It's not often that one gets to meet someone who has chosen to walk outside the usual path for his company, yet Brad and his partner have been very successful. By buying locally, building products that are meant to be disassembled and reconstructed when parts of them wear out, and hiring folks who are differently-abled and unable to work in usual business operations, Brad Hole, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Sustainable Group, is making a difference and making a dollar! Actually lots of both! We got a chance to ask Brad a few questions about Sustainable Group and here's what he had to say. WTT: You have combined some very different skill sets to get where you are today. High tech hardware/software distribution, manufacture of office products, and a love for good food seem to be a great combination to launch a company like Sustainable Group. You're a bit of a Renaissance man! Fill us in on a few details, please? BH: I guess it's good to have many interests. I grew up in upstate New York in a family that loved fishing, hunting and the love of the outdoors. We always had a garden of fresh vegetables in the summer, we'd pick apples/berries as a family or have fresh fish from a day on the lake. Growing up, my mom and grandmother were great cooks so I had some great influences. I remember my youth as always having a connection to food and the environment around me. I missed that. Having started and sold a technology company, my business partner and I wanted to create a business that was unique, one that made a difference and worked within the budget constraints of our customers. The end result was starting Sustainable Group. WTT: Sustainable Group has about a dozen product categories on the website, from binders to laser labels. Many of our readers either design or produce printed products. Are your products available in a format that commercial and/or digital printers can imprint and assemble them? BH: We work with many clients in the graphic arts and design industry. Traditionally, they are working with a client on a project with a green or socially responsible message in mind. Our products really communicate that message, mostly because they're brown. We do offer in house screen printing of our products which really look nice. Labels also adhere quite well to our products. We sell some brown kraft labels that are laser-printable and make it easy for designers and artists to customize our products. WTT: The REBINDER concept is very clever! The Green Manifesto - reduce, reuse, recycle, replace - seems to be the key to this product. Where did this idea come from and how does it work? BH: The idea came to us while running the high tech hardware/software company. All the products manuals we received from manufactures would come in a printed vinyl binder. Then once or twice a year, we'd get a new binder from each of them and were forced to make a choice with what to do with the old ones. We would always try to reuse them or they would end up in our garage sale pile. After a couple of years we could see all these binders that had collected around the office and realized that all of these would eventually find their way to a landfill. Knowing that it would take thousands of years for these binders to breakdown in a landfill was enough of a challenge for us to come up with a "kinder binder." The result was REBINDER which was a binder made of recycled corrugated cardboard with removable ring metals. Unlike most binders that have their rings riveted into the spine, ours use a unique assembly that make it easy to assemble and take apart. We made it easy for the user to recycled their old cover and reuse the rings and hardware with a new cover that they could purchase from us. The feedback and support on our REBINDERS was remarkable. Over time, we found our best customers were calling us with other great ideas that would complement our binders. If we received enough of the same requests, we'd make the new product. WTT: As an active member of community organizations like Sustainable Ballard (a Seattle neighborhood organization), what's your advice to companies that want to strengthen the social or community element to extend their triple bottom line? BH: My advice is to really look at the impact your organization and or product is having on the environment. Challenge yourself to make products better. By better, I mean look at what materials/labor is available locally or regionally. Buying materials locally and sourcing labor locally supports our local economy which effects jobs, housing values and overall economy in our state. We've made choices from buying locally sourced chipboard that may be a little bit less in recycled content, but the post consumer recycled content is from our state verses buying product that has to be shipped across the country or across the world to get here. WTT: We have readers/members who have implemented green initiatives ranging from building bio-diesel stills to running copiers with bicycle power. What "way out" initiatives have you been involved in or could recommend? BH: All these things are great. I love new ideas that cause people to think or question the alternative. I've had the pleasure to be involved in several initiatives in and out of the office. I worked with Sustainable Ballard in launching the 100 Mile Diet which challenged people to eat foods grown within or close to a 100 mile radius of Seattle. It's interesting to know what resources are around us from cattle ranchers to local fruits and vegetables. People become desensitized to where their food comes from. You can learn a lot just by reading the labels. My latest thing is something the folks in Sustainable Ballard turned me on to called the Sail Transport Network which is working with local farmers in Sequim (a small town in NW Washington near Dungeness Spit - the location Dungeness crabs are named after) that are transporting local grown produce by sailboat into Shilshole Bay in Ballard. It's like a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) without the fuel to get it there. WTT: How has the interest in green products changed over the last 5 years, since you founded Sustainable Group? Is this a fad, a trend, or a new paradigm (sorry to use that hackneyed term... )? BH: There is definitely more awareness about green products which is great. It's great in that this awareness scrutinizes products that we're all using now and challenges companies to make them better. But that scrutiny can also lead to companies making false or misleading claims about their products (green washing) which makes it confusing for customers. Right now, there is really no policing of what the terms "green" or "sustainable" mean. I think the next thing we'll see is the catching of green washing... Spotting green washing is not difficult, it just takes attention and commitment. In general, I believe making things work better for the world and also better for yourself and your organization is not a trend or fad but a wake-up call. It doesn't always cost more, it's not impossible - in fact with attention and commitment, it's attainable.  One of the things we've chosen to do is make great products that don't have a (1000 year) life beyond their intended means. WTT: Is there anything else that you'd like to add? BH: Thanks for thinking of us ... we love what you and your readers do.  I guess I would just ask your readers to be more aware. With us - we encourage our customers to be aware - every 10,000 binders they buy from us saves over five tons of landfill waste.  What can your business do?