Proving Yourself in a Sustainable World

Measuring the results of your sustainability initiatives legitimizes your programs inside and out.

When it comes to operating sustainably, several phrases come to mind: practice what you preach; don't ask anyone to do what you wouldn't do yourself; put your money where your mouth is; and more. Take a look at Wal-Mart. It sought to be a leader in sustainability and came up with its own scorecard and basically said, "Fine, to be sustainable, we need less packaging." When an organization with that kind of clout makes a decision to go in a direction, it's almost impossible not to follow its lead.

This attitude has made sustainability the real deal. "When you have the Coke's and Pepsi's of the world making some of the statements they're making about package reduction, waste reduction, water reduction, and energy reduction; when you've got Wal-Mart doing a packaging scorecard calling for year-on-year 5-10 percent material reduction out of their packaging with an ultimate goal to not even have packaging, it's just real," comments Dan Muenzer, vice president of marketing, Spear.

Spear is one company that takes sustainability seriously, and has emerged as a recognized sustainability leader in the pressure-sensitive (p-s) label market.

Sustainable without knowing it

Spear was a pioneer of the "no label look" in the 1980s through a partnership with Proctor & Gamble. Over time, the company became "intimately involved with developing raw materials—specifically films that were clear, less costly, and got very involved with the manufacturing process," says Rick Spear, president and CEO of Spear.

In the early 1990s, the company expanded the technology by both developing thinner films that cost less, and developing rotary machines for application that could operate at about 250-300 bottles/minute. The first stop for this technology for the beverage sector was with the glass industry and a new product launch—Clearly Canadian Sparkling Water. By developing the thinner, lower cost films, Spear was already beginning to operate in a more sustainable manner, though, at the time, sustainability was not something many, if any, companies were quantifying.

Sustainable history

Spear has been involved with general environmental programs going back 10 years when it began working with its suppliers and outside sources to develop recycling programs. According to Rick Spear, his appreciation of the environment in his personal life overlapped into his corporate life. "I've always been a nature enthusiast," says Spear. "I love the outdoors and appreciate it quite a bit. So there's always been an appreciation on a personal level which obviously overlaps into the corporate arena."

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