This first-time “Special Edition” of Power Plant was focused exclusively on 1% for the Planet, a global movement of more than 1,000 member companies in 45 countries that donate one percent of annual sales directly to approved environmental organizations worldwide. Representatives from 1% for the Planet were on hand to mix and mingle with the sold-out crowd of 185 people, Power Plant’s largest event to date.

After an hour of purposeful connecting in the foyer (while snacking on delicious appetizers and sipping local wine and beer), the group moved into the theatre’s auditorium, where Melody Badgett, Senior Vice President of 1% for the Planet, kicked off the presentations by giving a high energy overview of the benefits businesses gain from joining 1% for the Planet.

Each presenter followed the Power Plant format, giving a three-minute and 20 second presentation accompanied by 10 slides appearing on screen for exactly 20 seconds each, lending a snappy tone to the presentation portion of the evening.

Other speakers included:

-Devon Page, Executive Director of Ecojustice, a charity made up of some of Canada’s leading lawyers and scientists who work to fulfill their mission of using the law and to protect and restore Canada’s environment. Devon talked about Ecojustice’s conservation work, funded in part by 1% for the Planet member Mountain Equipment Co-op, consisting of law suits representing animals such as the caribou and the orca, fighting against the federal government for not following their own regulations around species protection.

-Monica Pearson, a biologist who discussed her work conserving Oregon spotted frog habitats in the Fraser Valley through the BC Conservation Foundation, a non-profit supported by 1% for the Planet member Frogbox. She pointed out that 67 animal species in the Fraser Valley are currently under threat of extinction, and how the work she and her colleagues are doing in riparian restoration is making a difference in stopping that momentum.

-Michael Ableman, an acclaimed farmer, author and founder of SOLEfood Farm, who spoke about this innovative social enterprise that provides urban agriculture employment and training opportunities for Vancouver’s inner-city residents.

-Kris Holm, a mountain unicyclist, who spoke about what inspired him to make his business the first Canadian company, and internationally the first cycling brand, to become a member of 1% for the Planet. Kris is also a 1% for the Planet Ambassador.

People move. Once every five years, on average, we gather every single thing we own and we pack it up, transport it and unpack it somewhere else, making home in a new place. The status quo as you read this, is to do all that packing and transporting with cardboard boxes. Whether you find them behind a liquor store or buy them brand new, it’s a disposable paper product, that sooner, rather than later, ends up as waste. (Yes yes, they can be recycled, but just wait, it’s not so simple. We’ll address this directly in a future post.)

FROGBOX is the new alternative. We take sturdy, stackable plastic boxes and rent them out in whichever quantity and for whatever duration is required to make the move. So what’s the difference? It’s simple: reuse. We offer a product that can be used 400 times. Cardboard averages just less than two uses, and is virtually useless after 5 or, at best, 10 times around the block. But hey, it’s also obvious that plastic requires way more energy to produce than a good old flimsy cardboard job. Bingo, 100% correct. It takes approximately 8x more energy to produce a FROGBOX than it would to produce a cardboard box of equivalent capacity.

What that number means is that once we rent out a FROGBOX eight times, every additional use does not require the input of additional material resources. There’s 392 uses left to go and 392 cardboard boxes that don’t need to be made. So to be clear, we’re not saying everyone should buy FROGBOX moving boxes (FROGBOXes) and keep their own in their garage. They may reuse them a few times, but that would have a higher impact than owning some cardboard. The idea is that we take a durable product and facilitate its shared use as moving boxes by the community at large.

So what’s the actual impact of cardboard? And what do we save by using FROGBOX moving boxes? We’ll talk about what we’ve done so far in the last three years, but we’ll also visualize the bigger picture too, what impact we will have when FROGBOX becomes status quo.

So far, the FROGBOX moving boxes currently in circulation have been used over 250,000 times. This means 223 Metric Tonnes of cardboard were not used. And 587 MTCE (Metric Tonnes Carbon Equivalent) avoided in waste and production. (We’ll save this for a later post, but not to be overlooked!) The tape that holds those boxes together accounts for an uncertain but more toxic portion of the footprint of the box and cannot be recycled. Assuming 5 ft of tape per cardboard box means using FROGBOXes has saved 1.25 million feet of tape thus far.

And so what does that 587 MTCE (CO2) number mean?

• -It’s equivalent to one car driving 1,920,000 kilometers (which is five one way trips to the moon [or two and a half round trips, but that leaves you stuck on the moon, and also, what road are you driving on?])
• -Which is the same as 60 cars doing 32,000 kilometers.
• -Or 190 individual people not flying to New York from Vancouver (planes use a lot of fuel).
• -Or powering 73 average North American homes for a whole year!