Last spring, OC Sustainability put the finishing touches on our Sustainable Business Toolkit, just as Redeye was reforming its Green Team. When Mark Christopulos reached out to us, we were thrilled to make the toolkit available to Redeye to see how helpful it might be to local businesses.
Just under a year later, a lot has changed at Redeye as a result of using the toolkit. Here’s what Mark has to say about the journey Redeye has been on:
Why is sustainability important to you, personally? to Redeye?
I think many of us at Redeye share the same personal concerns, and this ends up being the company's concerns: the generation of waste and how we dispose of it are two of the most important issues for us.
What was the biggest change for Redeye that came from using the toolkit/working with OC Sustainability?
The toolkit is great. We are using it to find solutions for the recycling of used pallet stretch wrap, electronic equipment, and cardboard box re-use. We also found out about "Waste Reduction Partners" from the toolkit. They came to Redeye two weeks ago, and they—along with a few Redeye warehouse and Green Committee folks—toured the warehouse and office. They reviewed our single-stream recycling set up, along with separate recycling initiatives, including broken pallet recycling and vinyl record and compact disc recycling. They are preparing a report with their recommendations.
Other notable changes?
The most important one in my mind is finally finding a solution to "obsolete" vinyl records and compact discs. Until recently, we had no choice but to destroy them. We found a record pressing plant who will take back vinyl records. They send the cardboard jackets and plastic wrap to the appropriate recyclers, and they grind down the vinyl itself in house and make new records out of it. We arranged this with the pressing plant ourselves.
We were stumped, though, about the CDs, and it was Mel Gilles, the Sustainability Projects Analyst with Orange County who walked us through the toolkit and turned us on to a contact at NC DEQ who found a CD recycler for us. Everybody at Redeye is happy about this, and so are the record labels who own the product.
How has the Green Team membership and focus changed as a result?
Early on, the Green Committee would banter about what Redeye should do, and what we as individuals should do. But once we had a few tangible wins and gained the confidence of the operations department and upper management, then the team itself gained more confidence and became more focused on things we now know we should be able to accomplish.
What’s coming next?
We are looking into the possibility of purchasing carbon offsets to earn "climate neutral" certification. Since we are not a manufacturer, our carbon production mainly centers around transportation—how we ship and the frequency of shipments. To reduce the carbon output will be a complex and long-term journey, but in the mean time we may go the carbon offset route. We also need to find out what other businesses in the area are doing, and also what other players in the music industry—record labels, manufacturers, and other distributors—are doing. The goal would be to consider the supply chain as a whole, and work together with those entities upstream and downstream from us.
What would you like to tell other businesses about the journey towards sustainability? Any words of encouragement or lessons learned?
If you are "into it," the way the Green Committee members are, then you think, "Of course everyone else thinks like we do, and some of these suggestions are so obvious that they should be easy to implement!" But of course any change is an operational change and has to be integrated into the business, and this takes time and planning. But again, we are lucky at Redeye that we do have support at the operational—including warehouse staff—and senior management levels. So I would say, keep at it, take small steps at first, and build momentum.
Photo: Judy Thompson and Janine Scoville from WRP, and Lewis Beverly of Redeye
