Pepsi Chooses Philantropy Over Super Bowl Ads

According to Fast Company and The Environmental Leader, Pepsi is opting out of Super Bowl ads this year. They are putting their money into grants to charitable causes recommended by their online visitors. Non-profits have suffered through the recession. Hats off to Pepsi!

New Year's Goals

Three Goals for the New Year


1. Eliminate "price" as a barrier to buying our environmentally responsible alternatives to nasty old vinyl banners.

2. Reduce print material waste by 50%

3. Double our Capacity to Care Grants to non-profit organizations and to government agencies that support troop morale.

Confessions of a Radical Industrialist

I have been greatly influenced by Ray C. Anderson founder of Interface Inc. He writes "there is no place called "away" as in "throw away" Sustainability is a goal that works nicely in manufacturing. For me, it is a business decision, not a part of my political agenda. We should be conscience of what we take from the earth, what we use to make our products, and what we waste in the process.
Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose--Doing Business by Respecting the Earth

Happy New Year ..

In 2009 Few Customers Were Willing to Shell Out Extra Green!

It's New Year's Eve. Looking back on 2009. few customers were willing to shell out the extra green for “green products.”  At least not like I thought they would!

Perhaps they thought we were lining our pockets with green if they paid a premium to do the right thing.  Naw, I don't think that's the case. They simply needed Big, Bold, and Beautiful Color! They weren't out to save the planet! They were out to save their budgets!

Things will be different next year! By golly!  We are going to get lean and offer customers eco-friendly products at the same price as old nasty vinyl!  Every last one of the very best .. even if we have to grow the cotton ourselves! Long live lean and green!

So mark your calendars! Beginning in the year 2010, price is no longer a barrier to going green.   

Next New Year’s Eve I’ll let you know how it went. Happy New Year everyone!

Greenwash Equals Hogwash

Greenwash is the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products as environmentally friendly. I see it when quizzing raw material suppliers. For example, there are manufacturers of nasty old banner vinyl that is that they claim to be bio-degradable, or compostable. Oh yeah?

It takes regular nasty old vinyl banner material 300 years to decompose. As it does it releases dioxin a cancer causing global pollutant. Do does is a material made from petro-chemicals that decomposes faster good or bad for the environment?

I have never seen anyone in my neighborhood compost with vinyl, bio-degradable or not!

Why a grant?

First question I get about the Capacity to Care Program is what is the catch. Second if there is a tax advantage for calling it a grant?

Well there is no catch, like any business and perhaps ours more than others is asked to support good causes with contributions of time, talent, product and money. It is very difficult to say no to some and yes to others.

Accountants may not think it is to smart because if you figure overhead and labor into the equation then selling something that is already competitively priced for half ... is not the way to run a business.

I believe that your overhead and labor are expenses that you are going to pay regardless of whether you have excess capacity or not .. so you might as well put that excess capacity to good use and do it in such a way that you generate enough income to cover materials and part of your costs.. and do a lot of good in the process... hey, nothing wrong, so long as there is capacity that would otherwise go to waste.

Speaking about process. I hope that this program will keep us all sharp, continuously looking for ways to improve on our process and look for ways to cut out steps in the process. That is what lean is all about.You find those improvements when you work towards capacity .. when you are working below capacity the motivation to focus on improving your process to increase your capacity is just not as strong.

I will keep you posted and please ask questions by posting a comment on this Blog, because it is probably a question that someone else has.

Capacity to Care

Like most industries, there are busiy seasons that when it rains it pours and other times when it is not as busiy was we would like. We are increasing our capacity to produce daily with improvement in our process. So what do we do with our excess capacity?

We decided to make good use of it by starting a matching grant program for non-profits.

In short, it provides them with a dollar for dollar match or in other words a 50% discount on our goods and services to qualifying non-profits who plan ahead.

Before starting a business I worked for the American Heart Association. For 17 years I worked with and for terrific people who were on a mission to reduce premature death and disability from heart disease.

Well there are many good causes in America and we are are going to see how much capacity we have to care about as many as possible.

I figure that given ample time to squeeze a job in, we should be able to do a lot of good. http://www.bellagraphics.com/capacitytocare.htm