We’re really excited to be going to the Sustainable Brands Sustainability Expo 2012 for the first time ever. The Sustainable Brands Conference 2012 is a week-long event with speakers from a wide range of industries discussing the merits and challenges of sustainability. Attending will be CEOs and Sustainability Chiefs, as well as PR and marketing directors, from major world companies, including Office Depot, LiveStrong, National Geographic, World Wildlife Fund, the Nature Conservancy, Johnson and Johnson, 3M, Adobe, Best Buy, BMW, Coca-Cola, Dell, eBay, UPS, HP, and many more. But an impressive number of environmental companies will be also attending, exhibiting and showing off their innovations, namely zipcar, US Green Chamber of Commerce, PlanetReuse, Ocean Conservancy, National Park Foundation, Forest Stewardship Council and more. I know there’s going to be a lot to learn from everyone.

Unfortunately, we’ll only be attending the first day, which is the Sustainability Expo 2012, from12pm to 5pm today (Monday June 4th). There will be plenty of exhibitors and even more people to talk to, so I hope 5 hours is enough time. I have a list of questions I want to ask various companies so I’m planning on coming back with a whole notebook full of content to help Palatin Remodeling, Inc grow.

While there are many brands and companies my associate and I are excited to meet with, I think perhaps the most important will be the Forest Stewardship Council because they’re a direct industry partner. As anyone who has looked into replacing floors can attest to, the number of green or sustainable hardwoods on the market is enormous. In fact, a homeowner will be hard pressed to find a flooring company that does not offer environmentally friendly hardwood flooring, or any other environmentally friendly flooring materials. Today’s homeowners are incredibly eco-conscious and will at least attempt to buy sustainable materials, if not go all out and self certify the source of their housing or flooring materials. The Forest Stewardship Council does all the hard work for homeowners by certifying environmentally safe hardwoods. The FSC is independent and not-for-profit, which means it does not gain anything from certifying or not certifying a wood species or allowing or disallowing a company to sell certified wood. I’m eager to learn more about the process and what standards the FSC uses in its certifications. Hopefully this information will help me help homeowners throughout Southern California make better flooring decisions and encourage homeowners to make more environmentally friendly decisions.

Sustainable Brands is a company whose focus is to help other brands and companies be profitably sustainable. And that seems to be the key in sustainable talk right now: profit. From my personal research it seems that the companies (small and large) that attempt any form of sustainability and follow through with it see increased profitability. This is an amazing discovery because it shows that all different types of small and large companies and corporations can see a positive financial result by going green and using sustainable business practices. And not just in the marketing department, either; real, measurable, lasting results. The catch, however, is all those companies who half-ass it (pardon my French) not only don’t see positive financial growth after adopting their mediocre sustainable practices, they actually see a small financial loss (time, resources, efforts, lost chances, etc) that discourages them from trying again.

So, I’m looking forward to meeting with companies who have seen these types of positive results from going sustainable and learning from them. Hopefully there are business practices we can apply to home remodeling. I’ll be sure to return tomorrow with what we’ve learned from the Sustainable Brands Conference 2012.

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