Catching up with Tom Szaky, Co-Founder and CEO, TerraCycle Inc.

What keeps you up at night?

After 20 years of big spending and care-free shopping, Americans have unilaterally shut their pocketbooks. Manufacturers must find ways to decrease price without sacrificing quality or profit margin. The way forward is definitely more sustainable practices, which are not only good for the environment, but also the bottom line. I worry that the "eco-friendly" fad will fade out in the face of the ever-looming financial crisis. It took years to break sustainable and environmentally-responsible products into the mainstream. Recently, Target and Wal-Mart took the lead of pushing "green" products. I really hope it stays that way! That is why TerraCycle strives to provide eco-friendly products at traditional prices. By not charging a premium for our sustainable goods, we are alleviating the consumer of a tough decision between environmental and fiscal responsibility.

How can manufacturers and retailers better collaborate?

Our relationship with OfficeMax is the perfect example of an evolved relationship between a retailer and a manufacturer. As an industry leader, OfficeMax has great knowledge and expertise of the school/office supply world. TerraCycle knows very little about these markets but is an expert in manufacturing eco-friendly products. To combine these two areas of knowledge, we asked OfficeMax which types of products needed eco-friendly varieties the most. This new relationship enabled us to address some of the worst eco-offenders in the industry, and now we manufacture tree-free paper as well as compostable pens and pencils, among other products. Manufacturers and retailers working together like this will help to reduce the endless clutter of new product launches down to a steady stream of innovation.

Can you share best practices for identifying commercially-viable green products?

The three "P's": Price, Production, Progress. The "greenness" of a product is not an excuse for premium pricing. At TerraCycle, we only consider a product if we can produce it in an affordable way, which is the perfect segue into production. A product can look, sound and feel green, but if it can't be made in a sustainable manner, it's not green! Everything needs to be taken into account when identifying a truly green product, including packaging, shipping containers and methods, the energy used to manufacture the product, etc. We use man power instead of coal or oil in many of our processes to cut our carbon footprint down and provide jobs! In addition, we do 90 percent of our manufacturing in North America, which also reduces our carbon footprint. Long story short, the greenness of a product goes way beyond its post-consumer content.