"Curiosity Matters" Meets Ampleen: Interview with Shoko Sekiguchi

My usual role is to observe and ask cleaver questions.  This week, the role was reversed and I was interviewed by "Curiosity Matters".  Curiosity Matters is a popular blog by Molly Aaker and she writes about a diverse subject matter related to creativity, strategy, design and business.

Here is an excerpt from the interview and check out the whole interview at Curiosity Matters:

In your current job, you help multi-national corporations develop their IT strategy. How did this job lead to supporting sustainability practices?
The multi-national corporations are looking into cost reduction by being efficient. Going green should really bring an efficiency to the corporations when it is planned well. So, many corporations asked me how to be green and efficient in their IT solutions and that is how I started looking at sustainability very seriously.

Sustainability on a corporate level can cover everything from LEED certified buildings, to energy efficient server management and increased recycling. What sustainability efforts can have the most positive impact on the environment?

That is a great question. I believe that starting with the sustainability projects that can be easily translated into cost reduction would most likely have the biggest impact on a CEO’s decision to get further involved in the sustainability effort. As a result, it will lead to the most positive impact on the environment.
 

What companies have served as examples to the sustainability movement?

There are several such as Google and Whole Foods. I am particularly impressed by the effort of Patagonia, an out-door clothing brand. I wrote about them in a post on Ampleen, ”What’s the Responsible Company?”

Although caring for the environment has gone mainstream, I’m sure it can still be difficult to convince companies to be sustainable especially if there are extra costs involved. How do you do this?

As mentioned earlier, companies, especially public companies, are looking into being efficient and need justification for every spending. But, like the new Bank of America Tower, if the green initiatives can prove great savings over time, the key stake holders are more likely to be receptive about the projects.

What keeps you motivated to become more involved in the sustainability movement?
When I see some positive changes, rather than negatives facts, I feel compelled to get more involved in the movement. For instance, I started seeing more people coming to the Union Sq. green market in last a few years and being interested in what it’s all about. I am excited to see the change and like to see more of that.

Water and the City: The Case of Bermuda and NYC

Bermuda's colorful houses

Have you ever thought that you knew everything about a certain subject and later found out that you were missing some vital information that was under your nose the whole time?   

 

I had that experience during recent visit to Bermuda.  I learned something significant about the island -- about its water supply -- for the first time after several visits to the island.

 

The only source of fresh water in Bermuda is rain and every drop of rain has to be captured efficiently and quickly.  I have always appreciated the colorful walls and beautifully designed white roofs of the typical house in Bermuda but, actually I found out the roofs are designed to capture water easily.  The rain is collected on roofs and diverted into storage tanks. Each house usually has at least one of these tanks forming part of its foundation. 

In this way, Bermuda has been able to maintain sustainable water supply. 

Bermuda's solution for fresh water reminds me of our own water issues in NYC.  Did you know NYC's tap water quality is rated one of the best in the world?  But now our water quality is being threatened by a possible change in NY state's policy against fracking operations.

 

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting natural grass from shale rock layers deep within the earth. Fracking makes it possible to produce natural gas extraction in shale plays that were once unreachable with conventional technologies. Recent technology advancements in drilling have led to new man-made hydraulic fractures in shale plays that were once not available for exploration.

The problem with fracking is that it causes something like a mini-earthquake and some people say the chemicals released by this drilling operation can pollute an area and contaminates local water.  This contamination has been known to cause lung damage and, cancer, and even death.

New York state regulators are now examining the potential public health effects of hydraulic fracturing as part of its review of the controversial natural gas drilling process.  But it isn't clear how the research results will influence a decision by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to allow such drilling in the state. 

An island such as Bermuda has been successfully preserving its water by each household's effort and each Bermuda resident's collective effort to maintain its water sustainability. 

I wonder how we can, residents of NYC, similarly help preserve our precious water? 

What do you think of environmental hazards of fracking?  Should governments put a stop to it?

PS: Speaking of water, did you know that we have World Water Day, March 22nd? Also, did you know that we just had a World Water Week from September 1 -6?   Water indeed is our life, and we should acknowledge its importance and should be grateful to have abundant fresh water in our daily life.  Do you agree?

Sharing a Cup of Coffee in the City: Think Coffee's Case

I've worked at coffee shops for a nearly embarrassing amount of time. I hand out hundreds of paper cups a day only to see them in the garbage on the corner just outside my shop when I leave work, which suggests to me that they were used for (and I'll be generous) twenty minutes.



Guest Blogger: Mia Schachter

In the last several years, "green" cups have cropped up -- cold cups are made of corn and hot cups are made of potatoes. These cups are compostable, which means that even if they don't make it into a commercial composting facility to be churned into fertilizer, they won't sit in a landfill for hundreds or thousands of years. From my year-long stint selling coffee and coffee products wholesale, I know that these cups are substantially more expensive than the ones you get from the bodega. Choosing to sell coffee in these cups is a calculated and deliberate choice to be conscious about the waste produced at a shop.

For some of us, refusing plastic takeout containers and bringing our own bags to the grocery store is something of a hobby. We seek out ways to be more self-sufficient and feel guilty when we forget our Klean Kanteen. For others, it's an obligation. And for still others, it's merely a welcome bonus if our coffee cup happens to be compostable.

I no longer work at Think Coffee, but as far as I can tell, it is doing the most of any coffee shop to reduce waste. Think Coffee almost exclusively offers compostable to-go materials. Considering the existence of companies like Greenware, which specialize in these sustainable products, one might think it would be easy to use exclusively compostable goods. It's not.

The container your salad comes in might be compostable, but those little ones your salad dressing comes in? Maybe not. Your cup might be, but not the straw, because the only compostable straws I've seen crunch in your mouth and break easily. Hot lids often shrink and expand with extreme heat, and you asked for your latte extra hot, to which I begrudgingly obliged, but now your lid is dripping, or it split when you put it on the cup. They are designed to break down easily, unlike plastic, but sometimes the breaking down starts a little too quickly, as in while it's in your hand.

Think Coffee has compostable wax paper, utensils, bags, napkins and clam-shell takeout boxes. But once you've got the stuff, you leave.

Think Coffee also has a garbage sorting station, the fanciest of which is at its 8th Avenue location. Each hole is cut in an image of the type of thing that can go in there. While it's confusing and tedious, it's the only way to offer the opportunity to care to those who do. And when in doubt, the "landfill" hole is the safe bet.

There is a Portlandia sketch about a garbage sorting station on steroids with color coding and a tiny box exclusively for nail clippings. What they fail to mention is that if you fail to sort your garbage and your stuff doesn't make it into the composting hole at a Think Coffee location, you can still rest easy that it will eventually decompose somewhere.

Our world is outfitted for garbage. The movie WALL-E served as fair warning that our garbage disposal methods themselves are not sustainable. Action Carting, a company that sends garbage trucks around the city picking up contracted shops' compost, provides a necessary service for shockingly cheap. It surprises me that there aren't composting cans next to every garbage in the city considering how cheap it is. Farmers’ markets often offer composting stations where you can bring your household waste.  

My household compost pales in comparison with the compost gathered at a Think Coffee, which only reminds me how fantastic it is that they put in the effort to make the most use out of everything that comes through their doors. Food scraps, coffee grinds, newspapers (yes, you can compost newspaper) all make it into the compost. The real cost is the effort it takes to initially set up a contract with Action and to order the appropriate goods, and then the time invested in education for employees.

It's hard to notice when goods we receive are compostable. Other than things we would actually put in our mouths and swallow, cups and utensils are assumed to be garbage. One actually has to read the fine print on cups to notice that they are made from corn. Just as vegetarians often believe that they are exercising their power by simply removing themselves from an action, one can witness the power of removal by refusing to participate in the kind of passive consumerism that occurs when we waste.

I've served enough coffees that are left untouched to know that often we consume merely in order to participate in a collective social hobby. The new hobby that has come to the forefront of the hip and trendy is the attention to one's carbon footprint. Among the foils of the meat industry, people can be overheard discussing their transportation habits, their consumption habits, and ways they reduce waste.

And all this over a cup of coffee.

<About Our Guest Blogger>

Mia Schachter 

Mia has been a barista in Los Angeles, Austin, and New York for almost six years. She is part time student at Columbia University's School of General Studies, studying Philosophy.  She currently works at Irving Farms on the Upper West Side.