Yellowstone...A Business Case for Sustainability

I had the great opportunity to spend New Years eve in Yellowstone to watch the passing of 2007. The park in the winter is spectacular, but then again it always is.

While hiking around Old Faithful through the Upper Geyser Basin I was contemplating how wonderful this place is and how the foresight of our government played a great role in preserving this area for future generations.

With a little research I discovered that while the government was ultimately supportive, it was largely the railroad companies that supported and promoted the creation of the world's first national park as an opportunity to haul more than freight and to profit from delivering tourists to the park. Specifically it was the Union Pacific (UP) and Central Pacific (CP) railroads which transported the survey teams, free of charge into to Yellowstone around 1870. The Hayden valley of Yellowstone bears the name of the chief surveyor, Ferdinand V. Hayden. The railroads used this survey to lobby congress to declare this area a national park. In a blinding 1 1/2 year effort congress passed a law designating Yellowstone as a national park in 1872.


Sustainable Eco Tourism was born with the foundation of Yellowstone National Park largely out of the desire to make a profit. Subsequent parks were established with the same motivation. Notably Glacier National Park with its extensive Chalet system and Waterton Park just north of the USA / Canada border linking Americans deprived of whiskey during the prohibition of the 1920's/30's to a source of fun, natural beauty and yes legal whiskey.

Sustainable business practices can relate to all businesses and plays an important role in our moving forward as a "sustainable" society. There is nothing wrong with profit and everything right with profit, especially when profit helps us support ourselves and a cleaner environment.

Wausau Paper's effective water management

Every consumer should understand how much influence they have as a group. You can see all over the market how resource intensive companies are taking a very close look at how they operate their plants. My industry, the paper industry is no different.

I know the folks at Wausau Paper personally and I know as individuals that many of them genuinely care about the environment. However you need a company management that sees better business practices to be in its best interest to make real change. This is how Wausau Paper appears to view things.

Over the last two years Wausau Paper has reduced their consumption of water at their Brokaw, WI paper mill by, get this, 2 billion gallons of water per year. That's approximately 5.5 million less gallons of water consumed a day. This water consumption savings is equal to approximately 80 million loads in a dishwasher and 70 million loads of laundry.

That's impressive and I congratulate Wausau Paper for their efforts. I also congratulate the consumers who have voiced their desires for cleaner manufacturing. Keep up the good work.

We Now Sell 100% Recycled Shipping Boxes

Buy Recycled Shipping Boxes Here

We were really surprised at how hard it was to secure these 50% recycled boxes. We knew we wanted new shipping boxes with the most recycled content possible. As a paper company executive I thought, mistakenly, that most brown corrugated boxes would certainly be recycled. Not so.

We also needed boxes with double thick walls to make sure that we were protecting our paper and envelope shipments to the best of our ability. We know that nothing is more frustrating than to receive an order you've waited for only to find it damaged. Anyway, to make a long story short we now have these great boxes and use this as another example of our ongoing commitment to sustainable practices.

I am personally very serious about this process and I have instructed our managers to examine all of our processes and vendors and to make real changes to our business with the goal to lessen our impact on the environment. I believe that many small initiatives like ours will make a meaningful impact and help to maintain a healthy planet for future generations.

I hope you agree.