The Jewish Business Network (JBN) kicked-off the post-summer season with their September luncheon on Wednesday the 21st at Noon at Temple University’s Center City location (1515 Market St.) featuring the catering of Mama’s Vegetarian. The topic was “Going Green: A Sustainability Panel,” with Gerald Furgione, Executive Director of PhillyCarShare, Sunny Nastase, Vice President of Customer Solutions at UPS and Don Smolenski, COO for Philadelphia Eagles.
After a robust round of networking, attendee introductions, hearing from event sponsors American Express and Orange Energy Solutions and about the new JBN membership initiatives, Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, Executive Director of Jewish Heritage Programs, highlighted that with the event topic and the approach of Rosh Hashanah we should all strive to sustain things in a healthy way to make the world a better place and he sounded a mini shofar wishing everyone a “happy, healthy and sweet New Year.”
The panelists were introduced by panel moderator Jonathan Kanze of Marvin E. Kanze, Inc., one of the oldest family owned and operating heating and air conditioning companies in the region, and he started things off by asking the panelists to spend a few minutes highlighting some initiatives each of their respective organizations are doing to be sustainable.
Jerry Furgione of PhillyCarShare (PCS) announced that their recent acquisition by the Enterprise Holdings organization resulted in switching out their entire 250-car fleet with brand new vehicles (including the standard hybrids), and that by Thanksgiving they expect to launch the first electric vehicle micro-community, citing that there are currently 33 electric car charging stations in the Philadelphia area, with 20 electric-powered vehicles in conjunction with a program being implemented by the Mayor’s Office.
The Eagles’ Don Smolenski talked about the breadth of the overall energy-efficiency activity at The Linc including the use of solar panels which has helped to reduce the kilowatt usage by half at the stadium, as well as having servers pour beer into cups from aluminum bottles (vs. glass), the collecting of unused food for composting, and using the trash chutes for recycling as that has surpassed the amount of trash collected nowadays.
Sunny Nastase of UPS said there were various activities that have provided a layering effect for the company including using environmentally-friendly paint on their new fleet of energy-efficient planes which reduced their weight by 500 pounds each saving approximately 22 million gallons of fuel, as well as using recycled cloth bags (vs. plastic) in their sorting centers to hold the packages that come and go daily as the cloth can be reused.
Audience members, of note Cheryl Pliskin of Jest Notes & Baskets, had some great questions for the panel including finding out if UPS drivers can only make right hand turns (vs. left) – and Sunny said “yes, it’s true.” As well, JBN member Anna Skale of Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors liked Don’s statement that after each Eagles game two representatives, along with their supply of Red Bull, cruise the stadium turning off all non-essential lighting. The panel wrapped up with some final thoughts of the panelists about sustainability practices overall and PCS’s Jerry said in a nutshell: “…keep it up… for our kids and grandkids.”
The luncheon ended with Harris Gubin, Lead Ambassador of JBN and Account Executive at First Contact HR, announcing the October 19th luncheon date which will feature John A. Fry the President of Drexel University, whereby someone in the audience resonated “Go Dragons!”
Liz Galantino, Senior Associate
Metrospective Communications – Philadelphia
Marketing, Public Relations and Strategic Communication
