Suppliers | Must Read Director of ESG Nick McCulloch is responsible for the development and execution of PCNA's near-, mid-, and longterm climate transition plan. every piece of background information and detail one could ask for, all neatly organized. The day of my visit is meticulously scheduled by PCNA’s staff. We have a long interview portion to start, and then Executive Vice President of Operations Walt McMann leads a tour of two production facilities in the same industrial park, with several checkpoints along the way to show off this recycling initiative or that robot that increases efficiency on a particular process. Compared to many other supplier floors, it truly is impressive in its organization and cleanliness. I’m struck by how comfortable and quiet it is, like an open floor plan office that happens to have decoration machines instead of computers. In true PCNA fashion, it’s all going exactly to script. Finally, we start to head back to the conference room where the day began, but not before I’m offered a drink of water. A tumbler is pulled from a breakroom cabinet, and I’m invited to fill it in one of those fountains with a digital counter displaying how many plastic bottles it has saved: 1,597. That doesn’t seem like a high number until I realize that even in the middle of the week, this entire floor of office space sits almost empty. With more employees now working around the country, and local staffers only in office on a hybrid schedule, this floor isn’t as busy as it once was. And yet they’ve installed the new fountains anyway and done away with plastic bottles for guests. On the mug is a PCNA logo and its newish tagline: Inspiring Pride. Clearly the foundation of PCNA’s branding around its flagship responsibility initiative, ProudPath, this tagline begs a question. How did it all come about? “Oh!” Ringel says when I bring it up. “Thanks for asking.” Part of an overall rebranding, the new motto came after Ringel was tapped to lead Polyconcept, parent of the North American division, and PF Concept in Europe, in 2019. He was fresh off a 23-year run at the office supplies giant Staples, where he led massive sales forces, including for the promotional products division. Stepping into the new role, he found 12 corporate values displayed everywhere on signs. No one could recite them, he says, so five new values were carved out: • Delight Customers • Work Smart • Think Team • Own It • Say It Like It Is. “And we said, ‘As a company, why do we exist?’ It can’t just be to make money,” he says. “We ultimately said it’s what our products do. They’re either used internally or externally to create some level of pride. And we thought, what should it do? It should inspire.” Walking through facilities, Ringel saw products being decorated for brands like Microsoft and Amazon. Eventually, he thought, one of these may end up on Jeff Bezos’s desk. “He’s the richest guy in the world. So take pride in your work; you never know who is going to see it,” Ringel says. “Inspiring Pride is really what we wanted the industry to understand that we were trying to help them do.” In the process, Ringel abbreviated the name Polyconcept North America because of negative connotations with Poly – it could mean many, for instance, or be associated with polymers (the chemical compounds that make up plastic). It didn’t tell the sustainability story that the company has developed into an ethos. A refresh was in order. Purpose And Profit When Ringel first arrived, the company sold 19 products that it called eco-friendly. It now PPAI • JUNE 2024 • 39
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