Firms find it pays to go green
Apr. 17--By Rosemary Winters, The Salt Lake Tribune Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
"Green business" might strike some as an oxymoron, but changing business practices to tread softly on the earth has become an imperative of the environmental movement and corporations are learning to participate in rather than impede the process.
In Utah, three manufacturing companies have redesigned their processes to use
less materials, water and energy and produce less waste and pollution. Autoliv,
Varian Medical Systems and La-Z-Boy have implemented environmental management
systems that require the companies to go beyond compliance with state and
federal environmental regulations to minimize their environmental impacts.
In 2004, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality launched the Clean Utah
program to encourage and recognize environmentally friendly practices and to
identify environmentally responsible businesses for interested consumers. The
program is open to businesses that have good compliance records and that have or
are interested in developing environmental management systems.
So far, only Autoliv and La-Z-Boy have joined Clean Utah. Varian Medical
Systems was recognized by the department's 2004 Pollution Prevention Awards.
"We're sending the message to business: Compliance with environmental
regulation is expected, going beyond compliance is worthy of recognition,"
says Dianne Nielson, director of the Department of Environmental Quality.
Companies can create their own environmental management systems or adopt a
known standard with external audits, such as ISO 14001, established by the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO). An EMS includes a written
environmental policy available to employees and the public, an initial audit of
all environmental aspects of the business followed by annual or semi-annual
audits, specific goals to reduce or eliminate environmental impacts and
implementing programs to achieve the goals. Once goals are realized, typically
on an annual basis, new goals are set and the process continues.
Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Autoliv was the first automobile supplier to
adopt ISO 14001 in 1998. The company, which manufactures seat belts and auto air
bags, has plants in Ogden, Promontory, Brigham City and Tremonton.
"It came down from the very top that they want us to be a very
environmentally conscious company," says Leonard Barton, an Autoliv
environmental engineer based in Ogden. "Our whole industry is to save
lives. We don't want to be helping people on one hand, and hurting people on the
other" with a polluted environment.
Barton oversees Autoliv's efforts to maintain ISO 14001 certifications at its
North American plants, which in addition to Utah, are in Kentucky, Michigan,
Indiana and Mexico. After seven years of setting and achieving goals, Barton
says most of the "low-hanging fruit" is gone, and he and other
employees are constantly looking for more ways to get the company to its
ultimate goal of zero waste, zero emissions and zero discharges.
Between 1998 and 2002, Autoliv reduced the weight of its passenger air bag by
40 percent, from 7.3 pounds to 4.4 pounds. Making lighter parts reduces the
amount of steel Autoliv consumes by thousands of tons annually, and when the air
bag becomes part of a car, its fuel efficiency improves over its life-span.
In Utah, Autoliv uses natural gas shuttles to transport employees between
plants and encourages employees to car pool. The company has launched a new
logistical program for its trucking system that maximizes truckloads and
minimizes trips to save fuel. Autoliv uses returnable packaging for most of its
shipping to cut down on packaging waste.
"Once you're recycling all your white office paper, you've got to come
up with some new things to work on," Barton says.
Including employees on the ground has been crucial to finding new ways to
improve the company's efficiency and environmental impact, Barton says.
"Until [Autoliv adopted ISO 14001], it was the environmental engineer's
responsibility for environmental improvements. Now it's everybody's
responsibility," Barton says. "Basically, I got someone to help me
with my job, and that someone is everyone."
Varian Medical Systems, based in Palo Alto, Calif., manufactures X-ray tubes
and radio-oncology equipment for cancer treatments. Its West Valley City plant
produces 20,000 X-ray tubes each year, which sell for $1,200 to $50,000 a piece.
J.C. Smith, a chemist with the job title "manager of environmental and
industrial hygiene," improved the plant's environmental management system
after he joined Varian in 1992.
In 1991, Varian was the state's seventh largest air polluter, releasing
450,000 pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOC) into the air. Smith looked
carefully at the amounts and types of chemicals used in the manufacturing
process. He substituted less toxic and nontoxic chemicals for toxic ones,
cutting the plant's chemical grocery list from 2,300 to 1,500 varieties. And he
slashed chemical use by making the processes more efficient.
"My job is finding alternative ways to do exactly the same thing,"
Smith says. "In my career, I haven't noticed a conflict between doing the
right thing environmentally and good business."
In 2004, Varian's total emissions were 39,000 pounds, which is less than the
amount of carbon dioxide typically spewed from one car's tailpipe in a year. The
plant's hazardous waste dropped from 300,000 pounds in 1991 to 56,000 pounds in
2004.
"After a decade, we've made a lot of progress and we started from a
nasty point," says Robert Kluge, a vice president at Varian who manages the
company's West Valley plant. "The biggest polluters we have now are the
cars in our parking lot."
Smith also helped launch a program to reclaim used X-ray tube components.
Varian gives credits to its customers for sending back used X-ray tubes. It
disassembles the tubes and recycles the components, and new X-ray tubes contain
10 percent to 30 percent recycled content.
La-Z-Boy's facility in Tremonton was the first furniture manufacturing plant
in the country to adopt Enhancing Furniture's Environmental Culture, an
environmental management system created by the American Home Furnishings
Alliance, formerly known as the American Manufacturers Association.
The Tremonton plant, which produces about 7,500 pieces of furniture each
week, improved its recycling program and replaced its air conditioner, a
steam-absorption chiller, with a more-efficient electric chiller.
In 2004, the electric chiller decreased the plant's total energy use by 41
percent from 2003, saved 500,000 gallons of water and cut air emissions by 67
percent. The chiller's price tag was $400,000, but facilities engineer Norm
Davis says it will pay for itself within two years in saved energy costs.
As part of its new EMS, the plant set a goal to increase recycling by 5
percent, but achieved 10 percent, reducing their waste by 122 tons in 2004. The
plant began recycling white office paper, plastic bags from shipping, plastic
pop bottles and cardboard tubes from fabric reams.
Davis asked the plant's glue supplier to send glue in returnable containers,
eliminating the need to dispose of or recycle plastic glue bottles. The plant
recycles 8,000 to 10,000 pounds per month of plastic. It also recycles 2.3
million pounds of polyfoam each year, which is returned to the vendor. Revenue
from recycling was $613,000 last year.
Those are the kind of achievements that the DEQ wants Utahns to know about.
"A lot of people talk about business and the environment as if the two
can't coexist," says Renette Anderson, Clean Utah coordinator. "We're
hoping through this program we can show that, yes, they can [co-exist] and
[business] can accomplish some amazing things."
LEARN MORE: For more information about the Clean Utah program, visit http://www.deq.utah.gov/cleanutah
or contact Renette Anderson, renetteanderson@utah.gov or 801-536-4478.
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