Visit the 33-acre site of Watson Furniture Group in Poulsbo, and immediately you realize this is a different kind of manufacturer. A 70,000-square-foot building, bracketed by red columns, nestles in an old apple orchard. Native grasses rise healthy and tall. Engraved in a rock, a description of the site proclaims "no fertilizers," which is good for streams and wetlands and "good for our children as well."

Inside the building, the company's emphasis on sustainable manufacturing processes and eco-friendly materials unfolds in people, tools and talent. They are primarily businesspeople who are interested in providing good local jobs and making money. "Practical environmentalism" is how company president Clif McKenzie describes the operation. Watson Furniture Group comprises three businesses: Watson Desking, which provides European-inspired freestanding office furnishings for business, education and government operations; Activewerks, which assembles ergonomic adjustable tables and furniture components for offices; and Watson Dispatch, which supplies console furniture for public safety operations such as jails and communication centers.

They care deeply about the future of the planet in light of global climate change. To reinforce the need to buck the status quo, McKenzie hired Julia Zander and gave her the title "environmental agitator." He felt it was an appropriate title and better than most found at corporations trying to hop onto the green bandwagon. "You don't coordinate the environment," McKenzie says.

You also don't underestimate Watson Furniture Group's calculation that, in addition to being the right thing to do, going green makes good business sense. The private company has collected awards for its record of conservation, including an Environmental Excellence award in 2005 from the Association of Washington Business. They won't divulge details, but Watson officials say sales have increased thanks to an increasing number of customers interested in doing business with green companies. Also, the company achieves savings and increases efficiency by using recycled fabrics, wood and steel, and by recycling all its steel and wood manufacturing waste material locally and eliminating hazardous materials. Rejecting plastic, Watson also ships furnishings wrapped in reusable blankets. And it uses only water-based glue in assembling its products.

Watson, a $35 million company with 200 full-time employees and 25-30 temporary employees, counts Microsoft, Boeing and Nike among its customers, as well as various government agencies. Its competitors, including Zeeland, Mich.-based Herman Miller Inc., are larger and more global in scope, but Watson has carved a solid, regional business niche, and earned a reputation for being greener than many competitors.

The 53-year-old McKenzie is trim and dressed casually. He exudes pragmatism, and he doesn't mince words, especially when you ask him about Watson's awards. "I don't really give a rip about the awards," he says, adding that what he cares about is "advancing the cause."

The cause, to make money and to help protect the environment, is furiously under way on the shop floor, which is divided into two main sections: the wood shop and the steel shop. The 29-year-old Zander, bespectacled and soft-spoken, high-fives a fellow employee as she makes her way through the wood shop, a mosaic of ductwork, hoses, machinery and workers. Zander, who has a degree in environmental geography from Colgate University, notes that the company ships its wood scrap to a local business, Recovery One in Tacoma, which further recycles the waste. "It's not going into a landfill," she says.

Inside the steel shop, Zander arrives at a booth where a worker prepares steel parts for finishing by using a hose to blast them with steam. This steam-cleaning technique enables the company to avoid using chemical-filled dip tanks to sterilize its steel products. And that means the company has no need to find a place to dump unused chemicals.