xpedx

At xpedx, we often talk about leading by example with sustainable solutions. Therefore, I was both intrigued and concerned by some of the statistics reported in a recent article by Packaging Digest titled “Consumers take responsibility for ‘green’ actions.”

The exciting news is that a record-high 71 percent of Americans consider the environment when they shop, according to the 2013 Cone Communications Green Gap Trend Tracker as cited in the article. I believe we will continue to see sustainability grow as a decision factor among consumers. As a result, companies need to carry on with innovations in this area.

However, the same number – 71 percent – wishes that companies would do a better job to help them understand environmental terms and issues. And 85 percent of respondents want companies to educate them on how to properly use and dispose of products. This means that we as a society are not capturing many of the intended payoffs from sustainable packaging after it transfers from the company to the consumer.

To me, it is a no-brainer. Green actions take a broad effort by both consumers and companies to be successful. If any step of the process falls short, then we risk losing the overall benefit. As more and more Americans consider the environment, companies must work with them to offer both sustainable packaging and instructions on proper use and disposal.

So the answer to the question “Who’s responsible for green actions?” is -- EVERYONE. From the manufacturer to the distributor to the consumer to the company that picks up the recycling and waste, if we all work together, we’ll make our environment cleaner and safer for future generations.

In celebration of Arbor Day on April 26, team members from IP/xpedx Loveland visited the Loveland Early Childhood Center to share the importance of trees with students. Led by Garth Geist, strategic sourcing leader, Print, 20 classrooms heard the importance of trees to the environment as well as IP’s sustainability efforts surrounding them. Each student and teacher also went home with an IP/xpedx pencil made from recycled newspaper, along with an xpedx note pad.

Prior to the visit, Loveland Schools were pleased to announce that IP/xpedx had donated $500 to the school towards the purchase of six new trees to replace those damaged by storms, for the school’s grounds.

Last month, I wrote about xpedx taking part in the EPA’s Pick 5 for the Environment – an initiative that asks participants to take on five goals to make a difference in their communities. In previous blogs, we highlighted the e-cycling efforts from our Western U.S. locations and the “greenscaping” from some Eastern locations.

Today, we recognize some achievements from xpedx team members in the South and Midwest.

So how did we do?

Our Birmingham division can see the new trees they planted (left) as they look out the brand new windows they installed (right). These double-panel windows replaced the 37-year-old ones in the office to increase energy efficiency.

xpedx launched the Wide Format Solutions Summits in five cities last year, but in order to help more of our customers be successful in this growing segment, we have nearly tripled the number of summits to include 28 shows in 14 new locations in 2013.

Wide format printing is a rapidly growing segment in the print industry. These summits allow us the opportunity to help local printers find new business opportunities by providing the tools for their success in this field. Each event features industry insights and advice from InfoTrends – a print technology strategy and consulting firm. Printers will also receive a hands-on demonstration of wide format technology from xpedx printing solutions experts.

The complete xpedx Wide Format Solutions Summits schedule:

• Baltimore/Hanover, Md. – May 1, 2
• New York City/Clifton, N.J. – May 8, 9
• Boston/Wilmington, Mass. – May 15, 16
• Chicago/Aurora, Ill. – May 29, 30
• Detroit/Livonia, Mich. – June 5, 6
• Cincinnati/Loveland, Ohio – June 12, 13
• Minneapolis, Minn. – July 10, 11
• Kansas City/Olathe, Kan. – July 17, 18
• Oklahoma City, Okla. – July 31, August 1
• St. Louis, Mo. – August 7, 8
• Denver, Colo. – August 14, 15
• Houston, Texas – August 21, 22
• Atlanta, Ga. – September 18, 19
• Orlando, Fla. – September 25, 26

A full list of equipment, substrates and media that we’ll have at each summit, plus registration information, are all available at www.wideformatsummit.com.

We look forward to helping you “Go Wide” at a show near you.

In celebration of Earth Day last week, xpedx participated in the EPA’s Pick 5 for the Environment – an initiative that asks participants to take on five goals to make a difference in their communities. On Friday, we introduced you to the E-cycle achievements and recycling from team members in the Western U.S.

xpedx Green Team members in the East chose to focus their Earth Day activities on “greenscaping,” or cost efficient and environmentally friendly solutions for landscaping.

So how did we do?

Just like the teams out West, the Pick 5 efforts of our teams in the East were very successful. Our Nashville team took on a flower planting project, while our Raleigh location planted a tree (pictured left).  In Charlotte, xpedx employees created a butterfly garden (pictured right), complete with benches and a new memory tree.  In Milwaukee, our team members added more perennials, grasses and hostas in their landscaping so that watering can be minimized. They continue to add more spring bulbs. They’re also keeping the entire space mulched to retain moisture in the soil.

These Earth Day efforts, combined with the ongoing sustainable solutions xpedx offers to our customers every day, help to renew Earth’s natural resources while making our locations more inviting and vibrant.

Thanks to our Green Team members for their hard work in celebration of Earth Day 2013.

Look for more updates on our other locations.

To celebrate Earth Day, xpedx participated in the EPA’s Pick 5 for the Environment. Pick 5 is an initiative that asks participants to take on five goals to make a difference among these six areas: water, air, land, energy, waste and advocacy. This year, as part of our commitment to sustainable solutions, each of our Green Teams decided to focus on one of our Pick 5 goals. 

Team members at our locations in the Western U.S. decided to focus on the collection of books, DVDs and CDs so that they could be donated to local libraries and family centers. Additionally, they gathered electronic waste for proper disposal.

This year, our strategy to continue to provide sustainable solutions focuses on providing sustainable leadership, maintaining sustainable operations and offering sustainable choices. By moving forward in all three areas, it’s our hope to improve the environment we live in – and to encourage and inspire our customers to do the same.

1. We aim to increase our efforts with our Sustainability Survey and Scorecard, which evaluates the role sustainability plays among our suppliers in three areas of corporate commitment, key sustainability indicators and collaborative potential. In 2013, we will expand this effort to suppliers that represent 75 percent of our purchases.
2. In 2013, we have established a goal to earn the ENERGY STAR at seven new locations. The ENERGY STAR is an EPA program that helps businesses save money and protect the climate through energy efficient operations. We have already earned the ENERGY STAR at 20 locations in previous years.
3. We will continue to expand recycling at our facilities by tracking diversion rates at all of our locations in a drive to reduce landfill materials. Last year, we recycled 3,492 tons of paper, plastic, board and other materials.
4. During 2013, we also aim to earn the Green Globes at one of our locations. The Green Globes assessment and rating system is a third party program that is used to evaluate green building design. Our Nashville facility previously earned a two Green Globes Rating.
5. We are also continuing to operate as a SmartWay Transport Partner. SmartWay is an EPA program that seeks to reduce greenhouse gases and other air pollutants and improve fuel efficiency. As part of this partnership, we will be measuring the environmental performance of our 715 trucks.

We’re already well underway on some of these initiatives, and I will provide updates on our sustainability goals progress throughout the year. 

Earth Day is here and xpedx is excited to continue our support of this global event.  For those not familiar, the first Earth Day was observed across the country on April 22, 1970 and crystallized a growing public concern about ecological issues. Earth Day was the product of local grassroots action to increase environmental awareness, but it also focused the nation's political agenda on urgent environmental issues.

Today Earth Day is a global event that engages people and companies to take action in many instances through more than a billion small steps.

This year xpedx has a new team of volunteer employees that are there to support sustainable solutions at our divisions.  xpedx Green Teams were formed at the end of last year across the company and, along with other xpedx employees, have been gearing up for Earth Day events over the past few weeks. I will be sharing some of the events occurring this week across xpedx in my blog.

The Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) has announced that xpedx is a winner in its 2013 Sustainability Recognition Program. My thanks to the SGIA for this recognition of the work we are doing to drive sustainability within our operations. 

In 2012, xpedx earned the ENERGY STAR at 10 locations, surpassing our goal of nine. We also renewed ENERGY STAR qualification in 10 facilities. We are targeting seven new facilities in 2013. The ENERGY STAR is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program that helps business save money and protect the climate through energy efficient business practices.

Additionally, last year our Nashville facility earned a two Green Globes rating from the Green Building Initiative for its sustainability practices. The Green Globes assessment and rating system is a third party program that is used to evaluate green building design, operation and management. 

 

The SGIA award highlights our commitment to sustainable solutions in our business practices. As we move forward, xpedx has lofty goals for the future of our sustainability program, and we will look for new avenues to emphasize sustainable operations, choices and leadership within the business.

 

 

Recently, I got the opportunity to sit down with Whattheythink.com to discuss the resurgence of wide-format print. Check out my interview by clicking here.

At xpedx, we want to empower printers to quit spending so much time on the minutiae. We can help them to integrate their systems, allowing for more time with the customer and less on time-consuming processes like ordering and invoicing.

That’s why we’ve partnered with EFI to bring efficiency in print management and MIS to our customers.  Our website (xpedx.com) is integrated with EFI systems (Printsmith, Monarch and Pace) to ensure our customers benefit through more automation and reduced keystrokes in managing their business. Printers save time and money with xpedx and EFI through:

• Real-time customer specific pricing & stock availability
• Electronic purchase order submission to xpedx
• Electronic order confirmation and invoice receipt to the customer
• Online order reviews
• Purchase history reports, and more

For more information or to download brochures for all three EFI integrations, please fill out the online form found on our website. You can also visit us at EFI Connect in Las Vegas next month to share in our successes.

At xpedx, our drive to uncover sustainable solutions touches everything we do. It is such a priority for the business that we have appointed a dedicated team of experts to help us and our customers move toward more sustainable operations. Kristi Plume is the newest addition to this team of Group Sustainability Specialists, and will work in the central part of the country. She joins Nan Faessler, who is out West, and Michael Herod, who is in the Northeast.

These three have an important role for our sustainability initiatives. They act as consultants working with our sales teams to identify how xpedx can help our customers review their supply chains to leverage the value of Sustainability. In addition, they champion our internal Sustainability initiatives.

We are excited to have Kristi join the team. She will help both xpedx and our customers to work toward better stewardship of our environment.

Design, both structural and graphic, is the originating point of opportunity for packaging success. At xpedx, we have assembled a team of experts in design and sustainability to ensure that our packaging solutions are efficient, aesthetically pleasing and easily transferable from pallet to shelf. In other words, they’re a win for your supply chain.

This summer, we introduced you to the three categories of packaging, but now I’d like to explore how we provide expert guidance in designing primary, secondary and tertiary packaging to positively impact materials, costs and labor.

Retail-ready Designs

The primary category of packaging is where the package comes in direct contact with the product. Its role is to provide protection, and is almost always the packaging that the consumer sees.  Our design experts provide customized recommendations on the primary level to ensure that the package catches the consumer’s eye and is compatible with secondary packaging. Retail-ready designs also have the benefit of reducing the amount of labor needed to display a product on the store shelf.

Sustainable and Cost Effective

Secondary packaging includes the carriers that move the primary package. Our package design experts know how to use sustainable materials and have a thorough understanding of maximizing efficient shipping, both of which leave a positive impact on the supply chain. Their approach leads to secondary packaging solutions that are cost effective and well-matched to the next level of the process – tertiary packaging.

Optimizing Shipping

The final category of packaging, the tertiary category, serves as a carrier for load containment, bulk handling and warehouse storage. As our experts work through the package design process, they are mindful of shipping compatibility. This approach provides our clients with packages that are appealing to consumers, easily moveable from the warehouse to their display and tough enough to withstand being shipped over long distances.

At the end of 2011, xpedx introduced the sustainability scorecard through a Net Impact challenge won by the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. This program was designed to be an annual event that will give us the opportunity to show improvement year over year as we drive sustainability across our supply chain.   

Designed to evaluate the sustainable practices of our suppliers, we use this scorecard to help make choices in product offerings and to work collaboratively with companies who put an emphasis on sustainability. The end results are improvements to our supply chain across printing, packaging, and facility solutions.

xpedx received tremendous response from our suppliers who were inaugural users of the scorecard in 2012 and we’ve used their feedback to upgrade the survey for 2013. Based on supplier responses, we were able to refine some questions to provide a more comprehensive view of their positions.

As we turn the calendar to 2013, we’ve set our goal to survey suppliers representing 75 percent of our purchases. By increasing the number of participants in the scorecard review, xpedx will continue offering the most diverse sustainable solutions to our customers.

xpedx continues to place a priority on helping our healthcare customers improve efficiency and reduce cross infection. With that in mind, we value our membership with the Health Industry Distributors Association (HIDA), which allows our Healthcare Facility Advisors to gain valuable insights that we can apply to customers’ facilities.

At the annual HIDA conference in Chicago last month, it was refreshing to hear industry experts discuss the need to transition from transaction and price selling to a value-add concept, a practice that our facility solutions team has championed from the start. We’ve always looked for ways to service customers beyond just products and have proactively addressed future needs or concerns with our integrated approach to healthcare facilities. While others are still talking about ways they could innovate, we were excited to learn that the strategies and initiatives we have already enacted are leading the way.

Additionally, some breakout sessions featured the “Voice of the Customer,” which allowed us to dive deeper into customer needs for hospital infection control. These discussions were especially pertinent with healthcare reform making reducing cross infection an imperative for hospitals.

Overall, the HIDA conference was a great insight into the industry and our membership will help us continue to learn and grow within the healthcare segment.

Is there a correlation between waste management, computer software and b2b distribution? At a glance, the industries could not be more different. Yet representatives from each sat beside me last month as we presented a panel discussion at the 2012 Net Impact Conference.  Regardless of our specialties, we shared a single goal: implement sustainability as a core strategy within our businesses.

We spoke of greening internal operations, engaging with suppliers, improving efficiency, benefitting the environment and the bottom line. As the discussion progressed, it became clear that a tremendous amount of synergy exists between our companies and the challenges that we face – regardless of which business we’re in.

Net Impact hosted the panel to familiarize students with sustainability initiatives and how to leverage them as a part of the companies overall business strategy. As they become our nation’s leaders, it is imperative they see the importance such initiatives hold within business.

That is why we at xpedx are such proponents of Net Impact. We need to motivate young adults to uncover sustainable solutions as they enter the workforce. It is why Net Impact started 20 years ago and it remains a valued goal. Just this year, we worked with Net Impact on the 2012 Campus Greening Challenge to sponsor a team of students with plans to reduce the environmental footprint of their own college campus.

Whether it is today’s business executives or tomorrow’s, we face the same sustainability challenges. We share the same great opportunity.

When Widmer Brothers Brewing asked xpedx for custom packaging services for its new craft beer variety pack, they were expecting a unique design with sustainable benefits that was easy for customers to carry. Our packaging solutions team delivered all of that, but added something special as well – a silver medal.

The November issue of Beverage World magazine just came out and features the 2012 Global Packaging Design Awards. In the issue, Widmer Brothers was awarded the silver medal in the beer category for the variety pack designed by xpedx (digital edition available here).

Congratulations to Widmer Brothers on the silver medal. Thank you for working with xpedx for this unique package design. 

As our facility solutions team continues to assist hospitals in reducing the chain of cross infection, we’ve encountered some unique opportunities to join in the conversation on issues affecting the healthcare distribution industry. One such opportunity occurred in early November when I was invited to participate in the National Acute Care Advisory Council in Washington D.C.

This council looks at the key issues affecting healthcare distributors and developes strategies on how they can and should be addressed. Over the two days in our nation’s capital, we covered topics including:

• Streamlining healthcare
• The value of distribution
• Methods to promote distribution
• Updates on healthcare reform
• Vendor credentialing solutions.

The council even visited Capitol Hill and met with representatives, senators and their staffs to discuss repealing the 2.3 percent medical device tax and pedigree laws that involve pharmaceutical distributors.

At xpedx, we pride ourselves on being your facility solutions advisor.  Advocating on our customers behalf at the National Acute Care Advisory Council is just one example of how we attend to all our customers’ needs.

A big part of xpedx’s leadership in sustainability is its commitment to maintain sustainable operations at our facilities nationwide. To that end, our Nashville (LaVergne), Tenn., facility recently earned a two Green Globes® rating from the Green Building Initiative (GBI) for its sustainability practices.

GBI’s Green Globes is the first web-based green building assessment tool in the United States. A partner of ENERGY STAR, this program environmentally assesses buildings for project/environmental management, site, energy, water, resources, emissions and indoor environment.

As defined by the GBI rating scale, the two Green Globes earned by our Nashville site demonstrate excellent progress in reducing environmental impacts by applying best practices in energy and environmental efficiency.

xpedx-Nashville will receive a building plaque and certificate to commemorate this achievement. More importantly, it further advances our position to provide leadership in sustainable business practices for our customers and suppliers. When we offer sustainable solutions, our customers can be assured that we’re practicing what we’re preaching.

Separated by only one week in mid-October, the 2012 Graph and SGIA Expos put the xpedx print team to the test as we quickly had to move from Chicago to Las Vegas. The end results, however, made all the travel worth it as we were able to personally introduce thousands of attendees to the full service printing solutions we offer across a variety of formats.

Graph Expo has undergone a transformation over the past few years, with traditional press manufacturers bringing fewer running presses and cutting back on the amount of exhibit space, allowing digital to take over the larger positions. xpedx took advantage of this change and engaged customers with personalized signs developed at our full service station, bringing awareness to our expanded production digital and wide format printing portfolio.

Whereas most of the Graph Expo attendees were familiar faces, SGIA Expo was heavy with first time attendees. An upbeat and progressive show, the focus was clearly on digital wide format printing and industrial printing. We again embraced visitors at our booth with personalized signs, and introduced many of them to our print expertise for the first time.

All told, we distributed more than 725 personalized signs and introduced xpedx to thousands more attendees at the two shows. The expos were also a platform for supplier meetings, media interviews and educational seminars, allowing us the opportunity to both learn more about and share our expertise in integrated printing solutions. If you attended one of the shows, thanks for stopping by the xpedx booth.