Courageous B

Today, everyone says they're 'green'. It's meaning is washed out. All too often overlooked is the social side of sustainability, the people who make up our organizations, the communities in which we operate, social justice issues, and building diverse constituents in all our stakeholder groups. It's the people who I find interesting in the work that we do as they make me feel the rewards of our labour. In Vancouver's downtown eastside and inner city there's one organization that's been doing a great job at bridging the gap between socially distraught down and out people and the businesses that inhabit the neighbourhood and drive the economy, Building Opportunities with Business, commonly referred to as BOB.

Last month I got a call from Brian Smith, the on the ground business and social enterprise developer at BOB, letting me know about their 'Consultant Fees' grant program available to inner city businesses working with consultants on various projects to green their operations. Opportunity knocks! At the time we were just negotiating terms with our brand and marketing consultant Andy Maier at Courageous B, looking at revising our brand and redeveloping our website (Scheduled to go live on Sept.15/10, stay tuned for some upcoming changes!). Given the green emphasis of our business, the product sourcing we do from DTES social enterprises and our participation in BOB's social purchasing portal we were awarded a $7,500 grant to contribute to this work we're taking on. If successful, it'll help us to grow our business and further the positive social and environmental impacts we're having on the community. I'm honored to work with BOB and receive their contribution, every bit helps and allows us to take some risks and leverage our marketing budget for the year. With the Christmas gift basket season approaching we're eager to see how our investment will pan out.

In total $36,000 was distributed to 8 Vancouver businesses. We're in good company with our neighbours at the Strathcona Business Improvement Association whom we collaborate with on the Strathcona Green Zone and other leading DTES organizations including Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden, EMBERS, Recycling Alternative, Megaphone and Potluck Cafe. The Vancouver Aquaponics initiative received some funding as well which is an exciting opportunity to convert under utilized space in parking garages into highly productive aquaculture businesses to supply the local market demand for fish. Would love to see that happen! Thanks BOB!

Over the last few months we've been working on a bunch of sustainable packaging projects for various clients leading up to the Olympics. Yesterday, Alex (Saul Good operations director) Andy Maier (Courageous B, graphic designer) and I had the pleasure of touring the facility of one of our packaging manufacturers. While cardboard packaging is nothing new, we were encouraged to see how the industry is finally moving towards offering 100% recycled options. For Saul Good, our involvement with this effort started over 3 years ago as part of a sustainable design project for our gift boxes. Now we've gained enough experience to become sustainable design consultants for a host of green packaging projects around the province.

100% can't be for everyone, but it's a great start

During the tour, we learned that if all the companies purchasing cardboard packaging went to 100% recycled materials we'd run out of supply within months. However, I'm of the belief that using and promoting 100% recycled packaging is a meaningful way to influence the market and promote change towards sustainable consumption. The more people who ask questions about the materials being used in products we consume, both in business and in our personal lives, the better chance we have as a society to address sustainability in a meaningful way.

Is it really green?

Chain of custody assurance is important as a way to have verifiable proof of your sustainability claim. On a recent project we collected shipping manifests, certificates of compliance and letters from suppliers down the supply chain to ensure the credibility of our recycled content claims. It really comes down to inventory management and inventory controls when looking for assurance that the materials received from suppliers are in fact the same being used in the production of your packaging. Using barcode scanning technology our supplier scans materials upon arrival in their facility and at every point in the manufacturing process. Because the dimensions of the product are customized to our specific job it would be impossible to mix our recycled materials up with virgin stock.

Post-consumer vs. pre-consumer waste

What does 100% recycled mean? Well, that depends on where the materials were recycled from. When paper is recycled post-consumer, referring to the fact that people use the material for something and then recycle it, it has considerably more environmental benefits compared to pre-consumer, or industrially recycled materials.  By recognizing this important distinction, we've ensured that our current project uses at least 94% recycled post-consumer materials compared to approximately the 20-30% used in conventional cardboard boxes.

What tools are there to help?

Environmental Defence has developed a fantastic calculation tool to quantify the environmental benefits of choosing recycled paper for your project. This is invaluable in communicating the value in sustainable packaging projects.