Most of us have heard these three words many times before, and most of us have the same reaction when we see them in print. ?Oh, I?ve heard of that.? The funny thing is once you start to focus on them, the way you do things begin to change. When you leave a room you look to make sure all the lights are off. When you?re shaving in the morning, you fill the sink and don?t just stand there with the water running. You really do start to segment your trash into separate containers. By the way, did you know that in Japan they actually have someone that works daily in their apartment buildings to separate the trash after you do to make sure you go it separated properly? That?s having a commitment. I think more and more each day about my personal carbon footprint and how I can leverage those thoughts in our business with suppliers and retailers.

My granddaughter was in town visiting for the Memorial Day weekend and leaving a better world to live in just seems that much more important every time I see her. So in trying to come up with an idea for today?s blog, I was getting ready to go out for my daily run when I remembered an interesting article called Mr. Greenshoes in my Running Times magazine. It talked about going beyond being passionate about your own personal fitness to being equally passionate about the health of mother earth.

There was some excellent information about what some running shoe companies are doing to reuse old running shoes. There is the Nike ?Reuse-A-Shoe? program. They regrind the shoes and use them for sport courts and tracks for the economically disadvantaged. This is a much better story than the subject of my blog on May 14th ?How safe are we?? where I discussed the health risks associated with artificial turf. Additionally, Brooks Sports has started to produce their new shoe boxes with 100% post-consumer/production recycled content. The graphics on these boxes are printed with vegetable based ink, as are the labels which are made from recycled paper. These are just examples of how two companies clearly understand the importance of paying it forward for the next generation. We should honor manufacturers and suppliers like this with our business and our recommendation to others.

What can your company do?

I look forward to your comments.

Ron