Summer is upon us once again! I am excited to embark on my second year as president of CPA, The Association for Contract Packagers and Manufacturers.
During the year ahead, I look forward to enhancing CPA’s ability to support our members in their sustainability efforts. Climate change, driven by greenhouse gas emissions, seems to be causing erratic weather patterns. This spring alone, we have witnessed unprecedented news of weather-induced floods worldwide and an increase in tornadoes.
The number of environmentally conscious consumers is growing. If your company is not thinking about sustainability, it is likely that your next customer is, so you need to be prepared. The word “sustainability” seems to come up on the job daily.
The very first step
Where should a business begin? First, schedule a meeting with your customers. Have a candid discussion about their sustainability goals. What are their customers looking for? For example, are they aiming to reduce packaging materials? More recyclability? Have they conducted a comprehensive assessment of their current packaging materials, manufacturing processes, and supply chain practices to identify areas for improvement? Have they measured the environmental impact of their existing practices, such as carbon footprint, water usage, and waste generation?
Next, meet with your team to share the findings from these discussions. Starting this journey can be overwhelming, and you might feel discouraged. How do you stay motivated in your own sustainability efforts? It might be best to develop a series of goals.
One of my own goals was to create my company’s sustainability report. The report contains our company goals, concerns and how we educate and motivate our employees regarding the environment. We started with recycling; it sounds simple, but we needed to remind employees that waste generated was not just during production, but also during personal breaks and lunchtime. Every effort goes towards our larger goal.
Look at the big picture
Also, look at the bigger picture. When developing our report, we also examined waste on the production line and discovered that simple and repetitive waste adds up! We analyzed the waste generated from using a 4-gram polypropylene (PP) bag based on consumption reports from our Nulogy software.
This seemingly insignificant PP bag resulted in over 31,000 pounds of waste by the end of the year. After this discovery, we are now working with a company that uses a process called pyrolysis to convert these bags back into biodiesel fuel. If each company made a move like this, imagine the collective contribution to waste reduction we could make.
Businesses are at the forefront of driving substantial change toward sustainability. Responsible practices will not only benefit the environment but also improve your company’s reputation and profitability. Even small steps toward sustainability are steps in the right direction.
Jerry Thompson is president of Combined Technologies, Inc., and president of CPA, The Association for Contract Packagers and Manufacturers.
