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 Resources
Saved Certificates
You may have noticed that at the bottom
of each page on our website there is a set of numbers. Those numbers for
Gallons of Gasoline, Pounds of Greenhouse Gases, and Kilowatt Hours of
Energy represent savings goals that we have set for ourselves. How do we
reach those goals? By providing our customers with foodservice products
made from plants. Many of our customers have seen these numbers and
naturally wondered about the impact their own business might be having.
In conjuction with the Million Gallon Challenge , Eco-Products is
happy to announce that qualified customers and distributors can now
request to receive a Certificate of Resources Saved like the one
pictured above. These certificates will quantify the resources your
business has saved on an annual basis by choosing Eco-Products over
traditional foodservice disposables.
A Note On Methodology
With
the help of Natureworks, LLC , Eco-Products has developed a proprietary
method for calculating the resources our customers save by using
Eco-Products sustainable foodservice items. Due to the high level of
product specific detail that went into creating this tool, the
calculations are only valid for Eco-Products foodservice items.
What does the calculator do?
As with any computational tool, our proprietary calculator deals in
inputs and outputs. Inputs are governed by a customer's annual usage of
PLA based products: cold cups, hot cups, clear clamshells, round and
rectangular deli containers, etc. Next, an assumption is made about what
material the customer is switching from. Once this choice is made the
calculator generates two sets of output figures. One set of numbers
details the difference in Non-Renewable Energy Use (NREU) required from
cradle to factory gate for PLA relative to the appropriate
petroleum-based resin. The second set of numbers displays the difference
in Greenhouse Gas emissions for the same two resin types. Finally, we
take the raw differences for NREU and GHG and generate equivalents for
these numbers. Why? Using equivalents helps people turn large and
relatively abstract numbers into figures that make sense and are
relevant to our daily lives - like Gallons of Gasoline.
What about sugarcane products?
Calculating the resources our customers save by using sugarcane plates,
bowls, and food containers is a bit more difficult. We have overcome
this difficulty by making one crucial assumption: using sugarcane
products instead of products made from non-renewable materials is
analagous to using 100% PCW recycled paper instead of virgin paper. We
realize that this is not a perfect assumption, and look forward to a
time in the future when it will not be required to complete the
calculations.
Please feel free to contact wendell@ecoproducts.com
with any questions or comments
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