GREEN BUSINESS – Next generation sustainability

Students, schools partner with businesses on efforts to get greener

UW-Green Bay/Tosca, Ltd.

John Arendt is associate director of the Environmental Management and Business Institute (EMBI) at UW-Green Bay, which provides outreach services for New North businesses on environmental issues and sustainability. “To do that, we involve students, particularly as interns,” said Arendt.

UW-Green Bay offers a certificate in environmental sustainability and business, through which students take courses in business, public policy and environmental sciences.

“Our students have done waste reduction studies, energy analysis, life-cycle analysis studies, and helped businesses install environmental management systems, which is a requirement for joining Wisconsin Green Tier,” said Arendt. “Businesses get innovative, cost-saving solutions from students who ‘push the envelope’ by asking questions that may never have been asked. And potentially they’ll get a hire out of it.”

Steve Teclaw, a 2011 UW-Green Bay graduate, interned at Tosca, Ltd. through EMBI. Tosca produces returnable containers for the food and beverage industry.

“In my internship, I worked with two other students on a life-cycle assessment of one of Tosca’s wooden cheese boxes compared to the plastic box of a competitor,” said Teclaw. “We worked to figure out which was more sustainable – both from a material and energy input standpoint.”

Teclaw now leads quality assurance dealing with sanitation and food safety as a Tosca employee. “My internship is the reason I have my job today.”

Full Article: http://www.insightonbusiness.com/6744/green-business-next-generation-sustainability/

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