Last Thursday representatives from RNSI attended the West Coast Green 2009 Conference. West Coast Green is a conference focused on environmental innovation in the building industry. Along with the usual tradeshow floor offerings, the conference hosted an overabundance of classes and seminars focused on education of eco-friendly construction practices. The conference was chock-full of interesting organizations vying for face time and growth in the green building sector. These organizations ran the gamut from traditional construction companies reforming their practices to disruptive technology producers aiming to save the world. Some of my personal favorites were Ideabuilders, North Cal Wood Products,and Driptech.

The ability to network with and learn from these organizations is what drew RNSI to this conference. Environmental protection is currently the vehicle of two of our enterprises (Mattress Recycling and Energy Efficiency Retrofit). While at the show we were able to connect with other organizations in the green space and develop our network. We are excited that at least one of these connections will blossom into a customer for our recycling program. But not only did we meet potential business partners, we also learned of exciting new trends in the industry. It is impressive the speed with which companies are adopting green practices. It took a while for the snowball to get going but it is truly picking up speed.

The West Coast Green experience was valuable for Rubicon National Social Innovations. The success is obviously manifested in the partnership we came away with, but other wins occurred as well. The conference was a valuable opportunity to make contacts with the visionaries who are changing the building industry. Additionally, it laid the seeds for future innovations and projects. Disruptive innovations could provide us with excellent opportunities to fulfill our mission, to employ the hardest to employ populations. West Coast Green was also an excellent chance to update ourselves with the technological advances that are changing construction. Our presence at the conference heightened the importance of being in the bay area, a great hub for environmental and social enterprise work. The connections and collaborations here are great for incubating ideas that we can then scale nationally.

Plugging Away

For the past year Rubicon National has been working to get mattress recycling off the ground as a social enterprise diverting waste and employing the hardest to employ workers. Now, with a facility open (and at last report covering all direct costs!) in San Jose and a facility close to launch in Philadelphia (check out the article on page 17 of Grid Magazine below), we are working to identify the remaining U.S. markets where mattress recycling is likely to be a viable social enterprise.



Key to making the market is a governmental presence committed to environmental sustainability and consumers that value waste diversion and recycling of resources enough to demand it of the businesses from which they buy their new products. We've talked to several retailers who don't think their customers value waste stream diversion enough to pay an extra $10 at the time of purchase to guarantee their mattress is recycled. We don't think that's a valid assumption. Only time will tell, but we will continue to develop the business infrastructure that will allow the opportunity to recycle mattresses to exist. When every mattress store offers a recycling option, we will know we've been successful.



Mattress recycling coming to Philly! Check out page 17: http://issuu.com/redflagmedia/docs/grid_2009.09