“The Power of One” is a series of stories about people who have helped to make their companies more sustainable. They can’t do it alone, of course. But by coming up with a good idea, enlisting the help of others and making persuasive arguments, one person can change a company and, sometimes, even an industry. The story of how Chuck Gerhardt helped create a new business for Underwriters Laboratories, the product safety certification organization that dates back to the 19th century, begins with an email.
Chuck Gerhardt
“First, I’m not a tree hugger,” the email began. “As you know, I’m a corn-fed Midwesterner who is surprised that he is even thinking ‘green.’ However I do value the environment and all it has to offer.”
It was July 29, 2003, when Chuck Gerhardt, a facilities manager at the Santa Clara office of Underwriters Laboratories, sent an email about what he described as “a thought rummaging around my head lately.” Chuck, who is 43 and has worked for UL for 25 years, isn’t an engineer or an MBA. “I’m just a working stiff” with a high school education and a little bit of community college, he tells me. But it struck him that UL, a global organization that has become the most trusted name in product safety, might expand to become an arbiter of what’s green, and what’s not.
As he wrote:
Has UL put much thought into the “Green” or “Sustainable” arena? In my simple thinking I see the standard UL mark on a lamp cord but I also see another lamp next to it that has a UL mark but this one has a little green leaf meaning it not only should be safe but it has been manufactured by a company that has a LEED rating on their facility, (More about LEED in a minute) and if the company doesn’t have a LEED rating on their facility maybe they manufacture their products in an environmentally sound way. So, I buy the lamp with the green leaf because I want to help the environment. Since UL promotes public safety this seems to all kind of fit together.
The thought running that was running around Chuck’s head is today a real business. UL Environment , which calls itself a “full-service environmental solutions company,” offers independent green claims validation, product certification, training, advisory services and standards development. It’s got close to 60 employees, based all over the world, and it expects to certify products in 12 to 15 categories by the end of 2011. There’s no “little green leaf” — not yet, anyway. [click to continue…]
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