The Cascade Engineering family of companies, an award-winning leader in sustainable business practices, faces the challenge of maintaining its commitment to sustainability while exploring strategic growth opportunities. The case focuses on the leadership of Christina Keller and the investment decisions she and Cascade face to balance its triple bottom line (3BL) approach with its growth ambitions.
Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Cascade Engineering manufactures large-tonnage injection molded plastics serving several markets including industrial and residential containers for waste management, office furniture, and automotive parts. Christina’s father, Fred P. Keller, founded Cascade in 1973 with the vision that a company could be more than a money-making endeavor by considering its social and environmental impacts equally with its economic goals—a philosophy known as 3BL, for people, planet, and profit. As one of the largest and earliest certified B Corporation manufacturers in the United States, Cascade commits to the ethos that business can drive positive impacts and considers all its business decisions through the 3BL filter
By 2022, Cascade had grown into a company that produced over $380 million in revenue and employed over 1,700 people across nine manufacturing campuses in the United States and Europe. In 2022, the company sold a major division, CK Technologies, which manufactured parts for the commercial truck and bus industry, and in 2023, Cascade sold its automotive business unit in Hungary. Christina Keller’s dilemma is how to best use and invest proceeds from those sales.