Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Beth Lange, Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Lange leads Mary Kay’s Research & Development division and due to her passion for nature also champions our corporate environmental sustainability efforts.
I want to begin with my favourite inspirational Mary Kay quote:
“I feel very strongly that we must do everything in our power to save our planet or our grandchildren will not have a place to live. Let me emphasize that Mary Kay is an environmental leader because we strongly feel it is the right thing to do.”
Mary Kay was a leader in everything she did and left us all a rich legacy. This legacy includes a commitment to the environment. As far back as 1989, Mary Kay Inc. started one of the first of many projects that helped the environment. This first initiative was to make our packaging more environmentally friendly and reduced the amount of waste at all our U.S. locations. From this initiative came our first refillable compact – a green product form that we still have today!
Since then, we’ve continuously refined our environmental efforts – and we’ve been recognized for these efforts along the way! In 1993, Mary Kay received the first Fashion and Environment Award from the United Nations Environment Programme. We’ve also been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Keep America Beautiful and the Arbor Day Foundation. Outside the U.S., we’ve won many awards. In 2007 and 2009, Mary Kay China was awarded the Model Unit of Environmental Protection by the Environmental Protection Bureau of the Hangzhou Economic and Development Area.
Today, through Pink Doing GreenSM, Mary Kay’s commitment to the environment is stronger than ever! In order to further “green up” our business, we’re focusing on REDUCE in 2011. Specifically, we’re working to reduce the amount of waste sent to the landfill, reduce our energy use and reduce our water use. We’ll report on our progress later this year!
So what can YOU do to contribute? I encourage everyone to think about how to reduce your environmental footprint. It doesn’t have to be big; the little, every day things can really add up! Take saving paper as an example. We use paper every day. Have you ever thought about what it takes to make a piece of paper? The answer isn’t just trees – it takes a lot of water and energy to turn a tree into paper. In fact, it takes three gallons of water to make a single sheet of paper! That number astonished me and makes me think twice before I print something.
When we talk about REDUCE, we’re really talking about not being wasteful. This was something Mary Kay Ash understood. Even she used old note pads for scratch paper. Through Pink Doing GreenSM, we carry on Mary Kay’s legacy – as she said – because it’s the right thing to do.
I’d love to hear how you’re helping to REDUCE in your life!
No comments:
Post a Comment