Eco-logical

Green initiatives have become popular topics for news programs, corporate boardrooms and household budgets. Although rhetoric about creating “greener” business practices has become voluminous, solutions often don’t achieve desired goals. However, Ecologic Designs (Boulder, CO) has developed a system for transforming used billboards into totebags, purses and other “second life” accessories.

Robert Bogatin, the company’s chief operating office and a part owner, said the company incorporated in 2005 and spent 18 months perfecting its process before unveiling its product, which combines billboard material, other vinyl substrates and such additional reclaimed materials as bicycle innertubes and wetsuits. Although it sells some items directly to consumers, he said business-to-business promotional items comprise most of Ecologic’s enterprise.

“We’ve created a business model where our customers also supply most of our billboard media,” Bogatin said. “We refer to them as ‘supplustomers.’ For instance, we would take material from billboards purchased by the New Belgium Brewing Co. or AT & T, two of our customers, and use it to create bags, purses and other items for in-store promotion. Compared to the cost of disposal and purchasing virgin material, donating vinyl for second-life products for their own future, promotional use provides an attractive alternative.”

To date, he estimates the company has spared five tons of billboard material from landfills since 2007. The company also practices sustainability with collection and delivery vehicles powered by vegetable-oil and biodiesel fuels. The company’s 2007 sustainability report earned it www.corporateregister.com’s award it recognition as the best initiative from a company with less than 250 employees and best initial, non-financial report.

Bogatin said Ecologic promotes second-life materials as premiums for tradeshows, conferences and other large business-to-business gatherings. To that end, the company won a contract to product more than 1,200 handbags to be given as premiums at the Sport Accord conference, an international gathering of executives from the International Olympic and committee and international sports federations.

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He said, “When people are thinking seriously about carbon footprints, I think a cradle-to-cradle solution that saves material from the waste stream and provides a quality product will prove successful.”