Australian Paper

Have you recently completed a project that showcases your sustainability efforts? Have you designed a job that minimises waste? Have you chosen a paper specifically for its environmental credentials? Are you turning off your computers and lights every night? Are your clients submitting briefs with an environmental flavour?

The sustainability category in this year’s Desktop Create Awards recognises excellent work that incorporates sustainable processes and practices. If you answered yes to the questions above, head online to www.createawards.com.au/sustainability and enter your business today! You could win $3,000 in cold hard cash, not to mention bragging rights.

Using a sustainably sourced and produced stock no longer means grey spotty paper, designer Stuart Geddes of Chase & Galley points out. As more clients set environmental standards, Geddes looks to the paper stock ranges that can offer his work something distinctive while maintaining great sustainable credentials. When choosing a cover stock for the Melbourne Design Guide, the range of textures in Tablex offered him an “unusual touch… to represent some of that diversity,” he says, in such a large compendium of information. The use of the Freckles texture, he says, seemed “a funny way of debunking the idea that the whole scene is something really cool and sleek”.

As a white, textured and coloured board range manufactured under the rigorous environmental standards of ISO14001, PEFC Chain of Custody and now available as carbon neutral, these qualities come at a low cost to our planet, and provide for Australian communities by being manufactured locally and distributed by Australian company KW Doggett. Although Geddes appreciates how “remarkably well” it prints, it is the range of colours and textures available that presents unique opportunities and attracts him to Tablex. Colours that are “ordinarily used for office stationery…you get coming through the print, which is really interesting to work with…distinctive and ordinary at the same time,” he muses.

‘Wear no evil’ is how Etiko brands its fair-trade street wear. Underneath the angelic wings and wise monkey riff are T-shirts woven in India from Fair-trade organic cotton, shoes certified as child labour free and soccer balls (under the Jinta brand) that contribute to the social wellbeing of aboriginal communities. Indeed, it was while working as a teacher in the Northern Territory that Etiko founder Nick Savaidis became interested in social enterprise – creating business by doing good. ‘Jinta’ means ‘winner’ in the Warlpiri language and 5% of retail sales on the soccer balls goes back to the Mt Theo community from where his idea germinated. It’s a triple bottom line approach that won Savaidis the Banksia Award and the Premier’s Sustainability Award in 2008. The Etiko sneaker is based on the classic Converse high top. “The reality is, you have to give people something they want to wear. Earlier forms of ecofashion didn’t have that in mind,” says Savaidis.

While the shoes are in the premium price range, it’s not about exploiting the hipsters either, he says. “People should pay the true price for a product.”

“From my point of view,” designer Stefan Sagmeister has said, “living a full life includes doing no harm, and being aware of the world that you live in on various levels.”

The occasion for the reflection was the launch of Worldchanging: a user’s guide to the 21st century, that he had designed.

A bestselling book of 2006, Worldchanging includes a foreword by such heavy hitters as Al Gore and Bruce Sterling, while its editor, Alex Steffen, runs the influential non-profit web magazine of the same name. If Sagmeister comes across as idealistic, Steffen is very much aware of the bottom line.

“Money spent making greener profits is not a cost, it’s an investment,” says Steffen.

If you want facts and figures, ask Fuji Xerox. Since initiating its Sydney recycling facility, the company has recovered 99% of end-of-life equipment and parts, saving $13 million in new part costs, generated export revenue of $5 million, and created over 100 new jobs. For its efforts, Fuji Xerox is a finalist in the large business category of the 2010 Premier’s Sustainability Awards.

While awards might be confirmation of their corporate social responsibility, surely it’s the million-dollar profits that matter most. Doesn’t a business succeed by focusing on one thing: the bottom line?

Increasingly, businesses – like those on the Dow Jones sustainability index or the FTSE 4 Good, to which the Xerox parent company has been nominated – are realising that profit is only part of the equation. For them, contributing something back to society and being environmentally sustainable is also part of the economic business model – the triple bottom line.

Indeed, the very fact that big companies have chief financial officers or even chief sustainability officers scrutinising the triple bottom line is a transformation in corporate governance.

As the very existence of those stock market indices suggest, corporate social responsibility is not only increasingly prevalent, it’s the basis for a burgeoning shareholders revolution.

Taming the fickle and demanding shareholder is a major enterprise. It’s about having them recognise ‘patient capital’ – acknowledging that greening a company and corporate social responsibility takes time – and that stakeholders, not just shareholders, are affected by businesses. Exponential growth is appealing, but difficult to sustain.

But the sustainability revolution doesn’t need to happen only at the big end of town. As the directors of Etiko and Sustainable Living Fabrics, Nick Savaidis and Bill Jones, testify smaller companies can make a positive contribution as well.

While research by the Mobium group, Living LOHAS, suggests people are prepared to pay price premiums of around 5–10% for sustainable products, Savaidis and Jones believe it’s simply about a fair price for a fair-trade product.

Both directors agree that good products can be profitable with everyone along the supply chain paid fairly, the environment left undamaged, the wider community aided by company charities and the loop completed by educating the next generation.

Under the triple bottom line model, profit is not just the economic value created by the organisation after deducting the cost of all inputs. Value is measured by how society also profits.

As humble stakeholders, we can still create change. As Joel Makower, author of Strategies for the Green Economy, declares: “Every time you open your wallet, you cast a vote – for or against the environment!”

Or, as Stefan Sagmeister is wont to say, “Everything I do always comes back to me”.

Bill and Kay Jones bought a bankrupt fabric company and transformed it into a world leading, environmentally sustainable business. The winner of the 2007 Premier’s Sustainability Award for small business and the United Nations Association of Australia World Environment Day Award two years in a row, Sustainable Living Fabrics produces over 400 fabrics certified with independent green credentials. Bill Jones explains the benefits to the bottom line.

What inspired you to go ‘green’?

We realised customers were interested in going green. Our competitors were saying how green they were, but we had no way of telling. And we didn’t want to talk green without actually being green. The only way to get that message across was to be third-party certified.

How far has your company come?

When we started we had nothing to offer environmentally. Today, I think the awards prove we are a world leader. We were invited to attend last year’s United Nations World Leaders Summit – 120 business leaders were invited to New York in preparation for Copenhagen. At our table was the head of Philips worldwide.

How have you benefited economically?

Before, our whole ethos was making products at the lowest price we could. It became clear that there would always be someone who would undercut it. We needed to appeal to a wider group of potential customers, which included designers and architects.

Were there additional costs to going green?

Definitely. But we were able to increase our margins so we were at the same price level as our competitors, and we sold to a wider group of people and increased the demand. We wound up getting a higher proportion of our product specified by designers and architects than we had before.

How long does it take to turn a profit?

About three years from when you decide to do something. Economically, we’ve substantially increased our margins by 20% and sales by 30% over three years. But we didn’t go above a market price. It’s not about charging a premium for being green.

What benefits have you seen from the sustainable strategy?

It empowers our employees to spruik what we are doing, because they know it’s third-party certified. We’re now tapping into a lot of designers. We sell overseas, which we didn’t do previously. That is the future for expansion.

Should governments do more?

Governments should be involved in ecolabelling and not standing back, saying private enterprise leads things. The government should also be specifying carbon-neutral products. And its superannuation schemes should be driving companies to think long term, not short term.

How did your supply chain react?

Some were interested in change, others thought we were mad. Over time it has become a bigger issue. You now see some big American labels trying to ensure their supply chain doesn’t employ child labour. Today suppliers are more interested, and that’s why the price differential has gone down.

What changes did you make to the supply chain?

Textiles historically have been bad for the environment because of effluent – mainly from scouring, dyeing and finishing. We changed our wool source to one that was basically chemical-free and the scouring detergents were biodegradable, so the effluent from this process no longer damages waterways. Another result is that solid waste from scouring can be used as fertiliser. A host of dyestuffs has also been eliminated.

What sort of packaging do you use?

We recycle plastics and board, mainly post-consumer waste.

What advice would you give to designers in terms of eco-design?

Seek third-party certification. And maintain the integrity of their green decision. A lot of designers specify something, but it gets changed by clients or manufacturers.

What is the ‘Give back 40’ program?

We give employees 40 hours paid leave a year to work within the community.

Are there any inspirational references you recommend?

The documentary Global Dimming explains why you would want to reduce your carbon footprint.