It Can Be Easy to be Green

Hey, Kermit, it can be easy to be green. That’s what we at The Kingswood Company have learned as we have embraced efforts to achieve greater environmental sustainability. We were environmentally aware back before it was cool; most of our products have been non-toxic and biodegradable for more than fifty years. This year we added a new trade-secret formulary to our product line: Natural Jewelry Cleaner. This all-biological, hypoallergenic formula is naturally derived, water soluble and devoid of volatile organic compounds. Yes, our product line got even greener.

In our efforts to do all we can to help Mother Earth, we redesigned our jars in 2006. By doing so, we reduced the amount of plastic we use by more than 25,000 pounds every year. Our customers still get the same fantastic jewelry care products, just in a lighter jar. The lighter jar reduces the amount of fuel required to ship to our customers too, so reduced shipping costs are a nice side benefit for us all.

We have reduced fuel usage in other ways as well. One hundred percent of our suppliers are based in the United States, so the cost of shipping raw materials to our facility in Columbus, Ohio is much less. Whenever possible, we use local and regional suppliers, especially for heavy materials such as corrugate and chemicals. Less road to travel; less fuel used. When we must use suppliers outside of the region, we work to ensure that inbound shipments are consolidated and use backhaul shipping lanes to conserve fuel. It takes a little more planning on our part, but Mother Earth is worth it.

We also use recycled materials as much as possible when manufacturing our jars, caps, brushes and baskets. And many of those same materials can be recycled by the end-consumer of our products. We encourage our end-consumer to recycle, but we aren’t asking them to do anything we don’t do ourselves. We have instituted a recycling program in our facility that has reduced manufacturing and office waste by more than 65 percent since 2009. Last year, we partnered with a local moving and storage company to have roughly 2,500 pounds annually of cardboard that would have been recycled instead reused as moving and storage boxes.

Plus we do the little things, like making sure all the lights, computers, and heating and cooling systems are turned off when we aren’t there. But the little things add up to big changes, and we will continue to look for other ways to reduce our impact on the environment. Really, Kermit; it’s easy being green.