Sustaining Future Generations: A Case Study

The SGIA Sustainability Recognition Program encourages SGIA member companies to create and adopt sustainable business practices and to set an example for other companies to follow. Each year, SGIA honors those who have completed the program with the Sustainability Recognition Award. Plum Grove, Inc. and Tradeshows And Displays, two SGIA member companies who merged in 2014, were awarded for successfully implementing a strong sustainability system into their operation. SGIA sat down with Peter Lineal, Founder and Sales Manager at Plum Grove, Inc/Tradeshows And Displays, to hear their story. Can you tell us a bit about the beginning of your sustainability journey? When Plum Grove merged with Tradeshows And Displays, it brought with it an ongoing green-friendly program that took a step up in 2008, and it has been going greener ever since. In 2010, Plum Grove won the prestigious Governor’s Award for sustainable business practices. What were some efforts and/or sustainability practices exercised at Tradeshows And Displays? To start, we are 100-percent wind powered, and have been non-carbon fuel sourced for our electricity since 2009. We also buy green-friendly materials from green-friendly manufacturers as a preference. If available, and if acceptable to the client, we use materials with high recycled content and paper produced from trees grown on tree farms. While people lament the trees used in printing, in reality, if it weren’t for the economic value of forests, there would be no forests. The proof of this is that there are more forested acres today than 100 years ago. Another interesting thing is that our offset printing company uses soy-based inks, and we recycle almost everything at our factory — most weeks, our landfill waste stream is about equivalent to a large home garbage tote. We also developed a “green-friendly” logo for our clients to use on their printing to encourage others to be green friendly. It helps expand the reach of our efforts, and it’s an outward-facing tool and voice for sustainability. Other changes we made were to upgrade all lighting to LED and other low-consumption electricity, and our light switches have been replaced to be “auto-on” and “auto-off.” Building windows have also been re-caulked to conserve heat and air conditioning. Can you speak to any challenges that you faced during these transitions and implementations? With the merger, Tradeshows And Displays moved into expanding the green practices of their manufacturing even further. This has not always been easy, as the materials used and the recycling streams are much less developed for the small waste generators. What were the driving forces behind moving towards more sustainable practices? Consumer demand, moral obligation, etc? In our own experience, we do not see that there is very much consumer interest in green practices when shopping — but it is another strong reason to do business with Tradeshows And Displays. Plus, it doesn’t cost much more to practice sustainability in manufacturing once the processes are in place. We believe that it is the right thing to do for our planet and for future generations.