Consolidated Printing Founder Honored for Her Contributions to Sustainability

Marilyn Jones, founder and President of Consolidated Printing, along with two other "trailblazers" in the Chicago green community, were honored for their pioneering contributions at a special Green Drinks event held on December 7th at Haworth's showroom in the Merchandise Mart.

Ms. Jones, along with Eco-Entrepreneur Barry Bursak, and Ken Dunn, Founder & Director of The Resource Center, were recipients of the first Sustainable Transformation Awards given by the Foresight Design Initiative. The Awards honor the progress achieved by these three long-time trailblazers who have focused on long-term change.

Recognized by many as icons in the green community, each recipient brings a unique and consistent track record as green business professionals. Together, they have a combined 80 years of experience in environmentally sustainable practices. Ms. Jones and her commercial printing company Consolidated Printing havelong been considered the leader in eco-friendly sustainable printing throughout the printing industry in the United States. For more than 35 years, Consolidated has paved the path in sustainable printing, and today offers the healthiest, safest and most environmentally friendly commercial printing services, while maintaining the highest standards of quality.Consolidated has been recognized by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency as the first printer in the state to voluntarily reduce pollution and the use of toxic and carcinogenic materials. "We are honored to have been part of this amazing movement," said Consolidated's founder and President Marilyn Jones.

Barry Bursak has had a profound influence on the sustainability movement in Chicago as well. From local food access, to organic restaurants, to sustainable entrepreneurship, and from innovative, sustainably-oriented communities of businesses and residents, Mr. Bursak has left his mark on Chicago's green community for the last 15 years. Bursak, a former Chicago design consultant and home furnishingsentrepreneur,specialized in sustainable design including furniture and interiors. He held one of the first eco-furniture design shows in Chicago. Mr. Bursak also created the plan for the development of the Green Exchange, a center for sustainable businesses.

Ken Dunn runs a sprawling nonprofit that recycles, feeds the hungry, and creates organic gardens in vacant lots. As one writer described him:"he embodies an American ideal of intelligence, an extraordinary melding of farmer and philosopher." M r. Dunn is the founder of the Resource Center, whose goal has always been to move society toward a sustainable future. The Resource Center's model of improving society is to discover resources--both human and material--whose value has been overlooked, and bring them together in creative ways to make a sustainable project into an element of a sustainable community. Ken Dunn has collaborated on creative ways to recycle, reuse materials and take advantage of the unrealized potential in all of the "stuff" we seem to accumulate in our society.