Let's Give It Up for Sustainability Winners!

Early this week in Tallahassee, a spotlight shone on Florida businesses and individuals receiving awards for Best Practices in Sustainability. As a member of the organization bestowing the awards, Sustainable Florida – Collins Center for Public Policy, I always enthusiastically anticipate making the trip to the state’s capital to meet the winners. I’ve never failed to be impressed beyond my own expectations when I meet the innovators for sustainability that are changing the state, often in unexpected ways.

Among this year’s list of winners were

• Rosas Farms - an organic chef and his sustainable farm practices for grass fed beef, who demonstrates success to other farmers encouraging them to hold on to their land.
• AC Graphics - a printing company using only FSC certified paper and nature based inks promising they will not cost their customers a penny more.
• Valley Forge Fabric, a company producing cloth out of recycled PET plastic for use in hospitality businesses.
• The City of Tallahassee for its Green City initiative and for making biodiesel for its fleet.
• Spacecoast Architects for a sustainable school design that minimized ecological footprint while costing only $70 per sq. ft. to build.

One finalist, a company making paper from sugar cane fiber, provided napkins used at the reception.

Very soon, Sustainable Florida’s website will have stories about the winners online. In the meantime, here are links to read more about some of the winners.

Sustainable Florida: www.sustainableflorida.com

Organic farm: www.rosasfarms.com

Green printer: http://www.acgraphics.com

Sugarcane paper: http://www.thesugarcanepapercompany.com/

Blow Drying the Future

Traveling last week, I wouldn’t have predicted a stop at McDonald’s would embroil my thoughts in such a high stakes financial conundrum. I went in for coffee and came out concerned about my retirement IRA. It wasn’t the price of the coffee. It was the hand dryers.

Often I don’t wait around in the restroom while hot air dries my hands. A few seconds of air followed by a quick couple of wipes across my pockets gets me out faster. But business attire with wet handprints projects a sloppy image, so I kept my hands under the blast while re-reading the engraved metal plate. It assured me I was helping to save trees and the environment. This always makes me feel good.

Then it occurred to me that this hand drying method might be sabotaging my future. Last fall “the experts” suggested in the volatile stock market environment, one should own stock in companies not subject to consumer cycles, so I bought stock in a paper company. Now I considered how the hand dryer could lower my future income by reducing paper towel sales.

You see the dilemma? I’m in the intersection of Profit and Principle. When my 401k was in one of the mutual funds offered by my employer’s benefit plan, I didn’t keep track of exactly which stocks made up the fund, never mind researching the sustainability practices of each company. My focus was on accumulating savings.

I’m not saying I was unaware of corporate responsibility.

In 2002, wearing the hat of environmental stewardship manager for a publicly traded corporation, I researched the rigorous requirements for Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Companies use these analysis tools to gain listing in an index fund made up of companies deemed socially responsible, for example, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), a group of world-class companies that meet environmental, social and economic standards. I investigated to find out if perhaps my employer could qualify.

Smackdown. Our company would not qualify. Way too small for the DJSI. Thus, I wandered away from following sustainability indexes. Now in charge of my own investing and feeling ambiguous about my paper company, I’m looking at other sustainability funds.

One large sustainability index investment fund is pushing some companies to change by adding proposals to the annual shareholder proxy vote. The fund owns a ton of shares in these companies. Six of the proposals targeted sustainable forestry and climate change.

Four of six large corporations managed to work out an agreement and therefore had the shareholder proposals withdrawn; in return, the companies would begin reporting on their sustainability practices.

My paper company did not respond. “Fie upon thee, oh my paper company!”

Perhaps I overreact. Further research raises concerns on the future of all paper companies. I’m coming back with more info.

BTW: Energy reports indicate that using electric hand dryers does consume less energy than manufacturing paper.

BUT I also found this: The Handwashing For Life Institute (HFL), an association of food service suppliers that includes paper makers, argues that hand dryers have "no place" in restaurant or cafeteria washrooms or in other situations where food is being handled. "Most users walk away with wet hands and wet hands transfer bacteria 500 times more readily than dry hands," says the group’s website. HFL advocates paper towels over dryers because they "remove bacteria from hands and reduce general bacterial counts by an average of 58 percent."

On the Road - Liquid peanuts plus the Governor

Ah HA! So there is a way to melt packing peanuts. I saw them turning into gelatin Monday at Florida’s annual Recycle Florida Today conference happening this week in St. Petersburg. I admit, there was satisfaction watching the chubby noodles going away, like watching the Wicked Witch of the West disappear from OZ into a puddle. A company called Blue Earth Solutions holds the patent for StyroSolve. The product transforms the expanded polystyrene (EPS) peanuts into a gel called Polygel. The chemistry is still polystyrene which can be sold and reconstructed. It becomes a closed loop system for reusing polystyrene.

I’ve found it boosts motivation when the Governor drops by. Governor Charlie Crist came to rally Florida’s recycling leaders to encourage them as they face a major challenge to recycle 75% of Florida’s solid waste by 2020 as required in the state’s new energy bill he will sign later this month. The room was packed with county, city and private enterprise recycling coordinators all tuned in for advice on how they are to reach that target as funding cuts coincide with ramped up goals.

Toyota’s system for recycling the packaging from new parts during manufacturing, is so thoroughly designed that recycle bins are placed at the precise height and to the right or to the left of where a part is installed on the vehicle.

Rooms-to-Go has made a business out of recycling the packaging cardboard. Interesting that while business is down in furniture, business is pretty good in cardboard recycling.

The day was full of take-aways, but the story of the Governor’s junior high dance was a foretelling. In 1971 Charlie Crist, as the President of Student Council at his junior high school here in St. Petersburg, came up with a project – to influence the City of St. Petersburg to begin a recycling program (this would be the year following the first Earth Day). To raise money, SC held a dance and made $100 that young Charlie Crist delivered to the City Council, seed money for the city’s first four recycling centers. Today Governor Crist delivered the same encouragement; I think recycling coordinators are wishing for the check.