Paper Goes Green:
An Interview with Neenah Paper’s Tom Wright
When thinking about companies that are leading the charge in the current green movement, a paper mill is unlikely to spring to mind. How could a company whose entire existence depends upon the logging of trees, not only come to grips with the current eco movement, but be its vanguard? Yet this is exactly what Neenah Paper, based out of Neenah, Wisconsin, has accomplished.
Neenah’s success in implementing sustainable practices stems from the company’s overall philosophy, a philosophy that has led Neenah to become the leading manufacturer of premium paper in the United states, a philosophy deeply shared by Tom Wright, Neenah’s Senior Director of Design and Advertising. “If you’re going to do something,” says Wright, “do it 100%.” So when Neenah Paper’s board of directors made the decision to go green, the company made the same commitment they make to all their products: To be the best.
The transition did not occur without hesitation, however. As Neenah Paper markets itself as a premium paper company, creating and selling a premium line that would be made from 30% post-consumer product would be a hard sell if the market was not there to support it. This was a situation Neenah had previously experienced. “The early 90's had a lot of groundswell in the recycle movement, but once the first bomb dropped in the first Gulf War, all the news coverage of that stopped. We couldn’t give the stuff away,” says Wright.
While the environmental movement in the late 80s and early 90s turned out to be a passing fad, Wright believes the current sustainability movement marks a more fundamental shift in business practices and is here to stay. “Everything starts off a little bit crazy, and then all of a sudden it’s mainstream,” says Wright. “I think we’re at a perfect storm point right now, where multiple things are converging.”
According to Mr. Wright, Neenah’s commitment to the environment has matured beyond the naïve and has imbedded itself into its core business practices. Like Neenah Paper itself, Tom Wright is a product of the Midwest. It’s this sensibility, he says, that enabled Neenah to see that sustainability is not just some feel-good movement to be taken advantage of for the purpose of public relations. The efficient use of resources is “just good business,” says Wright.
Wright recalls his childhood growing up on a small family farm. Nothing was allowed to go to waste. “You use every part of the cow,” says Wright. The same is true for Neenah Paper, he says. “Every part of fiber in has a cost and every fiber out has a price. How do we reduce waste so the only landfill item that goes away from our mills is literally the cafeteria scraps?” says Wright. “If something comes to us with a polyshrink around it, that polyshrink has value, so that goes into a recycle area and there's a person out there with a company that will come and take that material away and give us a value for it, and that gets recycled into whatever the next end use is; it could be plastic chairs sitting beside us in the café,” says Wright.
Neenah has recently completed a large installation project at its Wisconsin mill that converts over 5,000 tons of sludge produced by the mill into steam, electricity, and glass aggregate every year. The steam created from the sludge is then brought back into the mill and used in the drying process of the paper.
While a large investment was needed to develop this loop of sustainability, the company projects that the use of the steam reduces the company’s consumption of natural gas by 80% a year, a figure both beneficial to the environment and Neenah’s bottom line. These eco-friendly practices were so cutting-edge, they were featured on an episode of the History Channel’s Modern Marvels television show.
While he believes the sustainability movement is here to stay, Tom Wright makes no pretense about where the responsibility for its continued success lies. “Our responsibility is to make what the market wants,” says Wright. It’s a simple truth of free market economics that any business operates for profit, and profit is achieved by supplying demand. This ultimately lays the destiny of the sustainability movement squarely on the shoulders of consumers, who must, through their demand for it, make it profitable for businesses to go green.
Portfolio Center students share a strong desire to communicate ideas, the willingness to let go of preconceived notions, and the compulsion to learn new ways of thinking. These qualities are fostered by the school’s constant stream of industry bigwigs, who bring their varied and colorful perspectives from all over the country. These creatives, who are always generous with their time and energy, tend to hang out with students, conducting informal workshops and continuing the day’s discussions over dinner. Often, what results are provocative interviews—written, shot, and designed by PC students.
