With an inborn earth conscience from his past, and a certified-green operation in his present, Goza Gear founder Steve Melgoza feels compelled to merge mind and business, going into his future. Organic fabric was the first milestone along his green path, the end of which is a long-term goal he actively pursues by seeking earth-friendly processes and likeminded people to help him on his way. Melgoza’s is a story of connections and convictions, and another example of a uniquely-paved eco-highway that others can follow.

Budding beginnings

“Once we discovered organic fabric, we struggled with printing it with plastisol, as it affects the integrity of the whole process,” Melgoza comments. “We searched out the nontoxic water-based inks. There were only one or two players at that time and it probably took us every bit of a year-plus to get our hands on inks actually considered and documented as nontoxic, water-based.”

Because Melgoza’s home doubled as his then business venue, his domestic recycling mindset naturally carried over into the company side of things. “For the most part, it was just who we were, who we are and who we continue to be,” he states. “Doing business in this fashion reflects our values, our concerns and our priorities.” With intentions in the right place, Melgoza realized the eventual opportunity tied to this sense of responsibility, with a market likely to develop for his organic product line and cleaner process.

“Fast forward almost ten years and here we are. We’ve reached that proverbial tipping point,” he reports, explaining that his philosophy is now paying off monetarily as he is being actively sought by customers either pursuing the sustainable market or incorporating some form of it in their business models.

In today’s well-served eco-market, a majority of business seems to be made up of green-based customers demanding earth-friendly product. But this, only after a steady, several-year incline, Melgoza reports: “Last year, we had a very good success rate with the number of green customers coming out of the woodwork. Prior to that, it was a mix of conventional and earth-friendly customers. But, because we’ve reached out to the groups where these businesses and their connections hang out—such as the Co-Op America national directory—we have a number of customers finding us that way.” He also mentions with a grin that Goza Gear has found its way onto page-one results for a “green-screen-printer” Google search.

Conscious connectedness

Between discovering organics and being propelled to this point of publicity, Melgoza tuned into compatible companies through networking opportunities, taking cues from those walking the talk before him. Melgoza was starved to connect with those harboring like values until he happened upon the Sustainable Business Alliance (SBA). Joining the group’s monthly luncheons, he began sharing what he did and finding out how a cross-section of others—from acupuncturist to zoologist—were taking sustainable approaches to business. “That was when I discovered the Bay Area Green Business Program,” he explains, “which partners with and supports the SBA. The SBA attracts business owners interested in some type of sustainable model, and the Green Business Program supports that and shares information on becoming a certified green business.”

Despite being the first screen printer to apply for certification, Melgoza’s company broke the program’s mold (visit: www.greenbiz.ca.gov). From special energy-efficient windows and T8 lighting upgrades, to installing an energy-efficient furnace, the company worked toward a certification which focuses on air quality, hazardous waste, energy and water conservation. After addressing these areas, the representative agencies paid Goza Gear a visit, conducting a walk-through assessment of efforts such as sensors that power-down rooms when nobody’s around.

After three years, Melgoza will reapply for certification with a new project in tow: “That timing is a great motivator because it allows you three years to hunt down your next step. One of the first things we did was purchase carbon offsets for our delivery vehicles from TerraPass. Those are annual dollars we spend to offset our emissions.” Rather than a wealthy corporation simply throwing dollars toward eco-responsibility by gobbling up carbon offsets as a means of continuing to be irresponsible, Melgoza’s conscience is gratified that such dollars actually go to support clean energy produced by wind power, farm power such as dairy-farm methane digesters, and landfill methane capture.

Obtaining this certification for a better look into and understanding of his home-based operation, Melgoza is currently pursuing certification for his new 2,600 square-foot industrial facility. “We already meet recycling and reducing waste requirements with our current operation, so we’re hoping to receive certification by April,” he reports. “And we’ve started a dialogue with our landlord about our lighting conversion to T8 tube lights with motion sensors, an important aspect of the certification.”

And, after years of commuting to connect with California’s socially-conscious communities in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkley, Melgoza finally founded his own, local tri-valley SBA chapter. Along with assistance in becoming certified, such networking has afforded Melgoza opportunities to learn more about what he’s doing and how to do it better. In addition to ideas, support and momentum toward a common goal, he finds group affiliation also enables up-and-comers to make their presence known within a given market.

Another important connection came through the organization Melgoza mentions above. Formerly known as Co-Op America, and now as Green America (www.coopamerica.org), the group’s Green Festival in San Francisco was his first big ah-hah moment as it brought greening businesses together in a national venue. “They also hosted a green-business conference, and that was another ah-hah moment because I got to hang out with folks from companies ten times our size and still hear the fundamentals of what they did to become green businesses.”

Be green, be seen

Goza Gear is also an embroidery operation and finds that this already “cleaner” discipline is made greener by association. Being housed under the same roof as his eco-improving screen-print facility makes the embroidery side that much friendlier, Goza states. But he doesn’t stop there: “The threads we use are Oeko-Tex certified, which means they contain no hazardous materials.” He also recycles what little embroidery byproduct (trimming, backing and such) that does occur and is looking into sampling new earth-friendly backings. “We’re doing some research on their performance because being green is a challenge in the sense that you are using materials you’re not used to or that have not been in the process. We want to make sure the performance still gives us the same product quality we’ve always wanted.”

Though such experimentation can pose a challenge to a business’s responsible initiatives, Melgoza struggles even more with convincing conventional customers of organics’ value. Luckily, he estimates that 65–70 percent of his customers are members of what he thinks of as the proverbial “choir,” leaving a smaller number of potential converts. “It’s the mainstream still out there who are not sure what the difference is. I think the biggest role we take on is educating the conventional customer and showing them there is a difference, not just in the product we’re offering but in the process we use and who we are.”

The Organic Exchange (www.organicexchange.org, “a charitable organization committed to expanding organic agriculture, with a specific focus on increasing the production and use of organically grown fibers such as cotton . . .”) illustrates the difference between organic and non-organic very tangibly, reporting that conventional farming devours roughly one-third pound of pesticides and fertilizers just to produce enough cotton for a single T-shirt. Based on such numbers, Melgoza keeps a running total of the amount of chemicals he’s diverted from soil, water and air through organics, his dedication being to Change our world, one T-shirt at a time. “If every person in the world bought an organic T-shirt, that one-third of a pound would probably eliminate one aspect of the chemical industry,” Melgoza ponders. “Sorry guys, but I don’t think chemicals are the way to go anyway.”

Whatever the approach to cultivating understanding, communicating your eco story within business networks and on down to customers should prove profitable for decorators, even in this need-to-be frugal economy, Melgoza says. He reasons that consumers are now increasingly aware of where they put dollars and are looking for value, either in the product itself or within the company producing it: “The biggest thing compelling a consumer to take a second look at you is that you’re doing things differently, you’re walking the talk, and it’s not business as usual. If you do anything, by all means share it with the customer base. Don’t feel that there’s some type of penalty for doing the right thing.

“I’m here to say that it is the right thing to do, one step at a time.”