CHAMPION SUSTAINABLE COCONUT PACKAGING

step #49

“Business is the force of change. Business is essential to solving the climate crisis, because this is what business is best at: innovating, changing, addressing risks, searching for opportunities. There is no more vital task.”

RICHARD BRANSON
CEO, Virgin Group and Visionary

The future of the world’s tropical rainforests lies largely in our ability to innovate. In addition to the triedand- true adoption of land, discoveries such as sustainable coconut packaging are creating new opportunities in the tropics for sustainable income. It’s critical to support these innovations to ensure their success.

THE SCOOP

Yes, you read the step right—packaging made from coconuts! Well, coconut husks, to be exact. There is tremendous waste generated from takeout containers and packaging filling our landfills and, sadly, our oceans with paper and plastic made from petroleum. Even ecofriendly alternatives such as corn-based packaging are problematic, as increased corn production is an indirect factor fueling soy cultivation and deforestation in the Amazon. We need a better, more sustainable source for packaging, and it looks like it has been found. Whole Tree (www.wholetreeinc.com), a green-materials corporation founded by researchers at Baylor University, is developing commercially available coconut composites that can be easily applied to a variety of purposes, from restaurant to-go boxes to packaging to green moving solutions.

These nonwoven composites can contain up to 80 percent coconut fiber and serve as a seamless alternative for petroleum-based synthetic materials. Recently, coconut packaging has become a hit with packing design companies. Working with an Austin, Texas-based packing company, Compadre (www.compadre.com), Whole Tree has now made these coconut composites available to its international corporate customers.

Whole Tree claims that its proprietary technology for composite materials utilizing coconut fibers could reduce the global dependency on petroleum by 2 million to 4 million barrels of oil per year. And its greener technology has the potential to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by as many as 500 million tons per year!

What’s more, the source for this new packaging comes from the tropics yet requires no new land and makes use of a current waste stream while providing a new sustainable income for impoverished local populations. It’s a winning situation every way you look at it.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

E-mail eco-conscious manufacturers of food and other goods and ask that they use this new coconut composite for packaging. Also contact conglomerates, like Nabisco and General Mills and let them know about your environmental concerns. What became most clear at the United Nations COP 13 meeting in December of 2010 in Cancún is that corporations, not government, are leading the way to sustainability. Let corporations know they need to use eco-friendly packaging. They can no longer use plastics, paper and other petro-derived materials to package their goods.

Also, ask your favorite takeout restaurants to switch to eco-friendly containers. Let them know about Whole Tree and Compadre and their innovative coconut composites.

Become a coconut composite champion and pioneer a packaging revolution, bringing new income to coconut plantation workers throughout the tropics and saving rainforests at the same time!

RESOURCES

Whole Tree
www.wholetreeinc.com

Compadre
www.compadre.com