Session Moderator Rick Cockrum, President, Capitol Assets


Indiana-based companies share their sustainbility strategies:


Noel Davis, President, Vella Gear: Manufactures precision wind energy components.

David Price, Division manager, Peoskey Plastics: Produces plastic film products from post-consumer plastic bags and other films, creating a closed-loop system. Collects films, for free, from partcipating retailers, manufacturers and other companies in exchange for a guaranteed source other their raw material. They not only pay for the material, but also cover all costs for its transportation to their manufacturing sites. More information can be found in this video http://bit.ly/qqVMnc

Scott Miller, Director of Sustainability, Knauf Insulation: More than 55% of content in the insulation is recycled glass, which comes from Oakland, Chicago, the Philadelphia area and Montreal. They also use a corn based adhesive. According to Miller, there are economies in using recycled glass over virgin materials, making the business model stronger. Growing curbside programs are increasing the availability of post-consumer materials, and by using post-consumer materials, the company gains product differentiation and brand strength.

Discussion

Lack of local manufacturing -- Need more manufacturing in the US. Why should we recycle steel in the US and then ship it to Germany to be manfuctured into a component and then ship it back to the US for use? What can we do to stimulate more US-based manufacturing?

Carrot versus stick -- These companies demonstrate that a lot can be accomplished via the "carrot", but what are the limits of that and what more could be done if policymakers passed laws regulating carbon emissions or other environmental policies? Like it or not, we will be paying more for energy ten or 15 years from now, and we need to not only deal with that reality, but prepare to benefit from it.