When we first started planning our most recent Manufacturing Alliance event called “Practical Environmentalism” I knew it was going to be a good one. Environmentalism is a hot topic right now, as we all know. It’s a buzz word. It’s a catchy phrase and many companies are trying to pass themselves off as environmentally conscious because they have recycling bins in the front office or they planted a couple of trees out front.
Our three panelists at the event on Tuesday were real champions for the environment. They represented three members who truly understand what “going green” means. They don’t do it because it’s cool or catchy or earns them rewards. They do it because it’s good for the environment and it’s good for business.
Joel Quadracci, chairman, president & CEO of Quad/Graphics, started the meeting by greeting attendees and sharing with them about the sustainability journey Quad/Graphics has been on, then he introduced Paul Oswald, President of Environmental Systems, Inc., who served as moderator for the panel. Environmental Systems, Inc. provides building systems solutions to help clients save energy and improve building performance.
Eric Van Den Heuvel shared how his company, Dean Foods/Golden Guernsey Dairy, studied their water usage over a normal week. Realizing opportunities for improvement, his employees had ideas about recycling clean water and reducing the amount of water and detergent used to lubricate machinery. They also fixed one of three HTST machines (don’t quote me, but I think it has something to do with the pasteurization process!) so that it now uses the same amount of water as the other two. They made a couple of simple changes and were able to reduce their water consumption by 250,000 gallons!
Next was Todd Stair, chair of Wisconsin Water Conservation Coalition, who spoke about the potential for water shortages in the near future, and the importance of conserving water to save electricity.
Finally, Joe Muehlbach focused on Quad/Graphics’ initiatives. Because Quad partners with many environmental organizations such as Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, and The Nature Conservancy, they have long seen the need to be environmentally conscious. Quad/Graphics’ average output is 2000 pages printed per gallon of water used. At a different facility, that number has reached as high at 6000 pages printed per gallon of water.
Anyway, these three panelists really inspired me. I’ve been known as the “staff tree hugger” for a while. I’m the one who brought in a recycling bin for my office because I knew that I would have a lot of recyclable things, and without a separate bin, that stuff would just go into the trash, and I’m not ok with that.
I recently told our staff that we should stop using Styrofoam cups in the conference room. Instead we have a collection of mugs with our members’ logos on them. Now when we have meetings in our conference room, we are being environmentally conscious, AND we are promoting our members!
I’m serious about this. We need to all think about the impact we are having by simple things like cups in the conference room and scraps of paper in the trash instead of the recycling bins! It doesn’t have to be huge steps like reducing our water consumption by 250,000 gallons (although that would be great!), but it’s the small steps that will make a difference! That’s what the event was about: Practical Environmentalism.
If you would like a copy of the PowerPoint presentation or the program from Tuesday’s event, email mbaer@waukesha.org.
Here is a link to the article from yesterday’s Freeman about the event: Waukesha Freeman: Practical Environmentalism
Now get out there and RECYCLE!!
