption of those products. Yet, the average life of a cell phone is 18 months, and many companies bank on continual churn to sell more of their latest releases. Nokia estimates that extending the life expectancy of a mobile phone by a year could cut its total energy consumption by more than 40 percent, and other sources suggest that continuing to use a computer can mean 20 times greater energy savings than recycling it. More companies could improve environmental performance and customer satisfaction at the same time by making their products easier to upgrade. Julius Tarng’s Modai concept phone includes modular internals that can be replaced easily without discarding the whole phone. Brand loyalty could get replaced by object loyalty.
