Georgia Trend publishes Worldwide Editing Trendsetters story

An article I wrote about about TreeZero, a Georgia company that makes copy paper out of sugar, has been published in this month’s Georgia Trend.

Georgia Trend is a monthly magazine that features news about Georgia businesses, politics, and economic development. Fittingly enough, the article appears, in the “TRENDSETTERS” column (Page 15).

TreeZero paper makes copy paper from sugarcane waste fiber after the sugar has been extracted. As the company’s name implies, the paper is free of any tree products. Paper from sugar. How cool is that?

After all, the process of making paper by cutting down trees has remained unchanged since the ancient Egyptians first figured out how to make a paper-like substance from papyrus.

Now, 5,000 years later, Edward Kennedy, TreeZero chairman, and Michael Nilan, CEO, have one-upped the ancients. I’m glad Worldwide Editing heard about their story and that Kennedy and Nilan spent an hour or so sharing their story with me.

At its heart, it’s a story about the intersection of technology, the environment, and sustainability and making the world a more livable place for all of us. Not only are they saving trees, they are keeping sugarcane waste out of landfills. The environmental/sustainable sector is an area where Worldwide Editing also wants to make its mark. Stories about sustainability-minded visionaries such as Kennedy and Nilan are the ones we like to tell – especially when they involve global companies.

TreeZero was founded and is based in metro Atlanta. The company's operations are in South America at the edge of a sugar cane plantation. Kennedy and Nilan's target market is sustainability-minded colleges and universities and Fortune 2000 companies. Their vision, according to Nilan, is “to shake up the industry with (their) products and what (they) do."

They are well on their way to doing that with plans to expand into new paper products for stationery and the gift industry – all tree free, of course. In their case, though, they won’t be rattling anyone’s chain with future products. Instead, they’ll be shaking a few trees. Thanks to them, there will be more trees left to shake.