Suppliers and Distributors Report Green Initiatives

that do not harm the environment. The site utilizes information from suppliers and incorporates it into a user-friendly online store. Distributors with their own Eco-Impact site can promote environmental responsibility along with their business when their end users shop online. Direct Impact also provides distributors with free catalogs designed to drive traffic to their sites.

Ramsey, Minn.-based Wendell’s constructed a new building in 1995 with a high-efficiency air compressor needed for the production process. The air flow that cools it is re-circulated into the plant to supplement heating and cooling and reduce energy usage. The company also upgraded equipment motors to reduce power usage and installed a new a high-efficiency lighting system. Staff modified operating hours to reduce power demand during peak times. Through encouraging employees to turn off lights, Wendell’s noticed a 30 percent decrease in its energy bill. Outside the facility, catch ponds were built into the landscaping around the building to capture lawn, parking lot and building run-off before it reaches the surrounding wetland.

"We distributors are thinking green as well," reports Gregg A. Emmer, vice president and chief marketing officer of Kaeser & Blair Inc. in Batavia, Ohio. The distributorship’s headquarters has gone paperless, encouraging dealers to submit orders electronically and scanning all paper orders. "We’ve gone from having literally hundreds and hundreds of file cabinets on the floor with orders and everything else, to two rows of cabinets now, and everything is archived paperless," Emmer says. The project, spearheaded by the executive team, has taken three years and a large investment in new scanners and other equipment. But the efforts have had business benefits, too, allowing documents to be electronically in two places at once.

Kaeser employees use bulk recycling on premises as well as a secure shredding service that recycles the scraps. Employees also recycle aluminum cans and donate the tabs to charity. The company pays for its recycling initiatives by selling misprints and samples at a local flea market, keeping them out of landfills.

The K&B campus is also home to a company garden with vegetables and fruit tended for 16 years by Chairman of the Board Dick Kaeser. "In the scheme of what’s good for the ecology, if each individual had their own little garden the same size as he gardens here on the premises, it would make a big change in the world, too," Emmer notes.

In Lewiston, Maine, Geiger has also made its facility more energy efficient, reducing electricity usage by 580,000 kilowatt hours annually. These efforts are saving the company an estimated $87,000 each year. Projects to accomplish this included 1,300 new lights and a new air compressor. Geiger completed the projects in partnership with Efficiency Maine, a program of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, which contributed to a savings of more than 8,000 gallons of heating oil last winter. Geiger’s energy improvements will also keep 377 tons of greenhouse gases out of the air, the equivalent of taking 74 cars off the road. "We are saving money and improving the environment while continuing to grow the company," says Raymond Bergeron, facilities and engineering manager.