denotes parts of the page that are editable
Jennifer Wright showed early promise as an eco-minded entrepreneur. As a precocious youngster, she would visit the neighbours around her family cottage in the Georgian Bay region and promote environmentally safe products for their septic tanks. It was a neat idea, even if the products did come from her parents’ inventory. “The neighbors were sick of me by the end of the summer, I’m sure,” says Wright.
But that early interest in commerce stuck with Wright, who is now the president of Green Shift Inc., a company that she incorporated in 2001 and has come to be recognized as a deeply knowledgeable eco-consultant and provider of non-toxic, biodegradable cups, plates, utensils and napkins to organizations hoping to “greenshift” their events.
Her products have been used at the Vancouver Island MusicFest, the Calgary Stampede and various folk festivals. The Barenaked Ladies and the Tragically Hip have made use of her services, as have established organizations and brands such as BC Place, Polar Ice Vodka, Grolsch and Ikea. Adria Vasil, the so-hip-it-hurts environmental columnist for Toronto’s alternative newsweekly, Now magazine, called Wright “Toronto’s original force” in the diversion of polystyrene No. 6 (white Styrofoam) from landfills. Wright maintains a showroom of Green Shift products in Toronto, and some four million of the takeout cups have been distributed since May. Wright has even worked with the producers of the movie The Incredible Hulk to make sure the filming of that project was a “no-waste” event, which set a precedent for green films. “We do business in every province in the country and in two territories,” says Wright.
In May, Green Shift found its revenue had grown fourfold in the fiscal year, a bump that suggests the company, which had just three employees last year and now has seven, was about to soar. “We finally said, ‘OK, we’ve stabilized the fixed costs.’ That’s the main threshold. We were really going places,” says Wright.
But that’s when she got the Call. A senior aide to Stéphane Dion dialled Wright to let her know that her website would be overrun with traffic the next day: the Liberals were rolling out their new carbon tax and climate change policy, which had the unfortunate distinction of sharing Wright’s company name. Sixteen hours later, the phrase “green shift” was all over the news — and Wright began to see her business slip from her hands.
Her biggest clients, she fears, won’t want to be seen at events holding cups with the Green Shift logo on them. Any business leader knows the importance of staying politically neutral, and many Canadians will confuse Wright’s logo with support for the Liberals, especially now that Canada has been inundated with advertising tying that phrase to the party. “There are going to be 308 Liberals going door-to-door using that term, and 308 Conservatives talking it down,” says Wright.
On July 9, she launched an $8.5-million lawsuit against theLiberal Party of Canada for copyright infringement. And on Sept. 4, she asked the courts to accelerate the process by filing a notice of injunction to prevent the party and its candidates from using the name Green Shift for their platform.
When contacted by Canadian Business, a Liberal spokesperson emphasized the party wasn’t “in competition” with Wright, showing minimal understanding of the practical realities of business. But even that isn’t as galling to Wright as Dion’s suggestion that it was “deplorable” she would sue the Liberals to save her business. “That is just so belittling,” says Wright. “The Canadian representative of International Paper, one of the largest private landowners in North America, said of us that he has never seen a company like Green Shift. Here’s this idea I’ve been working on for almost 10 years and they just ran in and took it over. I feel like I’ve been run over by the Big Red Machine.”
The final irony is that Green Shift has an invoice for work it did for a picnic held by the Ontario Liberals. “They are so imperious,” Wright says. “Why would someone want to do business in Canada if the government can just walk in and steal your name?” Excellent question.
0 members recommend this.
Like ZENN Motor Company? Then you might also be interested in BSM Technologies
