Clean Your Plate
About one year ago, World Centric, a company that makes compostable consumer products, moved its corporate headquarters from Palo Alto to Petaluma. “We were looking for a community of like-minded businesses and nonprofits,” says Annie Davis, director of marketing. Welcome to the North Bay. “We also wanted to eventually bring our manufacturing back from Asia. Moving to Petaluma is part of that plan. We hope to bring those operations back to the United States [and some to the North Bay] as soon as possible.”
World Centric started 10 years ago as a nonprofit with the mission of creating a just and sustainable world through environmental and sustainability education programs. In the early years, it created and sold certified compostable products as a way to fund the organization’s work. Soon enough, the majority of time and resources were being spent on manufacturing and marketing its products, and World Centric became a for-profit B-corporation; it’s also a member of One Percent for the Planet. Today, sales are in the $20 million range, at least 25 percent of which is donated to social and environmental organizations including, locally, Daily Acts, Friends of the Petaluma River, Petaluma Community Foundation and Work Horse Organic Agriculture (WHOA) in Santa Rosa, among others.
The majority of World Centric products are sold to food service and preparation businesses, though consumer offerings are increasing. Existing B2B customers include Taylor Maid Farms Coffee (Sebastopol), Petaluma Coffee and Tea, and Sonoma State University, as well as Specialty Café (Oakland) and The Melt (San Francisco). Consumer products are currently available nationally at Whole Foods Markets and in the North Bay at Oliver’s, Community Market, Andronico’s and others.
Solar from a SEED
The city of San Rafael is leading a three-county effort to install up to 5.2 MW of solar panels on public facilities. San Rafael and 13 other public agencies in Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties have banded together to bring more solar power to the region through participation in a collaborative procurement program: the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Fund (SEED Fund). The SEED Fund will be implemented by San Rafael’s Strategic Energy Innovations (SEI) and its partner, Optony Inc., of Santa Clara, with third-party consulting from Marin Clean Energy. The program is supported by California Solar Initiative’s (CSI) Research Design and Development Program.
“The goal is that, by adding solar to city buildings, it would increase the city’s use of renewable energy and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions,” says San Rafael City Council Member and Marin Clean Energy Board Chairman Damon Connolly.
SEED Fund demonstrates an innovative solar procurement business model that uses a public-private revolving fund to leverage close to $500,000 in public and private support for the region to enable more than $20 million of solar-related economic activity. The SEED Fund program demonstrates that a 1 to 2 percent upfront investment in collaboration results in better pricing (10 to 12 percent total project cost savings), lower project risks with higher returns, reduced transaction costs and reduced administrative effort (resulting in 50 to 70 percent cost savings for participants).
“As a public entity, we want to see increased solar deployment,” said Liz Yager, energy and sustainability division manager for Sonoma County. “Our county is facing significant challenges, in terms of limited technical capacity to evaluate current options and limited resources to undertake this effort. SEED Fund provides an innovative and replicable model for public agencies to collaborate on solar PV implementation.”
