Sustainability

There’s Something About Trees: Arbor Day 2019

Posted on by Michele Arduengo
two girls climbing a tree
Climbing The Old Willow Tree is best with a friend

My daughter has a favorite tree, The Old Willow Tree, at Aldo Leopold Nature Center in Madison. I don’t know exactly how much time she has spent in that tree, but I suspect it is significant.

Trees have served as the source of inspiration for scientists’ careers, writers’ metaphors, and musicians’ nostaglia.

One of our science writers at Promega tells this story about an early “botanical” experiment he and his grandmother performed:

“When I was four, my grandma helped me plant a ‘helicopter’ in a butter dish. It slowly graduated to a Cool Whip container, then a family-sized takeout tub from a spaghetti joint. It’s now the largest tree on my parents’ property.” –Jordan Villanueva

When I was in college, the campus quad was lined with ancient Ginkgo trees that filled my morning walks to my fall classes with shimmering gold leaf. I remember those trees with such fondness that the first tree I planted when I moved to Wisconsin was a Ginkgo tree.

There’s something about trees…we wax poetic and become nostalgic; we include them in our literature and art as important symbols and teachers of life lessons. Continue reading “There’s Something About Trees: Arbor Day 2019”

Lab Sustainability Doesn’t Have To Be Painful

Posted on by Jordan Villanueva

Ian Nicastro says he didn’t set out to start a green revolution.

“I’m not hardcore ‘Save the trees,’” Ian says. “I’m probably a little different from the people you traditionally see as promoting the sustainability thing. Obviously, I do want to help the environment, but for me it was like, ‘this is logical, and we should be doing this.’”

Ian is the lab manager of the Pasquinelli Lab, a C. elegans lab at the University of California–San Diego that studies miRNA and its role in processes like aging. He’s been in the lab for about six and a half years, splitting his time between research and lab management duties. According to Allison Paradise, the CEO of My Green Lab, Ian has put out some “outstanding” efforts to implement sustainable practices in the lab. Continue reading “Lab Sustainability Doesn’t Have To Be Painful”

At Promega, Corporate Responsibility Comes Down to Relationships

Posted on by Karen Burkhartzmeyer

We recently connected with a customer who has been using Promega products loyally for years, but who had no idea what the company was like beyond that. She humorously commented, “Oh, there are people at Promega?” Now while we are of course pleased that the quality and capability of our products stand alone, we also place tremendous value on authentic relationships and sustained engagement in the company’s exchanges with customers, as well as employees, suppliers, the communities in which we work and the environment. We wondered how many others were out there with whom we would like to connect and say, “Hello! Curious to get to know us better?”

As a Promega Connections reader, we suspect you already know a bit about who we are, but for those who are especially inquisitive (as most scientists are) we also invite you to check out our newly launched Corporate Responsibility website. Click around and you will soon discover themes of innovative collaboration with scientists, meaningful interconnectedness with employees and communities, and long-term commitment to sustainable growth.

Promoting meaningful connection happens in many ways at Promega. Here are just a few examples:

Continue reading “At Promega, Corporate Responsibility Comes Down to Relationships”

First We Eat: #LifeatPromega, The Culinary Experience

Posted on by Karen Burkhartzmeyer

The Promega Culinary Garden
In the Promega garden. (L to R): Logan Morrow, gardener; Nate Herndon, Promega Senior Culinary Manager; Mike Daugherty, Promega Line Cook and Gardener

First we eat, then we do everything else.–MFK Fisher

Swatting away mosquitoes one July morning in the garden on the Promega Madison, WI, campus, Senior Culinary Manager Nate Herndon leans down and pulls back the leaves of a squash plant, revealing the bright yellow flowers that in a couple of hours will highlight a seasonal special on the lunch menu at one of the company’s cafeterias: green onion-cream cheese stuffed fried squash blossoms served on a grilled jerk pork tostada with black beans and cilantro sauce. Herndon explains that dishes made from scratch with high-quality, locally sourced (and sometimes unexpected) ingredients are the rule at Promega Madison kitchens, where it’s not uncommon to find entrees like house made ramp garganelli with oyster mushrooms and asparagus, braised beef ragu with house made buckwheat parpadelle pasta and baby kale, or fried perch tacos.

Food is an extension, a daily demonstration, of our overall commitment to sustainability, the community and employees

Many companies are realizing the benefits of upscaling their corporate cafeteria offerings. Some are engaging employees with ever-changing theme lunch menus or energy drinks on tap. Others are echoing the popular farm to table movement. But Herndon explains that Promega’s sensibilities surrounding the importance of food goes way beyond simply following popular trends. Continue reading “First We Eat: #LifeatPromega, The Culinary Experience”

Sustainable Growth: The Edible Kind

Posted on by Michele Arduengo
community-garden-thumb

From time to time, we use the Promega Connections blog to tell you a little bit more about life here at Promega Corporation. For more than 40 years Promega has consistently integrated the values of corporate responsibility and sustainable business practices in all aspects of our corporate culture and activity; one of those aspects can be found in the Promega cafeterias. As an employee of Promega, one of the things I have considered a key perk is the wonderful menu offerings we have here at the Madison campus. The kitchens offer a varied and fun menu full of healthy choices, using local, seasonal foods as much as possible. The Promega Culinary Garden was covers more than an acre and allows us to grow many of our own vegetables and herbs as well as compost food waste.

Below is a short video highlighting the Culinary Garden Program

For information on other corporate responsibility and sustainable business practices at Promega Corporation, explore our Corporate Responsibility Web site.

Recycle or Compost? Sorting Out the Cornstarch from the Plastic

Posted on by Sara Klink

Environmental concerns have driven people to seek products that are not derived from petroleum. This has translated into people using products from renewable resources for serving food and beverages. Now you are drinking iced tea out of corn plastic cups or coffee from paper cups labeled as ecofriendly. What does this label mean and what do you do with them when you have consumed your beverage?

Continue reading “Recycle or Compost? Sorting Out the Cornstarch from the Plastic”