After nearly three years at GreenBlue, Theron Jourdan, Project Manager for GreenBlue’s Forest Products program, recently relocated back to his hometown of Portland with his wife, Kelsey, and their dog, Pela, a frequent office visitor. Theron came to GreenBlue as part of our acquisition of Metafore in late 2009, which was the foundation for GreenBlue’s Forest Products program. Theron worked across various Forest Products initiatives … More
GreenBlue held the second-ever Forest Products Working Group meeting earlier this month at founding member Domtar’s headquarters in Fort Mill, SC. The full day meeting was extremely productive as the Working Group moves full steam ahead on its inaugural project, creating a common framework for sustainable paper products. Time was also dedicated to identifying the next project for the group to undertake. An optional tour … More
What’s in a package? If you are like many of the leading brands and consumer packaged goods companies thinking about packaging sustainability, there’s probably some recycled content in your package. And, if your packaging is fiber-based, figuring out how to optimize recycled content might just get a little easier with the release of GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s Guidelines for the Use of Recycled Content in Fiber … More
We are pleased to announce that we have opened up membership for our Forest Products Working Group and we are seeking leadership companies to join this important effort. The Forest Products Working Group brings together leading companies that rely on paper, wood, and other forest products to share their knowledge and develop new solutions for making their businesses more sustainable. The group, following the successful … More
An excellent documentary film from last summer, Page One: Inside the New York Times, covers topics ranging from the Tribune Company bankruptcy, WikiLeaks, online news business models, and many current subjects impacting the Times and the news industry in general. There are many interesting elements of the film, (including any part with David Carr, the Times media columnist), but what I thought was particularly interesting … More
Over the past few months, GreenBlue has been working with a group of students from Columbia University’s M.S. in Sustainability Management program on a research project related to our work in forest products. As part of this Masters program, students are required to complete a capstone project in which they undertake a semester long research endeavor for a nonprofit or government client, and GreenBlue was … More
Paper—at least in a historical context—really didn’t have much to do with trees and forests until as recently as 1843. We’re quick to connect paper and forests, but for the 2,000-odd years proceeding 1843, paper was derived almost exclusively from recycled textiles such as hemp, linen, and cotton. What might be even more surprising is that in the time since papermaking from wood fiber was … More
Have you seen a sign like this near your home or favorite campsite? Maybe you are familiar with exotic-sounding creatures with names like “Asian longhorned beetle” or “emerald ash borer?” If you aren’t already, you should be. It turns out that over half of all US states already have restrictions on firewood movement, and another six advocate leaving firewood at home. But why? The reason … More
GreenBlue is delighted to announce the launch of its new Forest Products Working Group, a working group with cross-industry representation of leading companies committed to addressing unmet needs in the forest products sector. The Forest Products Working Group will focus on developing practical tools and resources to address forest resource challenges and opportunities. The founding members today include Avery Dennison Corporation, Avon Products, Inc., Bank … More
The good news is that paper recovery rates continue to increase year after year in North America and Europe (with the exception of 2009-2010 in Europe due to a dip in production during the economic downturn). In March, the American Forest & Paper Association launched its Better Practices Better Planet 2020 initiative, establishing an ambitious goal of 70% paper recovery by 2020. A lot of … More