While our work’s focus is to assist businesses with our services, we are aware of the world around us and how what we do could have an impact on our environment. When you work with Chief, you’re working with a team that focuses its efforts on our world’s wellbeing. We partner up with professionals in the industry to ensure we follow sustainable practices that benefit our communities and protect the environment.
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®)
Chief maintains an FSC® chain of custody for cardboard and corrugated displays and packaging. FSC® certification allows us to track the pulp products back to their harvest point. Certification ensures that products come from responsibly managed forests that provide environmental, social, and economic benefits. The FSC® principles and criteria offer a foundation for all forest management standards globally.
Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI®)
Chief maintains an SFI® chain of custody for cardboard and corrugated displays and packaging. SFI® certification allows us to track the pulp products back to their harvest point. In addition, certification ensures that our products adhere to the four pillars: standards, conservation, community, and education. SFI® is the world’s most extensive single forest certification standard by area.
The decisions we make in our business operations make significant impacts on the natural world. However, through our choices and influence in our industry, we strive to remove adverse effects and maximize benefits.
One way we do this is by ensuring all fiberboard is legally and ethically harvested. In addition, we source only entirely FSC or SFI certified papers not obtained from controversial or destructive sources. Certification ensures our materials are not sourced from High Conservation Value Forests (HCVF). These certifications promote environmentally appropriate and economically viable management of the world’s forests.
Replenishing healthy forests is extremely important to our business and vital to the future of our planet because of the critical role forests play in contributing to air quality, sustaining clean water sources, and providing habitat. At the same time, paper and forest products can represent a sustainable and renewable natural resource providing economic opportunities for many businesses. Thus, Chief continues to strive towards responsible use of our resources while being stewards of the planet we all share.
Chief proudly has 0% paper waste in the manufacturing process. On each press, all excess paper is cut into small clippings for ease of recycling then gravity allows us to reclaim all scrap corrugate board. It falls below to conveyor belts that feed directly into air vacuums that transfer scrap to our bailer. It is then bailed into rectangular units and placed on a truck to be delivered to a local recycling center. Chief recycles over 2,500 tons of paper per year.
Our internal structural designers create to reduce and minimize materials at every opportunity by eliminating paperboard not critical to the integrity or strength of the package. In addition to eliminating the cost for our customers, it reduces the carbon footprint of every package used in a retail environment.
Our H2O
A minimum amount of water consumption occurs during production and machine washdown. To ensure no ink or waste solids enter our ecosystem, Chief utilizes an ALAR-2000 Filtration System which processes all manufacturing wastewater. Our ALAR 2000 equipment incorporates a two-step chemical and mechanical filtration process that breaks the solids and liquids apart and physically removes solid particles from any wastewater. This system filters water down to 1/2 micron (that’s 111000th of a millimeter), allowing us to safely put this filtered water back into the regular water cycle.
To minimize water used by our employees, Chief installed Kolor low flow fixtures that use 400% less water in all employee facilities.
Our Inks
The liquid portions of our inks are water-based. Water-based inks contain zero volatile organic compounds (VOCs), while solvent-based inks contain 100% VOCs.
Chief operates an internal ink kitchen which significantly reduces ink-related waste. Energy consumption is also decreased by running our equipment at higher efficiencies and reducing ink and color downtime and restarts.
100% of our leftover inks are recycled, re-worked, and reused throughout our printing processes. By mixing our inks, we eliminate the need to over-purchase ink not needed to complete a job. This cuts down on the extra material consumed due to over-production.
Many of the filler pigments used in the production of our inks are natural such as calcium carbonate, clay, and titanium dioxide. These items are required to meet the specific ink color demands of our customers. In addition, standard products such as shampoos, antacids, and toothpaste also contain such natural fillers. Using these natural plant-based resins rather than oil-based resins in the production of our inks reduces carbon dioxide emission by 2/3rds less than a bucket of acrylic resin-based ink.
Lighting
Chief utilizes LED lighting fixtures throughout our entire manufacturing complex. These fixtures produce a high light output with low energy consumption relative to their size, making them robust, safe, and efficient. In addition, skylights throughout our three buildings also provide a great deal of natural lighting in our manufacturing areas.
Work Environment
Our production facilities also utilize helicopter-sized ceiling fans to increase air circulation and help eliminate the need for additional electric fans and air conditioning. The fans, on average, cost less than $.03 an hour to operate and reduce temperature and humidity, making for a more comfortable work environment.
Plant Movement
Chief incorporates several electric forklifts in critical areas of our fleet. In addition, all inbound pallets are reused to reduce the need to purchase newer pallets.
Internal Office Area
Like our plant, our entire office space is lit by low-power LED lights making for a brighter work environment with a lower energy cost. LED low power monitor screens with high color contrast and refresh rates are used throughout our entire operations. These monitors are energy efficient and filter out issues that typically cause eye strain.
Office Recycling
In addition to 100% of our manufacturing material being recycled, our IT department recycles obsolete or broken computer components, keeping them out of the landfill. We also have internal recycling stations to reclaim plastic bottles and aluminum cans consumed by our employees throughout our operations. These stations are located in all breakroom and high traffic areas. And we shred and recycle our office paper waste.
We continue to explore more ways to minimize our environmental footprint. For example, some ecological initiatives currently in process include incorporating solar power and electric fleet vehicles. Chief commits to be at the forefront of ecological innovation as technology evolves