Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Clean manufacturing still cost focused

By Dann Anthony Maurno, Special to Mass High Tech

Some of New England’s giants of clean manufacturing (think Ben and Jerry’s in Vermont) are driven by sheer principle. But for most manufacturers, a green strategy has to make fiscal sense, according to director Jack Healy of the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP). “About 5,700 of the 7,500 manufacturers in Massachusetts are under 20 people,” said Healy, noting that they are operating on thin margins. The MEPs are a nationwide network, funded by the federal government, and MassMEP consults with manufacturers to develop and implement sustainable transformations which are profitable and clean.

Do those manufacturers embrace clean manufacturing out of sheer conscience? “I haven’t seen too much of that, except in consumer products companies,” Healy said. “For most companies, there’s got to be a cost factor to reducing their carbon footprints. If you can demonstrate that it’s an opportunity to save money and reduce cost, then you have their attention. We’ve been able to do that.” MassMEP consulted with High Liner Foods USA based in Danvers to reorder its production lines; that measure recouped $100,000 in energy costs per year. Healy said MassMEP helped BAE Systems of Lexington achieve much the same results.

“I think there’s a general trend toward using less energy and being more conscious of waste; and those are good trends,” said Shel Horowitz, a green marketing consultant based in Hadley. Horowitz has written seven books on what he calls “principled profit,” and authored a Business Ethics Pledge that has been adopted by more than 25,000 companies. “Generally, going green can cost less than not going green. Lots of companies have adapted good practices to reduce their energy, water and waste — and these are companies that are not selling a green product.” He points to perpetual green champions Stonyfield Farm in Londonderry, N.H., and Ben and Jerry’s. “They’re both cases of presenting consumers with an ethical and non-ethical product. If the cost is not too far off, they’ll go ethical.”

Barbara Batshalom is founder and executive director of The Sustainable Performance Institute (SPI), a Boston-based consultancy. Its clients include manufacturers like Sanofi’s Genzyme and Intel Corp. Production lines are obvious targets for greening, but, she said, “Generally we’ll work with a company holistically, so all its procurement, delivery and manufacturing operations are green.” A company can reduce its carbon footprint by holding more virtual meetings and taking fewer flights, for example; or by optimizing delivery for shorter routes and fuller trucks. Ultimately, those measures drive down delivery costs and carbon emissions.

How does New England rate compared to the rest of the United States for clean manufacturing? “I’m not so sure that we’re ahead of the San Francisco Bay Area, or New York,” Batshalom said. “And I don’t know how we rate compared to other places, for financial support and tax breaks. Certainly places like Ohio and Indiana are more tax friendly. Still there’s a lot of green innovation happening in New England.”

The strongest driver of green manufacturing is the market, whether through competition or customer demand, Batshalom said. Manufacturing output is regulated and penalized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but no regulations target energy efficiency, or even carbon output. “And nothing prevents ‘greenwashing,’” said Batshalom, which is a company claiming to be “green.” The Federal Communications Commission regulates and punishes false advertising, but has taken no measurable steps against greenwashing.

Integra Viaflo in Hudson, N.H., produces laboratory liquid-handling equipment and instrumentation. Product manager Jonathan Harkins noted, “We reviewed with our president Gary Nelson a list of things we have done or could do to reduce our carbon footprint. We realized we were generating a lot of plastic consumables,” like its pipette racks and packaging. The company designed a reusable rack called Green Choice, which reduces plastic materials by 61 percent and requires less than half the shelf space of earlier racks.
Rather than toss or recycle those racks, Harkins said, “A lot of our customers hold onto them and our local sales reps will pick them up. We recycle them ourselves, just a small initiative.” The company now designs some of its instrumentation to use rechargable batteries, versus disposables. Those piecemeal initiatives add up.

National Fiber in Belchertown manufactures cellulose-based insulation. The company upcycles (recycling for a higher, better use) more than 25 million pounds of newsprint, paperback books and phone books per year for use in its Cel-Pak insulation. “We hold ourselves to a high standard,” said company president Chris Hoch, far higher than any EPA requirements. Whenever possible, Hoch sources the company’s borate raw material from U.S. sources. “It’s absolutely the best quality; but we bring it out on intermodal railroads, so the carbon footprint is as low as we can get it; not nearly as high as it would be if it was coming straight on trucks.” National Fiber operates chiefly in a 250-mile radius, which Hoch says lowers the carbon footprint further, and its drivers are responsible for both drop-offs of product and pickup of recyclable paper. The trucks are rarely less than full.

In terms of product design, the Cel-Pak uses 83 percent recycled material, versus the 35 percent typical of fiberglass and zero for foam insulation. Also, the cellulose insulation requires far less energy to produce; this is called embodied energy, and National Fiber uses 750 BTUs per pound of Cel-Pak, versus the 12,000 typical for fiberglass.

So New England hosts some clean manufacturing champions, and some smaller, unsung heroes as well. Still, for most manufacturers, the rewards have to be driven by profit as well as conscience.

 

Dann Anthony Maurno is a freelance writer in Salem.