We feature many green companies here at Daily Grommet. Whether it’s a company making Fair Trade Sports Balls, an electric composter — which itself can be recycled — or a revolutionary waterless car wash, green companies come in many varieties. Going “green” is an admirable company decision, but as our guest today points out– it is not always an easy one.
Dave Mesicek from Common Soles stops by the blog today to share his insights about the reality of being a green business.
by Dave Mesicek
At Common Soles, we strongly believe that all businesses need to incorporate the consideration of environmental health into their business strategy and practices. We have made it a core tenant of our business model from the beginning. Since making it public that we were going to be an environmentally conscious business we have made some significant headway. On a product side we have incorporated re-purposed materials into all our flip-flops. Components made from coconut shells and natural woven jute are prime examples. We also do not leverage heavy machinery in our manufacturing. All assembly is done by hand in the factories that make Common Soles. Cool!
Our day-to-day business practices are also an area we have brought in the green perspective. We print very little paper in our office, relying on electronic files for just about everything. We keep the windows open, and rely on natural light as much as possible. In fact, the only items using electricity at Common Soles this moment (4:14pm) are two laptops, a label printer, and a phone. Not much at all! But that is only part of the picture…
Greening your business is tough.
- In 2008, 62 trillion spam emails were sent (wow!)
- Spam emails used 33 billion kW/h in 2008 in order to be processed (that is equivalent to the energy use in 2.4 million homes for a year, or it is equivalent to using 2 billion gallons of gasoline)
- Spam filtering is equivalent to taking 13 million cars off of the roads; one spam email requires the same amount of energy as driving 3 feet (the annual volume of email spam requires enough energy to drive around the earth 1.6 million times)
Filtered Water Bobble. If you’ve ever stopped to think about how many plastic water bottles wind up in landfills (as many as 38 billion each year), you’ll appreciate this clever alternative. Designed by renowned industrial designer Karim Rashid, 
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Leslie Reichert
From reading your book I know that you’ve been cleaning the “green” way for a long time. What got you to switch from the usual harsh chemicals and opt to clean the natural way?
The change has been significant. I buy totally different brands of products today than I did five years ago. We are members of a local CSA (Community Supported Agricultural Farm), which has had a great impact on the volume and variety of produce that we consume. I am confident the air quality in our house is significantly better than it was when I used conventional cleaning products and stored various toxic things in the house. My son’s asthma is greatly improved, and collectively we eat better than we ever have. If it’s true that you are what you eat, I feel pretty good about where we are today! We are all very healthy.
TerraCycle
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