LewisPerkins
Semantics of Sustainability
Archive for May, 2009
Sustainability Experts Speak with Forbes on May 28th in New York. Lewis Perkins is part of the Green Visionary Panel.
Lewis Perkins to Speak at Forbes on Green Vision for Corporations, May 28th, 2009
Perkins featured in Washington and Lee University Alumni Magazine 2009
Washington and Lee Alumni Magazine 2009
Before Lewis Perkins, of Atlanta, joined the Mohawk Group in March, the carpet manufacturing giant was one of the best-kept secrets of the environmental movement. These days, Perkins is the face of the organization, charged with creating a brand identity for Mohawk and showcasing the company’s best sustainable initiatives, which they have practiced for years.
Whether promoting Mohawk’s status as the largest U.S. recycler of plastic soda and water bottles (which it turns into carpet), or explaining how old carpet is transformed into new flooring at the company’s GreenWorks Center in north Georgia, Perkins enjoys sharing the Mohawk narrative. One of his first significant efforts was initiating a partnership between Mohawk and Global Green USA, an organization that is rebuilding communities across the U.S., particularly in New Orleans.
Perkins, who majored in art history, said his experiences at the University reinforced the strong ethics that his family instilled. There is a moral code that guides all of his decisions as an adult, and embracing a sustainable lifestyle is a value-driven choice that takes into consideration factors such as human rights, wellness and spirituality.
“Sustainability and the green movement is just one part of a whole piece that is social consciousness,” he said.
Lewis Perkins Speaks at Alive Expo: The Health & Sustainability of Our Buildings
Alive Expo
May 17th, 2009
Noon - 1 pm
Main Stage
Georgia World Congress Center
Lewis Perkins speaks On the Green Front with Betsy Rosenberg
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On the Green Front with Betsy Rosenberg
Reduce Restaurant Waste and Cost by Over 50% AND Power a City???
Last week I had the benefit of meeting the team that is revolutionizing the way restaurants will look at their waste. The group is Fox Pollutions Systems from the UK and Germany and I met them in the corporate offices of Ted’s Montana Grill. They have developed a unit which is installed in restaurants to capture the food prep and table scraps that would otherwise be hauled off with the garbage. In the case of some dense communities (such as Manhattan), the cost of hauling off food waste is attached to a tip fees in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
This device (called the FoxSMB2) is like a small dishwasher size stainless unit that fits under the sink (similar to a disposal). The machine will reduce the waste by over 60% of its original weight, minimizing costs to dispose while creating a sustainable product that could even be used as waste to energy. Imagine the day when a city such as New York could be powered via food waste. The water “squeezed” out of the scraps is then treated to reduce methane (a major global culprit of climate change) and sent to the city’s waste water treatment facilities along with other used water.
I first heard about this group from Annie White, the director of Global Green USA’s CORR (Coalition for Resource Recovery) program, who told me that more than 1,100 tons of food is sent to waste EVERY DAY in New York City. That is about the same as paper, metal, plastic and glass combined. Using a tip fee of $100, the costs to tax payers and businesses for disposing trash is roughly $450 million a year. Enter the FoxSMB2 unit and you have a solution for reducing the waste and the cost by more than half, and creating a material which can solve energy issues. In areas where the waste materials is not needed for energy, it can simply be composted. The technology isn’t new. It has been used in Europe on ships by both the UK Navy, Cruise lines and other merchants for years. We are finally getting around to using this technology to solve social and environmental issues AND save money (the leading driver these days). I give great kudos to the team developing this technology and to Annie White and her colleagues who are bringing it to the restaurant industries. Ted’s Montana Grill has been testing it in their Midtown Atlanta location and hopes to test downtown where the conditions more closely resemble those of a New York restaurant. If all goes well, I hope we see these devices in every food preparation station in America or the World.
