Indigo Bridge’s showing of ‘So Right So Smart’ advocates greener business practices

On Thursday, Indigo Bridge Books screened "So Right So Smart," the second film in the Tread Lightly film series on environmental sustainability. Unlike the Al Gore approach of ramping up support through pictures of polar bears and startling graphs, "So Right So Smart" puts the focus on where, for better or worse, it really matters: money and industry.

The majority of the film follows Ray C. Anderson, a businessman who in the early 1990s sought to make his hugely successful carpet tile company, InterfaceFLOR, environmentally sound.

It's not exactly a rags-to-riches story: Just about everyone interviewed is a CEO, manager or someone out to make money. Normally in a movie, this would be its downfall. Here, however, it makes its premise all the more compelling.

Anderson's success came decades before his green initiatives. Phrases like environmental footprint, recycled content and carbon emissions meant nothing to his company until Anderson read "The Ecology of Commerce" in 1994. This, he said, was his epiphany. He began a campaign, initially met with bewilderment and even worry about his sanity, to spread the word about the smart way to do business.

The key word is business. To many, promoting green practices is good in theory, but a tedious cliche when thought of on any large scale. With the infrastructure of our current mode of living so firmly established, it isn't practical to think that companies will take inconvenient, costly steps that the majority aren't even asking for.

Anderson's mission is to show that sustainability is cheaper, leads to more profits and creates a sounder business model in the long term. It should be required viewing for anyone going into business, because it destroys the idea that there isn't as much money to be made in greener business.

And these aren't little steps done for publicity: InterfaceFLOR's mission is to leave zero carbon footprint by the year 2020, a lofty and impressive goal.

There are enough twists and roadblocks in Anderson's rise to success to keep viewers' interest, and at a breezy 56 minutes, the movie is easy to digest. Anderson accidently holds what was meant to be the vital impetus to his dream, a brainstorming conference with the best minds in environmentalism, in one of Hawaii's most extravagant and wasteful resorts. Rather than skirt around that fact throughout the conference, he uses the hotel as a model for what not to do and implements a challenge to make environmentally friendly changes to the hotel.

The movie features a few professional animation sequences, but beyond that, the movie is a simply shot, bare-bones documentary. The music, mostly a looped, hokey guitar track that you see in infomercials, is the clearest example of this. And the interviewees, while friendly and honest enough, have worked in business long enough that they more often than not speak in the vapid hyperbole of politicians. I don't think any other method would have made the movie's point more effectively, but it's not going to pull many heartstrings either.

Like the film series' first screening, small business leaders from the community brought their insight, answers and free food. They filled in what Lincoln has to offer toward sustainability, how the movie's ideas show up in many local businesses and what the consumer's first steps should be toward making the right choices.

The guest facilitator for this week was Jackie Barnhardt, outreach and membership director for Open Harvest, which offers the largest selection of organic and natural foods in Lincoln.

Barnhardt offered her own tips for making the right choices as consumers.

"It's nice to shop at a place where you can meet the owners of the businesses," she said. "If you're a regular customer, you can develop a relationship with the staff. And then you become empowered to be able to say, ‘Hey, here's a product that I would like to see you carry,' or, ‘I would like to see you carry a product that has less packaging,' or, ‘I would like to see you carry a product that is made locally.' Once that business owner hears that request a number of times, an impact, an impression begins to be made."

Billene Nemec is the coordinator of Buy Fresh Buy Local, a Lincoln-based organization that provides outlets for organic and sustainable farmers to get their food to the community.

Nemec thought the movie's sentiments were an important one for people to hear.

"It brought in that each one of us does make a difference," she said. "Where you buy your food, where you buy your clothing, the companies you support — you vote with where you spend your dollar."

The Tread Lightly film series provides the opportunity to explore some of the most important questions our society faces with the people most attuned to its intricacies and impact. "So Right So Smart" has its flaws, but Indigo Bridge Books effectively rounds out its shortcomings with a unique and stimulating event.