Businesses Going Lean and Green

  • Marco's Pizza changed the size of its boxes to fit more on distribution trucks. It's also switching to recyclable plastics for chicken wings. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Times are tough for the economy,
so lots of headlines tell us that the
end is near for the burgeoning green
market. But some analysts say the
economic downturn could encourage more
companies to be environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Times are tough for the economy,
so lots of headlines tell us that the
end is near for the burgeoning green
market. But some analysts say the
economic downturn could encourage more
companies to be environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant reports:

When stock prices plummeted this year for Whole Foods
Market, a lot of people saw that as a sign that green
companies were wilting during this dark time in the economy.

Whole Foods has one of the best known names for natural
and sustainably made products and caters to people who
are willing to pay more for them.

“You know, it’s really easy to look at stores like Whole
Foods, or companies selling green products, and see that
they’re not doing as well as last year and saying, ‘oh, the
green economy is tanking.’”

Author Joel Makower has chronicled the rise of the green
movement in corporate America through many articles, and
in his recently published book “Strategies for the Green
Economy.”

“The fact is that no retailer, except for Wal-Mart, is doing
better than last year. They’re all doing much, much worse.
So green products sink and swim along with the overall
economy. The economy is really bad right now, so a lot of
these products aren’t doing as well.”

But Makower says the green movement has a leg up on the
rest of the economy – because what consumers are buying
is only part of the story.

(sound of Marco’s Pizza Shop)

The smell of garlic and cheese and dough baking at Marco’s
Pizza is enough to make anyone hungry when they walk in.
While some of the biggest names in the pizza biz are closing
down stores, this relatively small Ohio-based chain is
growing like gang-busters, tripling the number of stores and
franchising in 14 states.

Purchasing manager Don Vlcek says, earlier this year,
prices of everything from the mozzarella to the plastic cups
were on the rise.

“When all of the costs going into restaurants started going
up, like I’ve never seen, and I’ve been in this industry since I
was 17 years old, we wanted to keep our prices the same to
our customers. So we looked at cost cutting – mainly at the
packaging end.”

Vlcek stresses: they’re not skimping on the pizza.
Marco’s has started doing things like using paper cups
instead of plastic. The new ones are cheaper and
biodegradable. Their pizza boxes used to be colorful,
glossy, and not very recyclable.

“Now our boxes, which the industry has said is the most
impressive and highest cost box in the industry, we’ve taken
that and we’ve put new messages on it, with a non-
varnished look.”

Marco’s also slightly reduced the size of its pizza boxes, so
more fit on its distribution trucks. That’s saved transportation
costs – and lots of polluting truck travel. None of this sounds
too sexy. But these efficiencies have saved Marco’s 2.5
million dollars this year.

The cuts they made have been good for the bottom line –
and for the environment.

Industry strategist Joel Makower says there are thousands of
stories like this.

“Once companies squeeze out the waste and inefficiency
and the water, carbon, and energy intensity and the toxicity
of their products, that’s not going to come back as soon as
oil prices drop, as we’ve seen them do, or when the
economy goes bad, as it has. This is a fundamental change
in how business is being done, and this is just the
beginning.”

Makower predicts that companies will continue to innovate
new ways to save money, and that is going to benefit the
environment.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Recycling Prices Down in the Dumps

  • (Photo by Julie Grant)

The recycling industry is the
latest to take a hit from the world’s
economic problems. Rebecca Williams
has more:

Transcript

The recycling industry is the
latest to take a hit from the world’s
economic problems. Rebecca Williams
has more:

The bottom has dropped out of most commodity markets: recycled paper,
metals, everything. It’s tied to the collapse of economies worldwide.

Tom Watson is with the National Waste Prevention Coalition. He says
recycling companies’ profits are way down.

“A lot of it is connected with China – and the demand for fewer products
there so they need less of the recycled materials for the packaging.”

Watson says China is buying a lot less of our recycled paper and cardboard
to make packaging, because we’re all buying a lot fewer products from
China.

That means recyclables are stacking up in a lot of places. Recyclers are
starting to talk about charging garbage companies to drop stuff off. And that
might mean we’ll be paying higher trash bills.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Study: Going Green Without Going Broke

  • A study finds that companies can be environmentally friendly and still make a profit(Source: Man-ucommons at Wikimedia Commons)

Critics of environmental regulations
often say the restrictions are bad for a
company’s bottom line. But Rebecca Williams
reports a new study finds companies can find
ways to offset the costs:

Transcript

Critics of environmental regulations
often say the restrictions are bad for a
company’s bottom line. But Rebecca Williams
reports a new study finds companies can find
ways to offset the costs:

Researchers looked at more than 2,000 manufacturing plants in seven countries.

Nicole Darnell is an assistant professor at George Mason University and the
study’s author.

She says it’s true that the tougher the regulation, the more it tended to lower a
company’s profits. But she says some companies were able to break even.

“Those companies that are proactive and seek to do right by the environment
can offset or eliminate the cost of regulation and potentially get ahead of the
curve.”

Darnell says that’s still a pretty rare case. But she says some of the most
successful cases are companies that reduce energy and water use in their
manufacturing processes.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Toxic 100 Companies

  • A layer of smog over upstate New York at sunset on October 21, 2000 (Photo courtesy of the Earth Science and Image Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center)

Researchers have identified the top corporate
air polluters in the country. Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

Researchers have identified the top corporate
air polluters in the country. Mark Brush reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency identifies what factories around the country are
polluting. But sometimes it’s hard to know who owns those factories.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts sorted that out. They name the
companies on their Toxic 100 list. Turns out – a lot of the companies that make the most
money, are often making the most pollution.

DuPont, Nissan Motor, Archer Daniels Midland, the Bayer Group, and Dow Chemical
top the list.

Michael Ash is the co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute. He says
everyone has the right to know who is polluting their air.

“So in terms of the citizen seeing this report, I hope that she or he could use this as a tool
for thinking about exposure in her own community and to limit that exposure.”

But to limit your exposure – Ash says you first have to know what company is
responsible.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Taxpayers Subsidizing Record Ethanol Profits

The nation’s leading food processor is making big profits from ethanol. Archer Daniels Midland has had two straight years of record profits. And in its latest quarter, the company nearly set another record. Dustin Dwyer has more:

Transcript

The nation’s leading food processor is making big profits from ethanol. Archer Daniels Midland has had two straight years of record profits. And in its latest quarter, the company nearly set another record. Dustin Dwyer has more:


ADM’s profits on corn processing, which includes ethanol production, more than doubled in its latest quarter. Total profits for the period were about $400 million.


Daniel Kammen studies energy policy at the University of California – Berkeley. He says while ADM is making lots of money from corn-based ethanol, future profits could go to companies that make ethanol from switchgrass and other woody products.


“It’s really the first companies that switch into cellulosic sources that I think are going to be the big winners, because they’re going to capture the environmental prize as well as the offsetting gasoline prize.”


ADM executives have laid out a new strategy that includes plans to expand ethanol production from fuel sources other than corn.


Daniel Kammen notes that there might not even be a market for ethanol if not for government subsidies, which also helped ADM reap its bigger profits.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Drivers Delay the Sting of High Gas Prices

Gas prices are as high as they’ve ever been in the U.S. But there’s one place in the country where people are fueling up for under a dollar a gallon. The GLRC’s Mark Brush explains:

Transcript

Fuel prices are as high as they’ve ever been in the U.S. But there’s one
place in the country where people are fueling up for under a dollar a
gallon. The GLRC’s Mark Brush explains:


Some drivers in one part of the country are not feeling the bite of high
gas prices, but they planned for it. They pre-paid for thousands of
gallons of gas when prices where cheap and now they’re filling their
tanks with the fuel they banked ahead of time. These drivers are filling
up at First Fuel Banks in St. Cloud, Minnesota.


Jim Feneis is the CEO of First Fuel Banks. He says they have some
pretty happy customers these days:


“We have better than 300 members still fueling at sub one dollar per
gallon, and we have thousands of members fueling at sub two dollars per
gallon.”


Feneis says he has no plans to expand the business to other parts of the
country. Unlike oil companies who are reaping record profits he says
retailer’s profit margins are slim and getting slimmer.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

The Economics of Recycling

More and more Americans have been taking recycling seriously over the last two decades. So much so that today, the EPA says about 30% of the trash Americans produce in their homes is recycled. And the recycling rate for most Midwest states is near that average, but while the agency expects that number to continue to rise, not everyone thinks more recycling is better for the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brodie takes a look at the economics of recycling:

Transcript

More and more Americans have been taking recycling seriously over the last two decades. So much so that today, the EPA says about 30 percent of the trash Americans produce in their homes is recycled. And the recycling rate for most Great Lakes states is near that average. But while the agency expects that number to continue to rise, not everyone thinks more recycling is better for the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brodie takes a look at the economics of recycling.

A small bulldozer collects materials that have sprawled out across the floor of this recycling center…. it then pushes the mound up against a wall. The glass and plastic pile up almost to the ceiling of the building … some ten feet in the air. Welcome to the tipping floor, where workers collect and sort recyclables from the Albany, New York area. Joe Gieblehaus is the solid waste manager for the city. He says Albany officials hope to recycle between 30 and 35 percent of the city’s waste…

“The 30 to 35 gives us I guess the best bang for our buck, basically, recycling is a situation of declining marginal returns. If we try to go after another product in the waste stream, it just costs us more money, and more money, and more money and more money. 30 to 35 seems to give us an economic benefit, the best economic benefit available.”


Albany’s recycling target is similar to that put out by the EPA… and is about the limit that one former EPA assistant administrator says is necessary. Doctor J. Winston Porter was instrumental in starting curbside recycling in the United States in the 1980’s…. but now he says people are taking a good thing too far.

“The last few years, I’ve been somewhat concerned that people are, if anything, aiming too high. You know, I set a 25% goal and there’s nothing wrong with going to 30 or 35 or 40% if you can. But I think many states have set goals of like 50% and I think what we’re doing, we’re getting into an area that’s very non-cost effective and may even hurt the environment because you’re in effect trying to use too much energy and too much processing to recycle too much trash.”


One of those states that’s right about at porter’s limit is Wisconsin. Greg Swanson of the state’s department of natural resources says Wisconsin recycles about 40 percent of its waste. He says the state’s laws call for beneficial re-use. That means the state does not want to spend more energy recycling something than it took to make it in the first place. Swanson says that makes decisions about what to recycle and what not to recycle a little easier.

“You’d like to be able to recycle everything that’s recyclable, but you have to keep in mind the political and economic realities of being able to actually do something with it once you collect it.”


Swanson says that end result is crucial for recycling programs to survive. He says Wisconsin has budgeted more than 24 million dollars for recycling programs this year. That money goes to pay for trucks, drivers, and people who sort the recyclables, among other things. If a state or city recycles something, it has to be able to sell it. If the costs of recycling are higher than the profits from selling the materials, the city or state loses money on the deal. But not everybody believes more recycling hurts the economy. Will Ferrety is the executive director of the national recycling coalition. He says the more Americans recycle, the better it is for both the environment…. and the economy.

“At its fundamental basis, recycling is helping us eliminate the notion of waste because if we can turn what would otherwise be a discarded product into a useful product, we’re making for a more efficient system.”


Ferrety says states should try and recycle as much as possible. He says it’s preferable to many of the alternatives.

“When you look at that entire system, and compare that to what I would call a one-way system where we extract resources, make a new product, use them up, and simply throw them away in a landfill, hands down, there’s less energy used, there’s fewer air pollutants, there’s fewer water pollutants that result from that recycling system when compared to that one way system.”


Among Great Lakes states, Minnesota and New York have the highest recycling rates…at more than 40 percent each of their total waste. The EPA says other Great Lakes states recycle between 20 and 29 percent. Albany, New York’s Joe Gieblehaus says even though many officials on the state and local level would like to recycle more…. the green of the environment sometimes has to take a back seat to the green in the wallet. He says the market drives decisions about whether or not to recycle something. He says the city can only recycle materials that can then be sold to offset the cost of collecting them in the first place.

“There are so few end uses to close the loop; it’s hard for us at the beginning of the loop to find a market for this material…a sustainable market for this material.”


Gieblehaus says his trucks collect about 13 thousand tons of recycled materials a year. He says that’s just enough to help keep the environment green…. without putting the city into the red. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brodie.

Determining the True Price of Produce

Many farmers are upset about the gap between what they earn for
their
crops, and what consumers pay at the supermarket. Now, a growers’
association is publicizing the disparity on the Internet. The "produce
price index" shows what farmers get for crops, compared to the retail
price…and gives the price spread between the two. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Wendy Nelson reports: