Sustainability and Eco Friendly

Sustainable Companies

Week 5 Written Assignment

Ashley Couch

MBA 520-D1C2 Ethics & Leadership in a Global Environment

Professor Theresa Pavone

September 27, 2012

In today’s society companies are trying to be more eco-friendly and are creating more sustainable products. A sustainable product is one that provides environmental, economic and social benefits while also protecting the public’s health and the environment as a whole. This starts from day one of the extraction of the material to the finalized product. I have chosen two companies to take a look at that make sustainable products: Green Toys Inc., and Caterpillar.

Green Toys, Inc. is a toy company that incorporates principles of sustainability in their key elements and corporate strategies. The company makes a lot of green toys for children. At this point the company has over 3,000 customers in the US and Canada. Some of the larger companies they sell their toys at are: Whole foods, and Pottery Barn. Their sales have grown over 70% annually. They at this point have a very small staff that consists of a 4 employees that do it all. The designers pick the safest and greenest materials they can find, and then they design the toy, not the other way around. They have had some very good ideas of using biodegradable materials, but realized that it wouldn’t make durable toys and that garbage dumps do not separate bio based plastics with other plastics yet. They then decided to make toys out of recycled materials. Their products also contain a label with the ingredients of its toys, and states how using recycled products saves energy! Their small staff, reuse of recycled products, promotion of their green products to parents and kids, helps bring in money to the business and keep them profitable. They also make use of local delivery, and only one small part of the supply chain is not a local company saving fossil fuels, and provides local employment. Their products are healthy for consumers, safe for...