We will be holding ourAffiliate Meeting on Friday night, June 19th from 5:30 p.m.-7:00 p.m. in the Vieux Carre room at the Hotel Monteleone. Topics for the Affiliate meeting include developing and marketing routes, GreenEarth Custom Licensing and details on big news we plan to unveil at the Clean Show. Afterward, there will be an open reception from 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. downstairs in the Queen Anne room where you can network with industry friends and partners and enjoy music, food and beverages. Mark your calendar for this year’s Clean Show in New Orleans! The show runs from Thursday, June 18th through Sunday June 21st.
Save the Date!! Clean ’09 Affiliate Meeting in New Orleans.
GreenEarth
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S O L U T I O N S www.GreenEarthCleaning.com TollFree: 877-926-0895
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2009 Winter
An accident of fate: the GreenEarth story 51 WEST 135TH ST. KANSAS CITY, MO 64145
Sometimes discoveries find you. A scientist working on a cosmetic formulation was absent mindedly stirring a beaker of silicone with his finger, waiting for the Super Bowl to come on TV. When he pulled his finger out, he realized the silicone had removed the fats and dirt from his finger without drying it out. He wondered if could do the same for clothes. A search of the nation’s top dry cleaners led him to Jim Barry, then CEO of the nation’s largest dry cleaning company. Jim was skeptical. Over the years he had looked at a lot of alternative solvents and none of them had panned out. Mired in multi-million dollar environmental clean-ups, he was actually thinking about getting out of dry cleaning altogether. But the idea was irresistible. If silicone was an effective dry cleaning solvent, it could be the environmental answer dry cleaners so desperately needed. Jim flew out to see a demonstration. And what he saw was unbelievable. In a simple home-made dry cleaning machine, the silicone was able to remove soiling from garment after
This newsletter is printed on recycled paper with soy inks. Copyright February, 2009 All Rights Reserved
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garment. And the fabrics came out looking and feeling better than they went in. It was serendipity. The solution was christened “SB-32” (what else would you name something invented during Super Bowl XXXII?) and the process was patented worldwide. Jim called two other dry cleaners, Ron Benjamin and Jim Douglas. “Meet me in Reno,” he said, “and bring your checkbooks, this is big.” They did, and GreenEarth Cleaning was born. In the ten years since that phone call, over 1,400 licenses have been sold to the best and the brightest operators in the industry. GreenEarth is now the world’s largest solution provider for environmentally safe dry cleaning. A number of “big name” companies have also joined our team. Two, GE and P&G, H E L P
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were actually founding members. How did such a small entrepreneurial venture end up with two Fortune 10 companies on its board? Again, opportunity simply knocked. We initially approached GE Silicones about being a supplier to the dry cleaning industry. GE had researched many uses of silicone, but never dry cleaning. They were intrigued. After studying our patents, they decided the application was so revolutionary they asked to join our venture. Shortly after, GE happened to mention us to P&G. Silicone is a main ingredient in many personal and fabric care products, and P&G had long been one of GE’s largest clients. P&G was not surprised to hear about the superior chemistry of silicone in fabricare; they understood silicone cleaning very well and in fact had many patents of their own surrounding the technology. What intrigued P&G was the idea of patenting the entire process of dry cleaning with silicone. They too asked to join our board. Again, serendipity. P&G’s considerable fabric care expertise has been a valuable asset to Y O U R
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Competitors claiming to be “organic�? What you can do.
our Affiliates, who today benefit from the pioneering work P&G did to optimize additives for silicone’s unique cleaning chemistry. After the 2002 IFI Fellowship Study confirmed that GreenEarth cleaned comparably to the industry standard perc without the environmental concerns, a number of other “big brands� also sought out GreenEarth. Johnson Service Group, the world’s largest branded dry cleaning operation, became a Master Licensor for the UK in 2003. The same year, Sanyo Electric became our Master Licensor in Japan and Men’s Wearhouse became an Affiliate. Before selecting GreenEarth, Men’s Wearhouse conducted their own extensive review of the efficacy, efficiency, toxicity and environmental viability of all dry cleaning solvent alternatives. Why? They had a lot at stake bringing their tuxedo cleaning in-house. GreenEarth’s significantly better performance on all key metrics made the decision easy. MW Tux is now the world’s largest tuxedo rental business. The most recent “big brand� to associate with GreenEarth is P&G’s Tide detergent. Tide is the sixth most recognized brand in the world and the largest in P&G’s impressive stable of family-favorite brands. As part of a test of a Tide-branded dry cleaning offering, P&G has recently joined our ranks as a GreenEarth Affiliate. The three Tide Dry Cleaners in Kansas City have enjoyed a lot of visibility, as has GreenEarth. Tide uses GreenEarth exclusively for dry cleaning processing and markets GreenEarth technology to its consumers. Brand recognition like this benefits our Affiliates who have the advantage of being “Nationally known but locally owned.�
In some markets, the practice of “green washing� has gotten aggressive. Dry cleaners that mislead consumers with advertising and signage saying they are “organic� are unethical to be sure. It’s tempting to fight back. Our advice: in advertising, always be competitive rather than comparative. Comparative advertising is disparaging and reflects on your character as a business; it’s seldom good business. GreenEarth Cleaning Some options that we feel will help you expose your organic competitors while still being judicious, discrete, and justified: Over six billion years in the making.
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Train your counter staff with talk points and instructions on handling this topic. When people come in, if they ask you or your counter staff about the organic claims your competitors are making, a simple and easy to remember explanation is that The term organic means something very different with chemicals than it does with food. Any chemical with a carbon backbone is “organic�. Gasoline is organic, but that doesn’t mean you want to clean your clothes with it. Here is a
brochure that explains what make GreenEarth truly eco-friendly. Then simply hand them the GreenEarth brochure about your silicone process to take home and read.
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Keep other customer education materials behind your counter and create opportunities to hand them out. We have created a “Organic Cleaning Consumer Alert� flier for this purpose; Consumer Alert you can find it in our online marketing center in the B “Downloads� section, in the folder labeled “Fighting Organic Claims�. There you will also find a couple of published articles about the misleading claims that organic cleaners are making. Print them off and keep them under the counter to hand out to customers. January 11, 2009
By MIREYA NAVARRO
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Why do so many successful brands and companies want to partner with us? We’d like to say its entirely because of the friendly, open and honest way we run the company. But, we readily admit, it’s because we have something they don’t— worldwide patents surrounding the remarkable science of dry cleaning with liquid The Johnsons Team, Leeds Road, Harrogate Branch silicone. We don’t sell machines, solvent or detergent; our business is built on licensing the right to use our worldwide patented process and the GreenEarth trademark that describes it. Protecting our intellectual property is the primary way we protect the investment our Affiliates make in GreenEarth with their annual license fee, and we invest a considerable amount of money every year doing it. We now have eight different U. S. patents (and many more in forty-two countries around the world) ensuring the absolute exclusivity of the GreenEarth process—any dry cleaner using any amount of silicone in their dry cleaning machine must have a license from GreenEarth. We have also trademarked the GreenEarth name and logo to make sure that you can advertise your difference with the assurance that you have unique brand power. As a GreenEarth Affiliate, you belong to a very exclusive club of progressive dry cleaners! Membership has its privileges. Although technically the sole purpose of the license fee is to grant rights to our process and trademarks, we work hard on many fronts—environmental advocacy, garment labeling, operational and technical assistance, customer service, etc.—to provide additional support to help our Affiliates succeed. Perhaps the most The Men’s Wearhouse 1,000,000 Sq. Ft. important “bonus� we provide is marketing support. As former dry cleaners ourselves, Plant & Distribution Facility we understand how difficult it is to simultaneously run a quality operation and market your business. That’s why every year we try to add something new and useful to your marketing toolbox. Last year we developed a new consumer-oriented website to educate your customers about the GreenEarth difference. We also developed direct mail postcards and an online web-to-print service to customize, print and mail them. This year, in addition to upgraded customization features for our postcards, we will be introducing a new in-store poster, van wraps, tools to market route services, and customizable templates for Valpak and Money Mailer direct mail. It’s been a remarkable ride since that scientist first dipped his finger in fate a little over ten years ago. We are grateful to our Affiliates and partners for the continued confidence you place in us, and the important ways you have contributed to our success. And, despite the fact that our country is facing perhaps one of the most challenging economic times in its history, we are genuinely excited about the future for our Affiliates. We have been working on some exciting new offerings that we believe will help you to continue to reinvent your business and change the way the industry cleans in significant ways. It is too early to share details now, but our goal is to make an announcement at this year’s Clean Show. It may be our biggest news since we first introduced GreenEarth to the industry at Clean ’99!
Tide Dry Cleaners Store in Leawood KS
BREAKING NEWS AS THIS NEWSLETTER IS GOING TO PRINT: Southern California regulators have issued a moratorium on any new air permits for VOC creating processes. Dry cleaners using hydrocarbon, Solvair, DrySolv etc. will no longer be able to obtain an air permit to operate dry cleaning machines. We will keep you updated as more information becomes available.
It May Market Organic Alternatives, but Is Your Cleaner Really Greener?
Dumping a pile of jackets, pants and shirts on the counter of a West Village dry cleaner, Wayne Kasserman had a pungent problem: A skunk had sprayed outside a Los Angeles guest house where he was staying, and the stink had penetrated the closets and his clothes.
However strong the smell, though, he wanted the antidote to be gentle on the planet. Mr.
Kasserman, 32, an actor and producer who lives in New York, chose Green Apple Cleaners,
which advertises “nontoxic� methods that it says will not leave harmful residues in garments or the environment.
He had no shortage of businesses to choose from. In New York and around the country, drycleaning stores have increasingly sprouted signs reading “organic� or “green,� as
environmentally conscious consumers look for alternatives to traditional dry cleaning and its
use of the solvent perchloroethylene. Prolonged contact with that solvent, known as PCE or perc, has been linked in some studies to cancer and neurological troubles like vision problems, and its use is strictly regulated.
But marketing claims for the alternatives are not regulated at all. So customers like Mr.
Wasserman, who said he was not sure just what methods Green Apple used, are left to hope for the best. And sometimes the cleaning methods advertised as environmentally sound are anything but.
Government and environmental watchdogs say many cleaners are turning to methods that are only slightly less toxic than perc. The National Cleaners Association, a trade group, says some businesses are using the term “organic� in a blatantly misleading way — not in the sense of a
chemical-free peach, but in the chemistry-class sense of containing carbon, the element found in all organic compounds, including perc.
Under that standard, noted Alan Spielvogel, technical director of the cleaners’ association, “I
Dry cleaning Services Misleadingly Branded as Natural and Organic eware of dry cleaners making claims about dry cleaning your clothes using “organic� or “natural� methods. Marketing claims for dry cleaning are not regulated like food claims. The National Cleaners Association, a dry cleaning industry trade group, says some operators are using these terms in blatantly misleading ways.
What is organic dry cleaning?
When a food product has an FDA-regulated “organic� label, consumers can trust that no harmful chemicals were used in its manufacture. But “organic� means something very different when it describes the chemicals used in dry cleaning. In dry cleaning, “organic� only means that the chemicals used to clean clothes are structured on a chain of carbon, the element found in all organic compounds. Gasoline is organic, and so are most of the petrochemical solvents used by the dry cleaning industry for the last 150 years.
Dry cleaners marketing “organic� cleaning methods are technically accurate but socially irresponsible. They are counting on you not to understand the difference between a chemical-free “organic� peach and a petroleum-based “organic� dry cleaning chemical.
The dangers of “organic� cleaning methods
If your cleaner claims to be using “organic� methods to clean your clothes, they are using either perchloroethylene, also known as PCE or perc, or petroleum (hydrocarbon) solvent, often marketed under the brand names DF2000 or EcoSolv.
Perc is considered by the EPA to be an air and water toxin and dangerous to human health. Exposure can lead to increased risk of cancer, reduced fertility and eye, nose and throat irritation. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health estimates that 85% of dry cleaners still use this 1940’s era solvent.
Many dry cleaners also use hydrocarbon solvents. According to Judith S. Schreiber, chief scientist for the New York State attorney general’s Environmental Protection Bureau, hydrocarbons are “a cleaned up version of gasoline� and only slightly less toxic than perc. Hydrocarbon solvents are classified
by the EPA as VOCs (volatile organic compounds), they are likely contributors to smog formation. They are also listed by the EPA as neurotoxins and skin and eye irritants for workers.
Environmentally safe dry cleaning methods 9
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CO2 Cleaning. Converts CO2 gas under extremely high pressure to a liquid. Avoid CO2 cleaners using Solvair systems, which use glycol-ether during the wash cycle. Glycol-ethers are a family of VOC chemicals used in antifreeze and household cleaning products.
GreenEarth. Uses liquid silicone, essentially liquefied sand. Clear, odor-less and non-toxic, silicone degrades to sand and trace amounts of water and CO2 when released to the environment. Excellent fabricare benefits.
Professional Wet Cleaning. Uses water like home washing machines. Be sure to inquire if 100% of dry cleaning uses this method and whether detergents and pre-spotting agents have toxic or VOC properties. Wet cleaning machines drain directly into the city water system.
Caution about Certified Environmental Dry Cleaners
Any dry cleaner, even a perc cleaner, can hang up a “Certified Environmental Dry Cleaner’ sign if they pass a test certifying they have the knowledge and ability to maintain their facility in an environmentally responsible way. Do not rely on signs in the window. Ask your dry cleaner to tell you exactly what process is being used.
More information www.findco2.com
www.greenearthcleaning.com
www.professionalwetcleaning.com
could clean garments with nuclear waste and I could call myself organic.�
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Go to the local TV reporters. Green washing has teeth to it because it is controversial and very timely. You can send the articles mentioned above to the TV and paper reporters as to get their attention.
Go to the papers and pitch them on doing a feature story on the misleading claims of organic cleaners. To help you in this effort, we have ghost written a completed article you can submit to the paper. It is also available in our online marketing center under downloads. These days, with budget cuts, newspapers frequently don’t have the staff to do the research and writing of a story, and they will take an article submission and run it without changing it much. The article is written to be as “objective� as possible in the spirit of informing readers about their dry cleaning choices, but you will see that of course GreenEarth comes out as the best choice. The pitch you want to make is that there is too much green washing out there and consumers deserve to understand the truth about organic claims being falsely used in an unregulated marketplace. Getting a story like this placed will work much harder for you than any paid advertising ever could. “Earned media� like this has third party credibility that resonates very effectively with readers.
GreenEarth Custom Licensing Program One of the things we are most proud of is the success our Affiliates have enjoyed when they market their GreenEarth difference. Over and over again, marketing GreenEarth as their “Intel Inside� has proven meaningful to their customers and their bottom line. As a result, we have received many requests for the right to use the brand in a more prominent way. Because we believe “A rising tide lifts all boats�, as a means to grow brand recognition for all Affiliates, and as part of our commitment to continually enhancing our license offering, we have recently begun to entertain requests for custom licensing agreements. We plan to announce more details about GreenEarth’s Custom Licensing program at our Clean ’09 Affiliate Meeting. In some situations, a GreenEarth Custom License can mean the ability to put the GreenEarth name on the door. In others, it could ensure geographic protection preventing any new licenses from entering a market. For all, there are select criteria and requirements to be met. Custom licenses are, as the name implies, custom. Every agreement will by definition be different. Our goal is to individually tailor each liscense to address the needs of our Affiliates and their markets. The custom licensing program will not just create advantages for the Custom Licensee, it will take into account the needs of the existing Affiliates in that market as well. Of course, standard licenses will remain the mainstay of our business, and again this year, we will continue to offer them at the $2,500 rate (for the past ten years we have held the license fee constant at $2,500 without raising it). Our goal is to provide every Affiliate an option that helps them to succeed.
GreenEarth Cleaners in Castle Pines North, CO