Sustainabe Business Practices Adopted Early On at Keeney's Office Supply

Local Redmond company, Keeney's Office Supply, has the slogan "Put us to work for your office."  They are more than a supplier of products, but a partner to Puget Sound Businesses, to help put the most efficient work environments in place.  Read on to find out how efficiency and sustainability go hand in hand in this family-owned business.

Sterne and Keeney-McCarthy pictured.  They have been working together for the past 24 years.

Let's first introduce the cast.  Meet the president and daughter of the founder, Lisa Keeney-McCarthy.  The business has been in her family for 65 years.  Next, meet the General Manager, Steven Sterne.  He has been working with Lisa for the last 24 years.  They literally can finish each other's business sentences.  Then add 30 employees, including Lisa's husband Brian McCarthy.  The setting is warehouse, adjoining office and about 6 active trucks on the road each week-day.  Finally sprinkle in some good ol' NorthWest influence.  For many years, Brian has been a supporter of one of the largest grassroots environmental club in the U.S., the Sierra Club.  He was not present at the interview, but his name was brought up a couple of times, including why there was a bike mounted to the warehouse wall?

And what is the output of this family-owned, heavily NW influenced, company equate to?

Early adopters of Sustainability - both in customer outreach and operations!

Keeney-McCarthy said" This early adoption of Sustainability comes from both a basic belief in conservation and a focus on sustainable business practices that also saves money."  A couple examples are: "Reusing boxes and remanufacturing toner cartridges so they work as well as new, but don't end up in the landfill." said Sterne.

Happy and photogenic employee Heather.

Another sustainable element that makes Keeney's unique is they are strong in the ergonomic category.  They can recommend products to the individual, almost to the point of doing what Sterne calls, an "Ergonomic Evaulation."  This also gives real value to the business as healthy employers are more productive.  And speaking of customers, that brings us to....

Customer Outreach - Keeney's approach for involving their customers in sustainability is casual and when the customer is asking for it.  Keeney-McCarthy quickly points out, "We are not the green-nazi's."  They work with customers where they are.  For some companies, these practices have not yet been mandated, but employees will be interested. "We help in baby steps, for example, here are some samples to look at", she said.  And sometimes they can find creative ways to offset the costs of using post-consumer products.  Sterne said, "To off-set the costs of using 30% post-consumer paper, they can set their printing to double-sided."

Keeney-McCarthy outside by window displaying clings by "Think Redmond, We're Local, Green Power, GreenWorks, Eastside Green Business Challenge and Best Workplace for Recycling and Waste Reduction."

What other sustainable solutions do they offer their customers?

• Best Sustainable solution - This is making sure it is sustainable in the context of the customer's need. Sterne said, "Not just what has the green label on it.  For many customers that may mean rechargeable batteries are best, but for this other customer, that might mean bulk packed alkaline batteries."
• Integrated Green Style - "Green products are just another standard product", said Keeney-McCarthy.  They are integrated into the main focus of business rather than a boutique item.  This keeps the cost down on them.
• Transportation has Flexible Routings - Trucks don't waste gas
• Customer Education - Help customer's stock and order more efficiently which allows fewer invoice processing and truck stops.  This saves money for the customer and it is green.

"This lends to less empty trucks on a regular basis", said Keeney-McCarthy.  And at the same time "When emergencies do come up we are happy to accommodate them" she included.

Office Operations - As many Eastside businesses, they do the usual recycling and food scrap recycling.  They do this to the point, they are essentially a zero-waste facility.  Waste Management recently came out and assessed for them that everything that was going into the garbage, was indeed non-recyclable.  Here is a run down of other green practices in their operations:

Coffee machine pods are recycled as well.

• Styrofoam Peanuts - They collect from customers and on-site and then give them to another Eastside business that uses them in shipping.
• CFL lightbulbs Take-Backs.  Still the office mainstay in lightbulbs (Sterne gives the market about 2 years until LED's will become major contenders) and with their mercury component an important item to be disposed of correctly.  
• Waste Reduction - Since 2011, Keeney's has reduced garbage output by 75%
• Buy Green Energy from PSE - This program was set-up by local company Cascade Power Group.
• Keurig k-cups (pods) - They ship them back to Keurig, where what material can be composted, is composted and the rest is turned into biomass energy.
• Stopped use of 'single-use bottles' - Employees now have reusable water bottles.  Reusable dishes are kept in the break rooms.
• Eastside Green Business Challenge Participant 

Break room information board.

 What does it mean to be early adopters of Sustainability?  According to the Eastside Green Business Challenge, it is to be already "finding success in the fields of cost savings, resource conservation and brand recognition."   For a business to be still in business for 65 years that is sustainability in itself.   Keeney's knows what it takes to keep up with the times.  They get it!  As for the bike, that is a mystery I leave up to the viewers!  And for the second mystery question, Why do they have a duck hanging out their front door!  Any guesses?

HDR in Bellevue rolling with the Green Wave

The sustainable efforts of the Bellevue office of HDR is supported by both it's global corporate company, HDR, inc. and its building property managing group,  Wright Runstad and Company.   HDR is a service company in many areas including, architecture, engineering, consulting, etc. with the modo "One Company Many Solutions."  The local office occupies the entire 12th floor and parts of the 11th and 4th floor of the City Center Building in downtown Bellevue.

They have been a progressive green office for many years with an official green team starting in 2008.  Since then, they have piloted green programs for Wright Runstad and the City of Bellevue.  At the heart of these efforts is HDR Green Champion, Cil Pierce.  When not wearing the hat for this role, she's in the team of her company that provides financial services and rate setting for public utilities.

Cil Pierce describing the kitchen recycling area.

Building Manager Support
The view of being green has changed over the years for HDR.  The efforts started small and from volunteer effort.  Soon they were asking Wright Runstad for more recycling options, which were then provided.  Pierce said "We are so lucky to have them as building managers.  Initially, they had recycling centers for us in one central area, now they have them at each office's desk and each conference room." Next, they asked Wright Runstad, What about Food Scrap Recycling?

Just before 2010, and in preparation for Wright Runstad to become LEED certified, HDR became the "guinea pigs" to try out the Food Scrap Recycling Program.  It went well, and soon the program was being offered to all tenants in the building.  Also about this time, light sensors, were going in all the offices, conference rooms and restrooms.  In addition to the this being a LEED certification requirement,  Pierce said "This was a cost-saving measure."

During the interview, the property administrator Nicole Twohig, came down to show us where the output of the recycling goes.  Along with regular recycling and food scrap recycling, through the 1 green planet company they recycle just about everything that is recyclable.  Twohig also talked about their Green Fair coming up the Friday before Earthday.  This is an annual fair for the tenants and public (non-advertised), where the vendors like Landscaping and Facility come and share what green practices and products they use.  She said this is related to the LEED certification program.  Wright Runstad has joined HDR and so far 70 other Eastside businesses in the 2012 Eastside Green Business Challenge.  Twohig and Pierce commented that their teams are both currently filling out the initial survey to create their baseline and starting tier level.

Before looking at what top-down support HDR, inc is providing for HDR Bellevue office, here are some of the Sustainable measures currently in operations.

Each recycling container has a poster above showing what can be recycled.

• Green Team - Meets monthly
• Paper - Since the 2008/2009 corporate policy changes, they have been using 30% post-consumer based paper as their standard.  The default setting on printers are double-sided printing.
• Remodeling - From a recent remodel, sustainable building was kept in mind, for example the partitions in the walls are from recycled content.
• Computers - Screens are set to turn off after 5 minutes of being in stand-by.
• Zero-Waste Stream - to what this term equates to, Pierce said, "Reduced waste stream to the point that everything that can be recycled is recycled and anything that can not be is just trash, things that can not be repurposed."

A letter already filled out for employees who wish to stop junk mail.

And most recently, HDR participated in the October 2011 City of Bellevue Waste Reduction Challenge.  Pierce said this involved weighing trash and recyclables a week in advance to establish a baseline, and then periodically weighing them during the month of the challenge and again at the end.  They had a speaker come out for employee education and engagement prior to the challenge week.  Even with some variables (somewhat to their disadvantage, i.e. more employees out of the office during baseline week than challenge week), HDR employees were able to reduce waste output.  Pierce laughs at how she would come to the office early, to cart down the bags before other employees had shown up to work for the day and could see her.  

Top-Down Support

Where before the green team's projects were based on interests of each office and voluntary, it has recently become a recognized role by HDR, inc.  Clients are now requesting green house gas reports for their requirements.  And thus, Pierce said "More resources are being focused into these green projects."

Pierce also said" The CEO of HDR, inc., currently is reinvigorating focus on sustainability in both offices and projects."  For office operations: "They decided each office with 50 employees or more would have a green team.  All offices would have a green champion."  Some of the local smaller companies green champion's call into her green team meetings.  For more information on the sustainable element in projects, visit HDR, inc.'s website here.

This is great for the environment, it is also great for HDR's bottom line, or any companies bottom line for that matter.  From the recent launch of the Eastside Green Business Challenge, Pierce brought up part of guest speaker's Hunter Lovins talk.  Paraphrasing Lovins from memory, Pierce said "If a business reduces water and energy use and saves money, it only makes sense to save money.  And at the same time that also is saving resources.  The environment is a side-benefit."

Downstairs deli has new recycling area with "Recycle", Compost" and "Trash" labeled.

Green Champion Profile

Pierce said this idea of sustainability came early for her.  The philosophy "Waste Not, Want Not" was engrained in her as a youth.  Somewhere between the ages of 7 and 9, her mom would have her sibling and friends go around with a wagon, as the "clean-up club."  She spent a ton of time in nature as a kid too.  There was a ravine close to her home, where the neighborhood kids would hang out and watch the frogs and salamanders. Now her office photo board is filled with kayaking and other outdoor pictures from her families NW outings.  She has been at sustainable initiatives for awhile now, on her office shelf is displayed, a recycled glass plaque showing from 1989-1993, Pierce as a Commissioner for the King County Commission for Marketing Recyclable Materials.  

Also displayed in Pierces office is the 2010 Best Workplace for Recycling and Waste Reduction.  She said "This marks the 5th year for HDR to awarded this title. We are now on the honor roll!"

For HDR Bellevue, the efforts started small with a only a monthly green team meeting in the beginning.  Now that sustainability is becoming a big name in business, they already have the momentum (including corporate and building manager support) and awareness going to invite some of the most current trends into their office operations and projects.  It may just be good environmental practices, it may just be good business sense, or it may just be what we heard growing up, "Waste not, want not."  If we don't waste what we have, we will still have it in the future and thus will not lack it (to want it).  It's a win-win-win situation.

Modeling sustainability at Horace Mann Elementary

One of the Eastside schools, trailblazing new sustainable measures is Horace Mann (HM) Elementary on Education Hill in Redmond.   Leading these efforts, with support from her Lake Washington School District, is 5th Grade teacher, Marie Hartford and her 4th, 5th and 6th grade Green Teams.

By interest, Hartford is more the artist and ballet type.  Her first environmental classroom project was raising salmons from eggs.  Caring for and nurturing them brought out what she calls "the naturalist in me."

Marie Hartford showing the props used in a recent energy saving skit recording. 

Keeping the conditions right for raising the salmon was tricky at times, especially keeping the pH just right.  At one point, it involved kids hauling 5 gallon buckets of pond water (located at corner of school property) and mixing it with a certain ratio of tap water to obtain the proper pH.

Hartford's current classroom of students is raising frogs.  She said "This type of frog, red legged frog, is native to this area."  Currently she is working with the district and city to seek permission to introduce the frogs to the school's pond.  If this is approved, it would be timed perfectly with certifying the school as a wildlife friendly site.

Hartford showing Redmond Wild's co-Leader Nithi, the frog eggs.

Who would create the right habitat for the frogs and wildlife around the school?

The design and implementation of habitat will be a collaborative effort 

between the Elementary students and Redmond High students.  

This is not the first Sustainable Project that Harford has spearheaded at Horace Mann.  Her green teams have successfully implemented and are working on the following projects:

• Reusuable Cafeteria Trays - One of the first Green Team's projects.  It started when Hartford asked the cooks to save the trash for one week, then had it laid out on a tarp for the kids to see.  She asked them, "What do you notice."  They noticed there was a lot of styrofoam in there.  She then gave them some facts about styrofoam.  All of a sudden, the kids were taking ownership in the problem and offering to clean the trays themselves if they could go to reusable trays.  She said it is good for kids to be involved in this type of work, what she calls "authentic work."  The switch to reusable trays has spread out through the entire LWSD now.

• No Idling zone - Kids tabulated how many car's were idling and for how long.  The school now has a "no idling zone" in effect for student drop-off.  Recently HM students went in front of City of Redmond's transportation department with the result, "The City of Redmond would consider a no idling ordinance for the city" said Hartford.  The cities transportation department has also offered free transportation for students to present their "no idling zone" story to other schools.

• Walking School Bus - Parents take the role of Captain or co-Captain and lead a group of students, walking, to school.  See Jeanne Gustafson's earlier article for more info.  The 4th grade green team students just met this last week to plan HM's next Walking School Bus day.  

• Energy Conservation - The kids made signs signaling where energy could be saved.  They switched some of the classroom lights to energy efficient lighting.  The hallway lights now have every other light on now.  

• Wildlife Friendly Habitat - As mentioned above, the school is currently certifying to be a Wildlife friendly schoolyard.  By providing Food, Water, Cover, Places to Raise Young and Sustainable Practices schools, businesses and homes can certify as a Wildlife Habitat.   See Redmond Wild's recent article for more info.  

• Parnership and sharing ideas with other Schools - Initiated by HM students, a partnership with Redmond High school has grown and will soon include the pond restoration.  HM students have recently initiated with Redmond Junior high for collaboration in future projects.   There has also become a sharing of ideas between schools including: Einstein Elementary in Redmond and Mark Twain, Juanita Elementary in Kirkland to name some of them.

• Other programs - Such as reuse, recycling and having a worm bin on site. 

Seeing these great programs in effect left me wondering how can these types of sustainable measures, measures that are strong in community effort, be transferred to other schools, so I asked the following question.  For teacher's, parents and students who wish to start these or similar programs at their school's, what is your "secret sauce" to make it happen?

Hartford's response can be summed up in 4 steps.

1. Get to know your community and what their interest/needs are.  For HM, it came from an observation by the kids that the outdoor were smelly on rainy days due to more parents dropping kids off and the extra exhaust smoke.  Since they had many cases of Asthma, this became an important project health-wise as well.
2. Get Parent and PTSA support.
3. Be patient and positive with the school principle.
4. Work with the departments.  For her that has been LWSD facilities.  The Resource Conservation Manager Program Lead, Chuck Collins, was able to find HM a planting grant if they were able to cut the energy by 5% during a few month time period.  

Life Science lesson of what will make Solal grow best, and then students will later plant on school property.

This was a problem erosion area needing occasional mowing and weed control chemical treatments.    In about a 1/2 hours time the students were able to plant some native plants and turn this into a low-maintenance area.  

Also check to see if your school already has a Green Team in action.  Usually they are happy to have volunteers oversee planning and project sessions as well as bringing in new ideas.

Stay tuned for these future sustainable article topics:  spotlighting a Bellevue business, Redmond Wild's Certification Program as they close-in to their goal of certifying the entire City of Redmond (they only need a few more homes to certify to make it happen!) as a Community Wildlife Habitat and a district-wide look at schools on the Eastside!

Until then, as Hartford would say "Thank you for your hard work. We are moving forward with higher energy efficiency, lower emissions and a greener school yard [Eastside Community!] all because of you."

Encouraging Creativitiy in our Kids

A local Puget Sound speaker, who is often quoting the Scandinavian saying "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing" presented last week at Lake Washington Institute of Technology to an audience of parents.  Nancy Blakey, mom of 4 grown children and 2 grandchildren, has been sharing her message and activity ideas since her youngest was 2.  Her audience this time was the parents from Coop Toddler and Preschool Groups from Bothell, Kirkland, Redmond and Woodinville.

The topic of Blakey's presentation was Encouraging Creativity in our Kids.  To where this can occur, she said "Home is the seedbed of creativity and imagination."   And to what this will lead to, she said "Resiliency, problem-solving, resourcefulness and happiness in our children."

Nancy Blakey presenting last week

Luckily Blakey gives a formula for Creativity that consists of just 3 factors: Time, Tools and Tolerance.

Okay, not "just" 3 factors as some of those do carry some weight.  We all need time, right?  Blakey went on to explain what the big stealers from time were and quickly eased the audience from the first....(gasp!)...T.V. or screen time and the second organized activities.

The audience chuckled as Blakey told the story of when she was writing one of her books, "101 Alternatives to Television" she was using T.V. to entertain the kids so she could meet the deadlines.  She went on to explain what it was like to first take away the T.V. time (not easy at first!) and includes comments "Boredom is a good thing."  She said "It is good they learn to deal with it while they are young."

For the other time stealer, organized activities, she said "It is important for kids to have doodle and hum time."  Children need integration time before and after school or other activities.  "In Japan" she said, "They don't have school buses because they value that before and after school walking together time."  On the way to school, it preps the mind for the school day and on the way home begins the integration of what was learned during the day.

What type of Tools will be needed for this?

Blakey's simple solution is "Themed Boxes" and having them "Accessible to the kids."  In many homes the barely used dining/front room makes a great space.  In smaller homes it can be as small as a card table, where the boxes can tuck underneath.  

Blakey showing what items could work in the Inventor's Themed Box.

ART Box: Includes tape, paper punches among the traditional art supplies.  She said it depends on the family what goes in each box.

INVENTOR's Box:  Clean out your junk drawer, find material at garage sells and allow for functional freedom. She said, "A capacitor may become the eyes of a robot."

OUTDOOR Box: Include a cheap stopwatch, old tractor tire inner tube and a tarp that can be tied up with rope to make a tent.  "Being outside is one of the best things we can model for our children" she said.

SPECIALTY Boxes: These boxes are specific to the child's age and interest.  For example, an electricity box, puppet making box, dress-up box.

Which brings us to the third factor in this creativity formula: Tolerance.  Allowing for a messier area in your home.  All within reason of course, kids are still required to keep it somewhat in order.  It is good to let them clean up their own messes to help them realize they will have to clean up their own messes through life too.  

Resources for where to find affordable items for boxes include Goodwill in Bellevue, Treehouse Consignment shop for dress-up clothes (go at the end of October when the costumes are half off) to name a few.  For activity ideas and to read her blog visit her website at www.nancyblakey.com.

At one point she asked the audience to think of one of their first memories.  She said, "90% of the time it will be one from the outdoors."  Often it is not from any elaborate set-up either.  In one of her stories, the dirt-pile becomes the most sought after play area by the neighborhood kids.   Blakey herself was not one to buy toys for her kids.  When her children's grandparents would ask what to buy for her kids and hoping for an easy toy buy, would get an answer that more resembled "1/2 inch pvc pipes, connecters, etc."  They were hoping she would just have said a "gameboy."