I "graduate" from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in three weeks. Good God how time flies when your mind is being ever expanded by thought provoking discourse. And I have something to say. Not once, ONCE, was sustainability discussed in the context of business strategy. You know what was discussed? Finance. Marketing. Negotiations and decision making. Capital budgeting. You know, fun stuff. And I am being serious about it being fun. These professors are brilliant.
I started work in the "real world" in sustainability-- trying to understand what it was and how to take advantage of it for Dordan; I did an extensive amount of traveling because of this, "networking" with people twice my age and experience. I was a sponge, absorbing every factoid about sustainability so I too could become an expert and help our clients, as I liked to say, "achieve more sustainable packaging solutions." Unfortunately for me and my love affair with sustainability, Dordan's clients didn't care about sustainable packaging; they cared about cost and performance, reliable and convenient service, speed to market and innovations in design and manufacturing. Shocker!
I spent 4 years as Dordan's Sustainability Coordinator researching and writing about recycling in America in hopes that the clamshell packaging that Dordan manufactures would become recyclable. In 2012, thermoformed containers became "technically" recyclable, insofar as the majority of communities now accepted them for recycling. Upon release of this information I was totally PUMPED, for the once impossible had become possible, thanks to collaboration among key stakeholders and investment in infrastructure. I sent a "congrats, plastic clamshell packages are now recyclable" email to Dordan's contact database, assuming that now that thermoforms were "recyclable," the orders would just fly in. Afterall, as a packaging engineer for Burts Bee's told me at my first Sustainable Packaging Walmart Expo in 2009, he was getting out of thermoformed packaging because they were "not recyclable." Well now that they are, you surley will be sourcing them from us then, right? Nope, China!
Pardon me for the nuances of cynicism that intercept my prose; perhaps I'm foreshadowing here.
So back to Booth. Booth, you have taught me that Dordan is a totally kick ass company with a unique and authentic history and corporate culture. No, we are not some fancy pants design firm in LA nor do we pretend to be; we are not a "solutions provider" as every other company attests but a quality American manufacturer that actually makes stuff, you know, with machines. My father and his team built this company, transforming it from a dirty store front operation on Elston Avenue in Chicago to a 50,000 square foot ISO 9001:2008 certified facility whose floors you could arguable eat off of.
What is the value of pride? Loyalty? Business school has taught me that these are qualities that you can't buy nor manufacture; they are what makes doing business worth it, aside from that beefy bonus you get. I believe that owning and running a successful and sustainable business is the best social good we can offer. Lucky for me, that's what my family specializes in.
Sustainable packaging? How about sustainable business? At Dordan, you can have both.
Is this an Instagram photo!? Nope, just an old polaroid of my Dad and Dordan's CEO (in white tee) at old Dordan, circa 1974. Badass.