alphabroder | Prime Line, Trevose, Pa., recently announced its new Green Team initiative.
The 20-person ab|Prime Green Team represents a diverse cross-section from more than 12 different functional areas of the organization. The Green Team mantra is to create a meaningful and measurable Corporate Sustainability Platform, rooted in improving current processes with a mindset to evolve, according to the company.
“Despite the significant impact of the pandemic to our global economy and way of life, sustainability has not taken a back seat,” says Andrea Lara Routzahn, SVP Portfolio & Supplier Management for alphabroder. “To the contrary, sustainability has gained even more momentum. In many ways, the crisis has drawn attention to the ‘unsustainability’ of many of our pre-pandemic practices, especially around product and supply chain expectations. Going green is a way of life for so many. It’s also a generational thing. Millennials and Gen-Z’ers consider sustainability a non-negotiable, mission-critical endeavor that will impact their future and their ability to have a safe and productive life. They will increasingly vote with their wallet and companies that do not address this will ultimately lose out.”
Cheron Coleman, Vice President, private brand global supply chain and product development for alphabroder and Dena Rothstein, senior director of product management for Prime Line partner with Routzahn to lead the Green Team.
“Sustainable business practices are as important to our Customers today as product safety, fair labor practices and supply chain safety were ten years ago,” says Coleman. “Our industry already invests resources to maintain & verify our safety and social compliance requirements. We also recognize the importance of committing resources to sustainability too.”
The Green Team project officially was launched mid-pandemic last year. Phase I was a deep-dive assessment of current practices within corporate headquarters, distribution centers, decoration facilities, supply chain practices, and products.
“We didn’t know how far we’d need to go until we first established our starting point,” says Rothstein. “While we knew we had some efforts in place to be environmentally conscience, it is from this baseline ab|Prime can build our platform to do much more. In Phase II we are using our data to establish meaningful measurable initiatives to build the ab|Prime Sustainability Platform to new levels. After all, if we can’t measure it, we can’t manage it.”
“Sustainability is multi-faceted and isn’t just about offering more organic or recycled products,” says Norm Hullinger, CEO of ab|Prime. “It’s about our entire Corporate Culture. It’s about looking for opportunities to reduce waste and inefficiencies in our consumption of energy and materials. It’s about creating synergies throughout our entire organization with an eye towards accomplishing our work in cleaner, planet-healthier, sustainable ways. It’s imperative to our industry’s continued growth and success.” — D.S.
