Going, going, green! Businesses join partnership to protect environment

After a lot of research and meetings with local green building adviser Environmental Market Solutions Inc., Burchfield decided on a facility that incorporates Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards. At press time, he was still awaiting word from the U.S. Green Building Council on certification for the shop at 2002 E. Republic Road.

Burchfield didn’t stop there, though. When Cycles Unlimited joined the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce in April, he decided also to sign a pledge for the Partnership for Sustainability, a joint effort of the chamber, the city of Springfield, Greene County, City Utilities and other area organizations.

“Community leaders decided they wanted to be proactive in bringing attention to sustainability,” said Mary Norman, the partnership’s administrative coordinator. “They also wanted to make sure that their own institutions were sustainable and that they could exchange information easily.”

Participating companies agree to assess and improve their own practices to lessen environmental impact, collaborate with other participants to support sustainable community policies and share information about their progress and the lessons learned through the process.

Self-assessment

It was the self-assessment aspect of the pledge that intrigued Burchfield. He said his new $700,000 facility collects rainwater for reuse and employs solar panels and daylight to reduce energy usage, in addition to containing recycled flooring and countertop materials and more efficient insulation.

The biggest change, however, is in waste. Burchfield said that 90 percent of the waste created by the construction process was recycled, and the recycling efforts continue now that the store is open.

“This is a retail building open six days a week, selling bicycles and parts, and we have a lot of waste,” Burchfield said. “But we have a strict recycling process for our daily trash – we only fill one roll-off dumpster a week, which I think is pretty amazing.”

Green Circle Shopping Center, a $3.3 million shopping center that opened May 7 on East Republic Road, employs similar techniques. It includes a rooftop garden, rainwater-collection system, low-flow toilets, solar technology and a pervious concrete parking lot that allows water to drain.

Developer Matt O’Reilly, who also runs Green Circle tenant Dynamic Earth, said his company takes to heart the Sustainability Pledge’s sharing component.

“It’s about balancing between educating customers and being a retail location,” O’Reilly said, noting that his shop has numerous signs explaining its rainwater cistern and showing where the water ends up. “Customers are coming in and buying stuff, but they’re also asking questions – they have their own projects going on, and they want to know about how to green things up,” O’Reilly said.

Norman said information is key to the green effort – and part of the partnership’s mission is to serve as a clearinghouse for the copious amounts of information available on the topic.

“It’s a new industry, and there’s a lot of information out there, and some is better than others,” Norman said. “We don’t want to be the answer for everything; if someone wants something more specific, I can point to a specific resource.”

Changing daily operations

Nearly 100 companies, including Springfield Business Journal, have signed the pledge as of May 14. Among the industries represented by pledge partners are architecture, finance, health care and service.

Springfield exterminating company Bug Zero has worked to implement sustainable processes in its daily operations, according to owner Ivan Eftink.

He said that his company, like many in his industry, tries to minimize environmental impact through common-sense techniques, which is important given that some of the chemicals he uses are toxic in large amounts.

“(Thinking green) is something we’ve been on board with since before it had a name,” Eftink said. “In our industry, we used to call it integrated pest management, but most people don’t know what IPM means. Then it was called “environmentally friendly,” but that never caught on. Now the phrase “green” seems to have caught on.”

By educating his customers about ways they can reduce the risk of bugs in their homes or businesses, Eftink said he can reduce the amount of chemicals needed to take care of the problem, which reduces his environmental impact.

Norman said that she’s not surprised that so many companies are on board with the pledge.

“The goal of the partnership was to develop an agency that could also interface with the agencies we already have,” she said. Those agencies include James River Basin Partnership and Ozarks Greenways.

“There was a good foundation already there; there’s always been a consciousness of stewardship here for the environment,” Norman added.

Businesses, institutions and organizations interested in signing the Partnership for Sustainability Pledge can access it by visiting the chamber’s Web site, www.springfieldchamber.com.

The Sustainability Pledge

As one of the entities involved with the Partnership for Sustainability, the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce has created a pledge for participating companies that agree to examine their roles in local environmental conditions.

The three elements of the Pledge for Sustainability:

1. We will assess our own organization’s practices affecting the environment and make improvements where feasible in our own operations.

2. We will collaborate with other members of the Partnership for Sustainability Initiative and take actions, jointly and individually, to help the community support sound policies that apply to sustainability.

3. We will help grow and strengthen the Partnership for Sustainability Initiative by sharing progress and lessons learned.

Source: Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce

Partnership for Sustainability Steering Committee

City of Springfield

City Utilities

Community Foundation of the Ozarks

CoxHealth

The Discovery Center

Drury University

Evangel University

Greene County

Missouri State University

Ozarks Technical Community College

St. John’s Health Systems

Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce

Springfield Public Schools

Related Story: Green Efforts Galore: Businesses share earth-friendly projects