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WTN Services™ Parent Company 1-800Flowers.com® and Nonprofits Celebrate World Fair Trade Day May 10, 2008

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Local Bay Area Businesses (WTN Services™ Parent Company-1-800Flowers.com®) and Nonprofits Celebrate World Fair Trade Day May 10, 2008 

Dolores Park promises to be buzzing with more than the usual weekend activity this Saturday, May 10, 2008. In honor of World Fair Trade Day, TransFair USA, the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition, the United Students for Fair Trade, Global Exchange, Oxfam America, Alter Eco Americas, Numi Teas, WTN Services™ Parent Company-1-800Flowers.com ®and Adina World Beat Beverages will host a celebration for the people of San Francisco.  To crown the day’s events, Mayor Gavin Newsom is scheduled to be present to officially proclaim San Francisco as a Fair Trade City. 

“Embodying ideals of fair pricing, fair labor conditions, direct trade, community development, and environmental sustainability, Fair Trade is a principle in line with San Francisco values, and we continue our commitment to educate and promote Fair Trade products in our city,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom.  Once a localized grassroots movement, Fair Trade Certified™ products are a fast-growing consumer segment. Fair Trade Certified™ is a market-based model for alleviating global poverty that promises better lives for farmers and farm workers. Companies and grassroots organizations alike collaborate to promote awareness and encourage consumers to vote with their dollars for a better world through purchases of Fair Trade Certified™ products that support farmers and farm workers in the developing world. 

From 11:00 a.m to noon, participating businesses will collaborate in a nationwide effort with “Fair Trade” cities to set the Guinness Book World Record for “World’s Largest Coffee Break - Fair Trade Certified Style.” Attendees are encouraged to bring a travel mug of their favorite Fair Trade Certified coffee to support the effort. In addition, local Bay Area companies including Adina World Beverages, De La Paz Coffee, Alter Eco Americas and Numi Teas will give away Fair Trade Certified™ coffee, tea and chocolate in collaboration with grassroots events across the country to break the record.  World Fair Trade Day falls on the eve of Mother’s Day and (WTN Services™ parent company)-1-800Flowers.com® has donated 3,000 Fair Trade Certified roses to be given away to honor moms, as well as the women in Ecuador, Columbia and Kenya who grow the flowers and receive direct benefits from Fair Trade Certified flower purchases. 

TransFair USA and Adina World Beat Beverages will sponsor live music performances by The Bayonics, a group of Senegalese dancers who will honor the Mayor, and DJ entertainment following the speaking presentations.  Local NGOs including Oxfam, Global Exchange, Engage, World of Good and Ten Thousand Villages will also speak at the event, promote their campaigns and lend volunteer support for the coffee break. 

Schedule of Events:  11:55 a.m: Introduction from Jamie Guzzi, grassroots outreach coordinator, TransFair USA 

12:00 — 1:15 p.m: Music performance by the Bayonics, compliments of Adina World Music  Local businesses participate in World’s Largest Coffee break: Fair Trade Certified coffee beverage giveaway, compliments of Adina World Beat Beverages, De La Paz Coffee, and Alter Eco Americas Fair Trade Certified flower giveaway, compliments of WTN Services™ parent company 1-800Flowers.com® 

1:15 – 1:20 p.m: Jamie Guzzi introduces event sponsors 

1:20 – 1:30 p.m: Bay Area businesses, local Fair Trade activists speak on behalf of a growing movement 

1:30-1:40 p.m: Presentation and introduction from Paul Rice, president and CEO, TransFair USA 

1:40-1:50 p.m: Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaims San Francisco a Fair Trade City 

1:50-2:00 p.m: Magatte Wade, Adina World Beverages, presents Senegalese dance performance in celebration of proclamation 

2:00-2:30 p.m: Senegalese dance and drum performance 

About TransFair USA 

TransFair USA is the only independent, third-party certifier of Fair Trade Certified products in the United States. TransFair USA audits and certifies transactions between U.S. companies offering Fair Trade Certified products and their international suppliers to guarantee that the farmers and workers producing Fair Trade Certified goods were paid fair prices and wages. TransFair USA certifies coffee, tea, herbs, vanilla, cocoa, chocolate, rice, sugar, bananas, flowers and honey. 

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WTN Services Lean & Green Sustainability Report Card 2008

Friday, April 25th, 2008

At WTN Services™, we clearly understand that being an efficient and profitable business and being a good steward of the environment, our community and our people are goals that must work together with constant focus and attention. Our Sustainability goals at WTN Services™ are simple:

  • To provide a socially responsible work environment that is recognized as an employer of choice,
  • To contribute to our business community, trade and local community through volunteerism and sensible economic support,
  • To lead in innovations, then task and lead our vendors, partners and ourselves in implementation of sustainable environmental improvements
  • To demonstrate sustainable governance and shareholder responsibility thus create a workplace that is a stable economic engine to afford our team members a safe, stable work environment with competitive pay and benefits.

Each and every day we challenge ourselves on how we can improve upon the goals listed, we refer to this initiative as the WTN Services™ LEAN & GREEN Initiative. As we celebrate Earth Day 2008 and sustainability awareness this Earth Awareness Week, we publish our sustainability report card for 2008. This year past year has been a year of many opportunities and we are happy to report that WTN Services™ is moving forward in our measures of sustainability in a positive direction.
Employer of Choice-

  • We have one of the lowest turnover rates in the industry of fulfillment services exceeding our goal of employee retention while nurturing and investing in training of our peak performers.

Community Engagement of Manpower & Economic Support-

  • We have contributed to supporting our industry by leadership roles in supporting the Wine Technology Symposium, Consumer Direct Symposium and trade groups such as the Coalition for Free Trade, Free the Grapes, Specialty Wine Retailers Association, the Wine Institute and others.
  • We have contributed to our community through volunteerism of 1000s of hours and fundraising for such causes as HIV/AIDS & Cancer Outreach of the Queen of the Valley Hospital, and the Arts Community of Napa supporting the Lincoln Theater.

Sustainable Environmental Improvements-

  • We have converted 80% of our clients from the use of Styro-shippers to corrugated or earth friendly pulp. We have partnered with packaging vendors to create innovations that further reduce the environmental footprint from our services offering.
  • We have recycled in excess of 700 tons of cardboard and fiberboard keeping it from becoming landfill through our Napa, California and Albany, New York facilities.
  • We have converted many clients to take advantage of our bi-coastal fulfillment offering reducing their and our carbon footprint by utilizing ground transportation verses air helping air quality for our customer base.

To demonstrate sustainable governance and shareholder responsibility-

  • We have implemented efficiencies in our operations in both California and New York keeping our client pricing stable in these uncertain times, while enhancing and growing our business thus, increasing our value to our parent company and our shareholders through margin improvements and increases in revenue streams.
  • Through Fresh University we have provided leadership and training opportunities to our team members, our clients and our key strategic partners and are championing and endorsing the idea of industry certification training through the new WISE Academy specific to the Wine Industry.

What follows is our WTN Services™ LEAN & GREEN Sustainability Scorecard 2008 representing our progress this past year. As we move forward in 2008 we will continue to champion, innovate, participate and improve through our WTN Services™ LEAN & GREEN Initiatives. We challenge ourselves, our partners, vendors and even our competitors to follow our lead, measure and strive to make our world a better place.
To a better quality life let us move forward…
Chris Edwards

Vice President & General Manager

WTN Services™

a division of 1800Flowers

2545 Napa Valley Corporate Drive Ste F

Napa Ca 94558

707.265.2934

cedwards@winetasting.com

www.wtnservices.com

www.winetasting.com
www.1800flowers.com

Visit our blog for fulfillment & sales tips, compliance updates and more…

http://blog.wtnservices.com/
 
P Please consider the environment before printing this message.
 

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WTN Services- Planet Friendly Tip - Our Parent 1800Flowers and http://cellphonesforsoldiers.com/

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

The Planet Friendly team is proud to announce that the bins for Cell Phones for Soldiers have arrived at all 1800flowers.com retail locations and our WTN Services brand supports this company wide effort toward recycling for a cause. Cell Phones for Soldier’s mission is to support our troops overseas by providing them with pre-paid calling cards. Through generous donations and the recycling of used cell phones, they have already distributed thousands of calling cards to soldiers around the globe. 
We have already successfully designated retail locations within our parent company as drop off points for this great cause and very own Carle Place 1800Flowers company headquarters will have have bins distributed throughout the building in an effort to faciliate this strategy.

Chris McCann has already made the first donation and now we need your support! So, start collecting any old cell phones you may have and drop them into our blue recycling bins. Don’t forget to tell family and friends about the drop off points at  retail locations so that they too can support this great initiative. Our goal is to collect as many cell phones as possible so we need everyone’s support!  After all, our efforts will make a tremendous difference in the lives of our soldiers and their families! 

If you would like to learn more about this great organization and how your winery can help please visit http://cellphonesforsoldiers.com/

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WTN Services Green Tip #2 The Bottled Water Debate…

Monday, February 4th, 2008

Over 60 million bottles a day are being tossed into U.S. landfills, where they can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade according to Planet Friendly. Producing those bottles burns through 1.5 million barrels of crude oil annually–enough fuel to keep 100,000 cars running for a year. Recycling helps but a better answer is to use less bottled water.  Wineries, retailers and fulfillment companies such as WTN Services all play a role and can have a positive impact in using less bottled water and helping our environment.


Two reasons for your company to turn on the tap and wean away from bottled water…

1. Tap water is tested daily and may be safer for your employees and clients.
Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, water suppliers are required to provide an annual report on the quality of your local water and to test tap water daily. By comparison, the FDA examines bottled water only weekly, and consumers can’t get the agency’s results. You can easily get the lowdown on your state’s drinking water quality at  http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/index.html . If you are still concerned, your water vendor can supply a filtration and cooling system to your tap water providing additional filtering.
 

2. Tap water is a bargain and can have a margin impact on your company.

Bottled water costs about 500 times more than tap. If you’re into brand labels, up to 1,000 times more. The purchase, disposal and handling of those bottles can impact your profits without even realizing it. Run your tap water through a filter to remove most tastes and odors. The average filter goes produces the filtered water for about $0.03 cents a bottle, versus the $1.25 or so you’d pay in a market. 

WTN Services™ made the environmentally sensitive decision to use less bottled water when possible. By installing a filtration and cooling system that connects direct to the tap instead of purchasing pallets of bottled water, our employees and visitors get the benefit of safe, filtered, chilled water. We can all feel good about the fact when drinking water at WTN we are lowering our environmental footprint on Napa and doing our part to limit contents that could end in the landfill.

 

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WTN Services- Green Tip Number 1-2008

Monday, January 21st, 2008

WTN Services annually publishes our sustainability goals and progress measuring our impact on working conditions and the environment.

Thousands of dollars are invested annually in crafting initiatives that aid to become more enviromentally friendly including innovations in packaging, the opening of our second distribution center in Albany New York helping to decrease the carbon footprint that we would use in shipping everything from Napa, recycling of cardboard is embeded into our culture and more. In an attempt to continue to spread the word we will be publishing freindly reminders and common sense tips from our partnership with Planet Friendly.

WTN Services and our parent 1-800Flowers is concerned about the environment and our long term sustainability. Each brand has recently been empowered to create a Planet Friendly Committee to seek options to further decrease our environmental foot-print with strong imput from our team members leading the initiative. At WTN Services Napa our leader is our own Tiffany who’se full time job is administration of Human Resources and Administrative Assistance to the Executive Team. We appreciate Tiffany stepping up in a role reminding us of our accountability to our enviroment as well.

This weeks Planet Friendly Tip…

 

Each day American businesses generate enough paper to circle the globe at least 40 times! 

Typical business offices generate about 1.5 pounds of waste paper per employee each day.

To produce each week’s Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.

Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees.

Resources Saved Per Ton of Paper Recycled
17 trees
275 pounds of sulfur
350 lbs of limestone
9,000 lbs of steam
60,000 gal of water
225 kilowatt hours
3.3 cubic yards of landfill space 

Solutions:

Recycle your newspaper! If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25,000,000 trees a year.Always distribute documents created on the computer via emails instead of via hard copy when it is professional and acceptable to do so.

Consider reading the news online instead of printed on paper

Sources: The Public Recycling Officials of Pennsylvania, Developing a Waste Reduction and Recycling Program for Commercial, Industrial and Municipal Establishments, National Recycling Coalition, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Earth911.org

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