Picture, if you will, a shipping container. Typically, these containers are large enough to hold a couple of Volkswagens, 2,000+ bankers’ boxes, or the footprint of a small studio apartment. Now, imagine 3.6 of those containers — not filled with VW Jettas, but full of non-biodegradable, environmentally unfriendly packing materials. That’s the amount of waste Terrybear® Urns & Memorials plans to eliminate from its processes every year with its newest initiative.
“Our goal is to eliminate 90% of the landfill waste we have now by 2025,” explains Nikki Nordeen, Executive Director of Client Success and Brand Growth at Terrybear. “A lot of that is styrofoam-based, which is the material we’ve started with. And that’s just one of the changes we’re making as part of this commitment.”
Based on values
It’s not often that a company intentionally invests time, resources, and money to substantially overhaul materials and/or processes just because it’s for the greater good — especially without passing along the costs to end users or making sacrifices elsewhere to compensate for the costs. Usually, changes like those are prompted by external forces, like government regulations, customer demands, or even competitive pressures.
For Terrybear, this change, which began in earnest this year, wasn’t based on any of those outside influences. Instead, it came from one of the company’s five core values: Do what’s right.
“We always endeavor to do what’s right — for our customers, always, and in this case, also for the environment,” Nordeen says. “This didn’t happen because anybody asked us for it. This happened because we decided we wanted to do it. Number one, it’s the right thing to do. And number two, it’s supporting our customers who also want to better support the environment.”
Terrybear’s commitment to eco-friendly practices and products actually fits perfectly with several of the company’s other values, which include reaching goals, challenging themselves, and making a difference in the world around them. This commitment shows that these values, along with their promise to embrace diverse perspectives, are priorities for the entire Terrybear team, not just slogans on a poster or website.
Above: Our Core Values.
More than styrofoam
As Nordeen says, addressing wasteful packaging is only one part of Terrybear’s eco-impact initiative. The company is also actively developing new environmentally-friendly products and partnering with more North American suppliers.
“We’re focusing on sourcing closer to home,” Nordeen explains. “This will reduce the fossil fuels and other resources used to get those materials and products to us.”
Terrybear keeps a large inventory of products in stock so orders received through the company’s Memory of a Lifetime® customer portal and other channels can be personalized and shipped to deathcare providers as quickly as possible — even overnight. As Terrybear’s current inventory is sold, existing packaging products will be steadily replaced with new, eco-friendly alternatives.
By 2025, Terrybear’s packaging initiative alone aims to eliminate 742 cubic feet of waste each month, or 8,900 cubic feet each year.
To learn more about Terrybear’s commitment to a greener deathcare landscape or about the company’s products and services, do not hesitate to reach out to your Terrybear distributor or call Terrybear directly at 1.888.588.8767.
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Written by: Patricia Hartley
