Slide Show: The Gamut of Green -The Facts About our Environmental Impact -Agriculture, Packaging, Waste -Pioneering for a Better Future

1. The Gamut of Green
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The Facts About our Environmental
Impact
Agriculture, Packaging, Waste
Pioneering for a Better Future
by Alissa Marrapodi
October 2013

2. Green's Many Shades
Sustainability is an ongoing journey of progress, change,
transparency, challenges, rewards and making a difference.
It encompasses ecological, social and economical issues.
Darrin C. Duber-Smith, MS, MBA, and Gregory S. Black,
Ph.D., outlined six shades of green in their book The Many
Shades of Green. From red marketer—a company that
ignores all the principles and concerns of green marketing
—to deep green marketer—a trailblazing company not only
adhering to sustainable processes, but often going above—
every company falls into one of the six stages. Where are
you?

3. The Stats
Since sustainability is sitting on our doorstep demanding
change, it's not only important to know the stats, but it's
equally important to know what advancements,
technologies, processes and more have been developed and
implemented across all verticals of business.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
fossil fuels used to generate electricity are the single largest
source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the nation,
and the second largest comes from the combustion of fossil
fuels from gasoline and diesel used to transports people
and goods.

4. Take it to the Market
"Often, strong policy is a necessary but insufficient condition, and technology is
not the bottleneck: Capital has to flow to solutions in a well-functioning
marketplace." – Carbon War Room
Corporate Knights developed the concept of clean capitalism—an economic system
in which prices fully incorporate social, economic and ecological costs and benefits,
and actors are clearly aware of the consequences of their marketplace actions.
Jigar Shah, CEO, Carbon War Room, told Corporate Knights’ editor in chief, Tyler
Hamilton, one of the most effective ways to make meaningful steps toward a lowcarbon economy is to harness the power of greed, and use it as a force for social and
environmental good. He stressed it's not a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, innovative
business models or technologies required to create a low-carbon world, "What's
lacking are the market-based tools required to level the field, which is currently
occupied by powerful, high-carbon enemies,” he said.

5. Facts and Fossil Fuels
"… Factory farming is a broken system that doesn't reflect our values. Who would
want a farm system that is the leading cause of global warming? Or one of the two
or three most damaging things to the environment?" —Johnathan Safran Foer,
author of Eating Animals
Three facts you need to know :
1.Experts predict clean energy will really begin to accelerate by 2030,but fossil fuels
will still contribute to a little less than half of the world's primary energy by 2050.
2.Solutions to the energy crisis such as energy from biomass and wind power may
only sustain for so long, as they too are finite and have limitations/repercussions.
3.N.A. is embarrassingly trailing behind many major industrialized countries such
as China, which just released its five-year plan to increase in GDP by 2020; and
Latin America, a leading host to sustainable sourcing projects.

6. Agriculture
"We live in a world where viable agricultural land is
diminishing at the same time that human
population and its demands on the marketplace are
increasing at an exponential rate." – Leslie Pinaire,
sustainability consultant
Agricultural land scarcity, mono-cropping and
ensuring there won't be a drought of this or that
ingredient are just a few issues plaguing crops.

7. Packaging
As with most things, a balanced perspective of packaging
is essential. Packaging is both functional and aesthetical;
but, it's also a large contributor to an organization’s
carbon footprint. On the other hand, it's necessary.
Packaging is also a great avenue for companies to show
off their green stripes. Light-weight boards, doing more
with less, post-consumer resin, plant-based plastics and
more are helping move packaging into a greener box.
Guidelines and definitions from organizations such as the
Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), a project of the
non-profit GreenBlue, and Consumer Goods Form (CGF)
make it that much easier for companies to work toward a
definitive goal.

8. Waste
Here are a couple waste-eliminating organizations you
probably should hear about:
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The CradletoCradle® (C2C) design framework adds
value versus subtracting value from the environment by
seeing waste as food, aka creating materials as assets that
leave a positive footprint.
TerraCycle’s philosophy is all things are reusable in
nature, and garbage is a modern, man-made idea. The
organization takes organic waste and feeds it to red
worms, which then create worm poop that is used as
fertilizer and filled into used 20-oz. plastic bottles (think
Pepsi bottles), attached to an end run/over run trigger
sprayer and sold as TerraCycle Plant Food.

9. The Future
Whether it's collaborating with organizations such
as the Sustainability Consortium or working
toward transparency by working with the Global
Reporting Imitative (GRI) or another
organization, it's your responsibility to be
responsible. Be innovative and daring and smart.
Get connected and educated. The key here is do.

10. Thank You
Thank you for viewing “The Gamut of Green”
slideshow. For more about sustainability, download
the Boardroom Journal’s free digital issue,
“Sustainability: Exploring its impact on the global
food supply chain.”