Source: Martin Cash with the Winnipeg Free Press
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/business-is-resin-ating-575303292.html

When the Oak Bluff Hutterite Colony started EcoPoxy a few years ago, it did so purposefully.

It wanted to get into a niche business that was going to be environmentally friendly and did not rely on the increasingly thin margins that agricultural commodity producers increasingly endure.

The company uses only bio-based content in its resins, avoiding all the petroleum ingredients that many other resins use.

Only a few years later, EcoPoxy has become a global business. Jack Maendel, the company’s CEO said EcoPoxy is shipping its coating and casting epoxies around the world and after its purchase last year of the assets of the Composites Innovation Centre out of bankruptcy, it has a fully equipped R & D lab. The company is putting the final touches on some new resin compounds using Prairie commodities instead of the imported palm oil it now uses.

In addition to industrial applications, EcoPoxy sells its epoxy varieties and colour additives to many artisans around the world who use it to create all sorts of distinctive furniture and housewares.

“I think we ship to just about every country other than North Korea,” he said.

But the ins and outs of international trade was not something he or anyone else from the colony had any real experience in, other than some modest sales to the U.S. in previous agricultural ventures.

“We didn’t know what we didn’t know,” is the way Maendel puts it.

Now, he attributes much of their international trade savvy to the World Trade Centre’s Trade Accelerator Program.

After taking the trade accelerator program (TAP) with the World Trade Centre, Maendel said he was enlightened about logistics options in moving product around and dealing with the requirement of brokerage, customs, duties and taxes in different jurisdictions.

“I didn’t realize we needed to take steps to protect our intellectual property or our brand around the world,” he said. “It was very important to be able to understand so we could organize the company to be able to operate internationally the way we do now.”

And Maendel said it’s EcoPoxy’s policy to share what they’ve learned about international trade to its customers.

“If we can teach others what we know we all win,” he said. “The things our customers do is amazing. They create incredible works of art.”

EcoPoxy helps its growing customer base market their products outside Canada through simple social media posts or sharing with them connections it’s made through the WTC.

One of those customers, Lynn & Liana Designs out of Steinbach, now ships its cheeseboard and serveware products — more than 100 different products — made with local maple wood (also imported acacia) uniquely combined with colourful EcoPoxy all around the world.

Founder Evan Funk was once an employee of EcoPoxy so he knew the potential of the product.

When he quit EcoPoxy to work full-time at his own family business most of its sales were of the wholesale variety to retailers across the U.S.

“We purposefully targeted the U.S. market when we started,” said Funk.

Now, through the WTC, his company has access to reams of leads. For instance, if it wants to find customers in France it can order up a list of 100 appropriate gift stores France, free of charge.

Sales at both EcoPoxy and Lynn & Liana have increased during the pandemic, likely at least partially because of the fact that people are spending more time at home pursuing craft and artistic pursuits.

That has created the need for even home-based businesses to get at least a working knowledge of international trade fundamentals.

Mariette Mulaire, the CEO of World Trade Centre Winnipeg, said the TAP curriculum has successfully transitioned to online delivery with the various experts who present in different areas like legal and marketing fully transitioned to online presentations.

She said the most valuable overall element of the program is getting the potential exporters to commit. It’s short term pain for long-term gain.

“The bottom line if they get an export plan in their hands,” she said. “It forces companies to stop and think about their strategy and then they can check to make sure everything makes sense legally or that they have the people with the right skill sets they need.”

With new intakes for October and spring 2022 now being accepted the TAP program has barely skipped a beat.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press
Reporter: Martin Cash
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/world-trade-centre-winnipeg-offers-earth-day-tips-574248282.html

With the pandemic causing an existential threat to the future of so many businesses, many small and medium-sized business owners may have put their own projects to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions on the back burner.

And since commercial enterprise around the world has been a couple of beats slower for the past year — factories operating at reduced capacity, airline traffic down by as much as 90 per cent and automobiles left in the garage — concerns about the carbon footprint may not have seemed so pre-eminent.

But a new report this week from the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental group based in Paris, said worldwide energy-related carbon dioxide emissions could surge by 1.5 billion tonnes this year, following last year’s decline due to the pandemic.

For this year’s Earth Day on Thursday, World Trade Centre Winnipeg is collaborating with its sister organization in St. Louis, Mo., to host a free online conference called Re-Engage in Trade: Climate Change & Implications for International Trade (April 22, 12 p.m. CT, on Zoom: http://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2cDqds7cRtqwYPDsIJp2qw).

For some, having an excuse to let their climate change initiatives lapse has a lot to do with the fact they are often challenging and costly undertakings.

But Mariette Mulaire, the CEO of World Trade Centre Winnipeg, said companies are going to need to be ready to answer the question — what are you doing to fight climate change?

“More and more people are asking things like ‘How green is your supply chain? Is your product coming from recyclable material, and can it be recycled at its end use? Have you switched some or all of fossil fuel energy to electric, solar or wind,’” she said. “Business needs to be prepared for this.”

Mulaire, who is also vice-chairwoman of the board of directors of the World Trade Centers Association, the only Canadian on the 19-person international board, said it is a competitive issue that gives business people the chance to say “look at what we are doing.”

Because it is a global issue, business owners can expect that is something that is on the agenda of their suppliers and their customers and not just millennials, who may be more vocal about patronizing local economies or interested in tracing the food they buy at the grocery store or restaurant.

While some of the answers and solutions are complicated and take time to implement, the World Trade Centre Winnipeg has created a quick-start guide of Eight Earth Day Tips to put in place now.

Things like:

1. Get informed about government agencies and programs that provide financial support to help you reduce your energy use and save money. In Manitoba, Efficiency Manitoba is a great first stop.

2. Talk to suppliers, including financial institutions, about what they are doing for climate change. Do they invest in clean and renewable energy?

3. Pay more attention to the internal physical plant. Turn lights off, install LED bulbs that consume 75 per cent less energy, unplug “energy vampires” like computers and other electronic devices that keep sucking up energy overnight when they’re not in use.

4. Prepare for the possibility of extreme weather events and have a plan when the effects of climate change actually hit.

5. Start the conversation in-house about how climate change affects your business and include younger team members to whom these issues are more than just rhetoric.

6. Rethink the legacy travel habits of your company. The pandemic has shown that most of us can reduce our travel and still get work done. Group your travel chores to reduce use of carbon fuels and emissions.

7. Start incorporating some of the things people do at home — like composting, planting trees at work, turning grass over to a community garden — at work.

8. Start asking your business partners and suppliers what they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint. Even having the conversation can produce a domino effect.