Doing Good While Doing Well
"So? You had to go to Australia to find an example?" My spouse, an attentive reader of these columns, offered that question in response to an article on a successful attempt Down Under to earn money while saving some of the environment. Then, playing fair, he found some US examples of commercial interests doing well while doing good.
The one that most caught my fancy came from the journal Illahee, a term that has several meanings centering around the ideas of "earth" or "place" in the Chinook trade jargon that enabled Northwestern Indians and Europeans to negotiate in a common language. The spring 1994 issue of Illahee contains an article with the arresting title, "The Ecology of Larry's Markets." Its author has an even more arresting title: Brant Rogers is the environmental affairs manager at Larry's Markets. The title isn't a euphemism that really means something like the guy who waters the lawns, either.
Larry's Markets are a five-store chain of classy foodstores based in the Seattle area, although calling Larry's a classy foodstore is a bit like calling Notre Dame cathedral a nice church. The stores, as a Seattle-dwelling friend of mine puts it, are castles of cuisine: Larry's is the place to find arcane spices, exotic fresh produce, or a dozen different varieties of canned hash.
Other than going along with the general environmentalist tone of western Washington, Larry's was not engaged in any organized environmental plan until the local economic downturn of 1991. The initial impetus for the greening of these markets was not the noble desire to save the world, but the pragmatic need to save money.
In the course of reviewing all operating costs, Larry's managers decided that too much money was going for garbage. Wastes were not only filling up municipal landfills, they were emptying the company coffers. The managers embarked on a program of waste reduction and recycling.
The first step was composting food wastes. Larry's Markets contracted with a local firm that already was composting clippings from Seattle gardens and yards. The pilot project showed that it was indeed possible to collect organic material in the stores, haul it away inexpensively, and compost it effectively. Each of the stores in the chain soon joined in. During 1992, the markets had consigned 349 tons of food waste to compost piles. In 1993, the total rose to near 700 tons. Now the markets are also composting waxed cardboard, for even greater savings in trash tonnage.
The composted food waste returns to enrich the landscaped beds that are a trademark of the markets. Some of the food waste formerly was washed down drains into garbage disposals; composting also has saved the markets some 200,000 gallons of water a year.
Recycling waste material was the next step. (That's been a part of American commerce ever since Henry Ford reportedly specified the exact dimensions of the wood a supplier was to use for building shipping crates; Ford thriftily disassembled the crates after the supplies arrived and used the perfectly sized strips as floorboards in the Model T.) The markets set up systems to collect glass bottles, aluminum, coated-paper milk cartons, steel cans, different kinds of plastic, and mixed paper from throughout the stores, from checkstands to offices.
Partly because of the growing company-wide appreciation of the value of recycling, Larry's has also become a leader in stocking and using recycled products. The brown paper sacks in which customers carry home their groceries, for example, now contain up to 40% recycled material and soon will increase to 50%. Such environmental good manners bring the markets favorable attention and help gain the loyalty of environmentally conscious shoppers.
So it's virtuous behavior, but it's also profitable. In 1992, the company was about $29,000 ahead, thanks to its altered waste-management program. In 1993, it saved nearly $40,000. The greening of Larry's Markets has also put more green in the company pockets.
