Sustainability Night Live at SoulFood Books

Eastside's Sustainability Night happens every fourth Wednesday of the month at the downtown Redmond Location of SoulFood Books.

Husband-wife team, Clint McCune and Sara Pelfrey, have operated SoulFood Books for the past 5 years now.  Clint said his wife started the Sustainability Night over a year ago to create continuous and open discussions about Sustainability.   "It may not be a subject that has a lot of glamour attached to it, but it is a discussion that needs to be out there" he said.

Clint McCune behind the scenes of Sustainability Night.

Presenters sit on-stage with mic, in an informal atmosphere, where anything goes.  Close-by are a wall of guitars should there be an entertainment whim felt.  The talks are recorded and available for viewers through the live streaming format.

Last night's speaker was local Beth Dolan, presenting on ways to be more sustainable at home.  Her sound advice comes from 6 years of being a Resource Conservation Specialist with the Seattle School District.  Currently she is a mom and Discover Yoga instructor.

Beth presenting Sustainability Concepts to a broad audience.

She said "You have to be aware of something before you can change your habits."  For instance finding out in your home or workspace, what is plugged in and what can be turned off.  She also mentioned using bills to monitor energy and water use.

As to what initially inspired her in the Sustainability Movement, she said "I have always had a draw to nature."  This likely came from frequent cabin outings in her Minnesota backcountry upbringing.  She followed up in college with a natural resource management degree and shifted to Resource Conservation Management once coming to the Puget Sound area.

She said "Many schools have Resource Conservation Managers (RCM's) now including Lake Washington School District and other school districts are quickly adding them."

Event at a Coffee House = the comfort of a warm drink and muffin is waiting for you there!

The next Sustianability talk is on Wednesday, March 28th at 7 p.m.  Hope to see you there!

Co-op Community integrates sustainability at Preschool

The slogan for the last couple of years at the Redmond Parent Coop Preschool has been "Co-op Creates Community."  More recently this "community" feel includes a closer look at sustainability.

Along with 2 teachers, Miss Karen and Miss Julie, families help run the preschool.  They serve on various committees or fulfill a board position.  Add in some weekly work time together, monthly parent educational opportunities and a few optional parent-night-outs and park-dates and the case for strong ties is made.

A recent board retreat, which I had the privilege of attending myself, resulted in the phrase "What happens at the retreat, stays at the retreat."  Along with the fun that was had, it also resulted in some green initiatives to further the school along in its sustainability journey.

It began with the introduction of the Co-op's "green story" and discussing a few initiative ideas.  Soon the ball was rolling and plans were in place to keep it rolling.

Why write up a green story?

It helps to create the foundation to build sustainability measures on.  It also shows that the momentum is already going.  "Look at what we are already doing..." soon leads to "perhaps we could try this too..."

For the preschool it showed:

• Like many local businesses, they participate in the King County Recycling and Food Scrap Recycling Programs.
• Upgraded building features for energy and water conservation efficiency.  In the preschool's case the leaser Redmond United Methodist Church had already added efficient lightbulbs, faucets, toilets, etc.
• Support for local events through field trips and celebrations.
• Green aspect to education.  Examples include: the end of the year camping trip with plenty of "nature time," occasional "nature themed" crafts, the use of reused material in the Woodworking area section of the preschool and Earth Day celebrations.

Reused collections to be used in Woodshop crafts

What is the plan to keep the ball rolling?

As was initiated at the retreat, the preschool is piloting a green team rotation through the 4 classes.  The green team will be an inspiration force as well as design force by integrating some of the ideas into the school operations.  A committee position(s) is being created to coordinate the green efforts throughout the year.  The recent output of the first rotation was expanding efforts to collect more food scrap and paper towels then before.  This was done by upsizing the compost container to a tall size garbage bin-size and using the green compostable bags as liners.  Also a poster was put near the bin to give visuals on what kind of material can be put in this bin.  The other bin for non-recyclables was marked with "landfill." 

Also approved at the October Board Retreat was the go ahead to participate in the Eastside Green Business challenge.  The challenge is a great way to monitor the preschool's operations by using metrics across differing categories and quantitatively have something to work towards.  The challenge not only benefits the environment, but also helps with the communities name recognition and bottom line.  Similar  programs have been implemented in Chicago, Atlanta and Charlotte.  The 2008 result for Chicago was 54,000 metric tons of CO2e Reduction, 17 buildings having achieved at least 50% recycling rate and $5 million in savings!

RPCP is already on the map for one of the 1st businesses to join the challenge and the number of businesses is already half way to the first year goal of 100.  For other businesses interested in finding out more about the challenge, there is a no-cost training session this coming Tuesday, the 28th at 11:30 a.m.  It is happening near Redmond Town Center at the LWSD building.  Click here for more details.

And finally, if you know of any other schools that are active with green teams/ green initiatives - feel free to shout out in the comment column.  Stay tuned for a closer look at the LWSD schools coming next month.  

Signing off with the triple bottom line of Sustainability:  People (Community!), Planet and Profit.

Planning the trail to Sustainability is Transpo in Kirkland

Transpo of Kirkland, Washington, is not only planning communities to be more bike-able (and walkable), but are also biking the route and talking the talk in their own day-to-day commuting and business operations.  

Transpo on a cold and rainy day in January

Located in a less bike-friendly part of Kirkland, a neighborhood of the Totem Lake area, Transpo has still made "biking" a popular commute style amongst coworkers.  In fact, they are currently applying for a national accreditation for being a "bicycle friendly business."  This will be in addition to having qualified as one of the Kirkland Green Businesses in the categories of "Transportation" and "Waste Reduction and Recycling."  The Kirkland Green Business program was started in 2007 and has been active in recruiting more businesses each year.  The categories a business can qualify in are:  1. Green Building, 2. Waste Reduction and Recycling, 3. Water Conservation, 4. Energy Efficiency, 5. Transportation, 6. Pollution Prevention, 7. Green Power and/or their newest one: 8. Eastside Green Business Challenge.  

Qualifying as a bicycle and transportation friendly place, is no easy feat for a business located in a less connected area of the Eastside.  Adam Parast, one of the planners at Transpo explained over the phone last month how they were able to make this happen and increase sustainability in operations and professional services overall!   Parast said "Preserving natural spaces and the natural environment while making people's lives better is the natural outcropping of sustainability." 

Professionally, Transpo is aiming to add an element of connectivity to each of its projects.  Clients range from right here on the Eastside to as far as Abu Dhabi.  A current project is making plans to connect the new campus of the Children's Hospital to the existing site.  To the type of bike path they are adding, Parast said "it is a high quality bike lane for a high level of separation between bike and auto lanes."  

That brings up a good point.  Would you be more likely to bike from location to location, knowing you had a safe and enjoyable path to ride on?

If you answered yes, you will be glad to know that Transpo has done some connectivity analysis for Kirkland for upcoming redevelopment.  The proposed new BNSF trail that could be coming to the city includes connecting the Totem Lake neighborhood.  

Covered Bike Rack

You might also be asking, what does it take to make one's operations more sustainable?  

Parast filled in with the details of their method of integrating sustainability into their practices.  First he mentioned, they have a sustainability committee that meets once a month.  Another member of the committee and fellow planner, Patrick Lynch, met me on-site to show what these initiatives look like once they have become part of the day to day operations.   "We are trying to stay on top of trends and practices", said Lynch.  " We look at it as making the daily operations more efficient by stream-lining things."  

What have these "stream-lining" efforts led to?  

1. Bike Friendly:  Employees have access to a covered outdoor bike rack and have space to bring their bikes in the building if they should choose to (especially nice in the colder months.)  Once inside there is a bike shower available to clean up after their ride.  They have also participated in the Cascade Bike to Work Challenge.  

In office bike shower

2.  Food Scrap Recycling:  With the help of the City of Kirkland, Transpo launched this program last quarter.  They were surprised how easy it was to integrate this program into their business and gave credit to it partly being a matter of changing people's habits.  Parast said "Now coworkers are doing it at their own homes too." If you are wondering if your own business is large enough for this program and want reference, Transpo usually has about 30 people working in the building on a daily basis.

Patrick Lynch showing the ease of the new food scrap recycling program

3.  Restrict water (single-use) bottle use:  Transpo now reserves their single-use bottles for clients only.  The employees use the tap and will soon be handed out a reusable water bottle at the next employee meeting.

4.  RCM:  They have done some observational Resource Conservation Management by monitoring power use and proactively conserving energy by turning the lights off when not in-use.

5. Less Paper Use:  Doing more electronically and moving towards having deliverables completely electronic.  Having electronic versions also has the benefit of it being an "interactive" form, versus the static hard copies.  They also repurpose one-sided printed paper into notepads.  Apparently a hot item in the office as they were currently out of them. 

6.  Friendly Competitions:  Both in-house for bike commuting and recently with another firm for a charity walking challenge.

7.  Regular Recycling, Free-cycling and more.

Office cubicle dedicated to employee "Free-Cycle."  Reduce, REUSE, Recycle.

Parast concluded our interview by sharing what initially inspired him in the sustainability movement.  "I've always been interested in sustainability since college and growing up in the the Northwest I have an appreciation for nature."  Also important to him is being close to cities.  "Cities are great places." he said.  

He also mentioned that non-motorized commute equates to the health benefits to employees/ residents and makes cities more attractive.  The end goal of paying more to live in them.  This lends to the triple bottom line of sustainability: economic, social and environmental!

Ride on!