John McIntosh hates the word “sustainability.” In fact, the vice president of sales and marketing at Signature Accord will hardly even utter it, referring to it instead as “the ‘S’ word.” He has had this view ever since he first sat down with Jim Evanoff, the senior environmental officer at Yellowstone National Park. It was a meeting that forged a groundbreaking environmental partnership and changed the way McIntosh and his company approached their own environmental efforts.
Evanoff realized that 40 tons of plastic from Yellowstone were being shipped overseas each year, much of which was then bought back by American companies. When he started looking for an American company to purchase these plastics, he was set up with Signature by Karen Edwards, a consultant for the United Soybean Board, who had a connection with Signature through its involvement with BioCel technology.
It seemed as if it would be a simple meeting. Yellowstone had supply; Signature had demand. Little did McIntosh realize what followed would completely change the direction of his career.
They spent six hours touring the park, learning about its history, stewardship and their own environmental realizations over the years. But then, back in Evanoff’s office, McIntosh proceeded to claim that his company had the first sustainable carpet backing in the industry. Evanoff was quick to tell him it was the single-most arrogant thing he had ever heard. He took McIntosh back outside, and standing there in the middle of Yellowstone’s majestic landscape, he said, “This is what sustainable really looks like.”
McIntosh recalled, “Jim Evanoff slapped me right in the mouth with the truth. He told me that, collectively as a human race, we can’t define the word ‘sustainable’ much less claim it.” According to Evanoff, nature is sustainable; carpet backing is not. Humans cannot claim sustainability – they can only claim environmental responsibility.
Evanoff told McIntosh, “With everything we do in the park, we have one North Star – one truth – and that’s nature. It is perfect in every way. One ecosystem’s waste is another ecosystem’s food. So there is no waste. How do we emulate that? That has always been our goal to attain.”
After being thoroughly schooled by Evanoff and humbled by the vast grandeur of Yellowstone, McIntosh ran back to his team and began rethinking their entire approach. They threw out the concept of sustainability and adopted Evanoff’s idea of environmental responsibility. Inspired by Blake Mycoskie of the shoe brand TOMS, they also sought to include an element of social responsibility in their business plan. They ultimately decided that nature had to be their guide, and that doing the right thing couldn’t be an option – it had to be standard operating procedure.
Guided by this new set of values, they created the P2 Program, given its name by the National Park Protection Act’s mandates – protect and preserve. Through this program, 50 cents of every square yard sold would go directly back to the Yellowstone Park Foundation. Today, they have donated close to $100,000.
So how does a bottle transform into carpet? In short, the collected bottles from Yellowstone are handed over to a company called Universal Textile Technologies, which makes the BioCel backings by combining the recycled materials with domestically grown soybean polyols and Celceram, a highly refined mineral compound recycled from electrical utility power plants. In May 2012, the USB awarded McIntosh, Evanoff and Doug Giles of UTT the Excellence in New Uses award.
Signature’s website features a “follow the bottle” video in which Georgia Tech students physically track a bottle’s journey from the recycling bin in Yellowstone to Dalton, Ga., where it is converted into Signature carpets, and then back to Yellowstone, where the carpet is installed in the Snow Lodge.
In addition to these BioCel backings, Signature’s Yellowstone Collection is made with Econyl, a 100% recycled nylon 6 fiber, created using an innovative regeneration system developed by Aquafil USA. With all of these attributes together, Signature carpets with BioCel backings can contribute up to 18 points toward LEED certification in commercial, industrial and residential projects.
When they first made a trial carpet, McIntosh couldn’t believe what they had created. “All of a sudden, I started punching the calculator,” he said, “and I realized I was holding a product that was 80% green by weight, that utilizes Americangrown soybean technology and takes plastics that were previously shipped overseas and instead recycles them back into our economy.”
McIntosh’s next task was to figure out what this new green carpet would look like. He sent his designer, Sharon Roels, back to where it all began. He told her, “Embed yourself into the park, and take from it the only thing you should – inspiration. Just be inspired and see where it takes us.” That trip gave birth to the Yellowstone Collection’s original five designs: Artist’s Point, Paint Pots, Caldera, Grant Village and, of course, Old Faithful, all drawn from the colors and textures of these magnificent Yellowstone landmarks.
In addition to Yellowstone’s Snow Lodge, you can find the collection at the Albright Training Center at the Grand Canyon; the dining room of the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando; an Applebee’s in Harlem, which is also New York City’s first LEED-certified restaurant; and the locker room of the Maryland University women’s basketball team.
Due to the increasing demand for carpet tiles, Signature has added a new line of modular carpet tiles to the Yellowstone Collection in five new styles: Grand Geyser, Pebble Creek, Crackling Lake, Tree Markers and Valley Floor.
Signature may be focused on having an exceptionally green product and upholding values of environment and social responsibility, but the company certainly has not forgotten about its relationship with customers. Signature recently started a new online warranty registration program that creates a partnership between customer, manufacturer, installer and maintenance personnel in order to ensure the long-term success of the project. Its current motto appropriately states, “Leading by Listening, Caring by Nature.”
Nearly four years after that fateful meeting at Yellowstone, Signature Accord is still forging a path of environmental responsibility. On the company’s new website, users will find a calculator that allows them to plug in yardage and shows exactly how many pounds of raw materials it takes to make each order. It also notes how much of that is renewable and recycled content, as well as how much money will be donated to the Yellowstone Foundation.
Back in that first meeting, Evanoff had told McIntosh that being environmentally responsible meant asking yourself, “What is the next right thing to do?” Well, McIntosh and his team figured that out. But it is a continuous process, and they are ready to figure out where to go from here. They are continuing to invest in improving their BioBased initiatives, exploring new uses in fiber and looking into several areas of energy independence. “Environmental responsibility is simply in our DNA,” McIntosh said. “It’s who we are. But we don’t want to have to tell you that – our actions should say it.”
