GoGreen: A lot of talk around sustainability for business focuses on efficiency and systems. What about the people? Where does the human element factor in and how important is it in the grand scheme of things?
Mark Gasta: Businesses are a system, and all of these factors play together. So if we are thinking about the environmental system, or other pieces of the system, and not paying attention to the human aspects of it, ultimately it won’t be sustainable. The system will become imbalanced.

In order to create organizations that do both well and good, we have to ensure the entire system is taken into consideration and that all intersections are tended to. Then we can maintain our profit margins, while also accomplishing our mission as an organization in the community. None of the elements in the system are mutually exclusive. When we drive shareholder value, we not only give that value to them, but we can then reinvest in our employees, our guest experience, our communities and environments–all are inextricably linked.

GG: From the human resources perspective, is sustainability a selling point for recruiting talent and retention rates?                     MG: It is an incredibly strong selling point, because people want to feel good about the organization they work for. People want to understand how their efforts can contribute to a larger purpose. It doesn’t matter if the employee is coming just because they love the sport (in our case) and want to be a part of that sport. The stronger that connection is, the more they want to share this sport with others and share nature with others.

Its been proven through research that when people spend time in nature, it makes them want to protect it more and has a positive impact on their own personal values. You can build out that value chain and connect people with those higher purposes—and it doesn’t matter really what that higher purpose is as long as it’s greater than just showing up and punching the clock.

From this perspective, sustainability first creates greater success for the organization, but also results in greater engagement and satisfaction for the people working there. Getting back to the recruiting piece of it, when someone is contemplating their life and dreaming up how are they going to make a difference, they want to be part of something bigger. Sustainability helps us show that we can easily draw out their potential to have a very positive impact in the areas they care about.

GG: You also work with students in higher education. Are you seeing a greater tendency from this next generation of employees to place a higher value on sustainability?
MG: Oh, without a doubt. It’s on the minds of many kids coming through school right now. And that’s very refreshing and exciting. I read an article about a recent Harvard Business School graduating MBA class that had over 50% of its members sign a pledge that they would never work for an organization that did harm and that they would only work for organizations that did good.

People are looking for something more in their career. In the past, it took a catastrophe or something negative to cause people to be reflective and ask, “how am I going to make a difference” or “am I going to look back on my life knowing that I lived the life of purpose?” Today, I think those values are being engrained in us earlier on. Maybe it’s parents, maybe it’s technology giving people a better world view—but whatever the cause, it’s a good thing.

GG: What are your thoughts on where the responsibility should lie for succeeding at sustainability? Should it be with a green team or the sustainability officers or the executive team?
MG: The primary responsibility should not lie with a sustainability officer or green team. Now, should those parties be the conduit of educating others and providing tools and resources to help people understand how to drive and support green efforts – absolutely. But the reason I say no is because my goal is to make sustainability obsolete. Sustainability should be woven into the fabric of the culture and just be part of the business planning process. We should do it not because it’s going to result in altruistic successes, but instead because it’s the right thing to do for the business.

The beautiful thing about sustainability is that the pure definition of it is “be around to live another day.” If you’re not around to live another day, from a business standpoint you’re going to fail. If you want your business to be successful in the long-term, you have to ensure you build it in a sustainable way—which means paying attention and finding the balance for all of those key stakeholders. That includes not taking more than you give, as it relates to the environment, and ensuring you are not doing harm. Both can come back to bite you through brand reputation or negative aspects of compliance. That is the minimum expectation. From there companies have a unique opportunity to competitively differentiate themselves by becoming sustainability leaders and actually enhancing their surroundings.

Because it’s the right thing to do from a business perspective, the ultimate responsibility lies with an organization’s leaders. When they fully understand sustainability, they will see it meshes with the philosophy that wise decisions are those that consider the long-term viability of a company over short-term gains—and that short-term thinking ultimately does not result in a lasting success.

GG: How accountable do you think employees should be towards achieving the overall success of those strategic decisions and those goals?                                                                                                            MG: I think of it a little differently. I don’t think about holding employees accountable, so much as figuring out how we can inspire them to the chase the possibilities, Most people don’t wake up saying, “I want to destroy the earth today” or “I want to do things wrong today.” The responsibility lies with the folks who are leading this charge. They need to drive education, communication, and empowerment. It’s about helping people see how can they make a bigger difference, what their role is and their potential for aligning with a higher purpose.

We also need to create access to those paths and show how our teams can do all of this within their particular role. Every single person has the ability to make a positive difference . So, it’s not about holding employees accountable, it’s about inspiring them to be a part of something greater – which they naturally already want to do, in my estimation.

GG: Have you seen unintended consequences of a positive nature in other areas of your organization that have arisen from your sustainability efforts?                                                                              MG: Absolutely. It is all connected. I’ll go back to what we talked about earlier—that it’s all one system and you have to factor in all aspects of the system in order to create a sustainable organization. For example, as we work on employee engagement, many people may not immediately translate that as part of building a sustainable company. But taking care of the most foundational opportunities for employees allows them to become interested in things that create greater value-adds for the company overall.

When we do a regression analysis on our employee engagement scores, we see that the greatest driver in our company—the biggest difference we can make in further engaging our employees—is around sustainability. Our employees want to know how they can further influence our company’s work in the community and the environment, so we have been focusing on how to tie sustainability and employee engagement together.

As a result, we have never seen greater success as it relates to things like our guest satisfaction scores. This greater engagement we’ve fostered is resulting in higher guest satisfaction and it’s directly related to our efforts to help employees understand how our company makes a difference, and how they can personally contribute to our sustainability initiatives.

GG: What kind of organizational change is usually necessary to succeed at creating this very integrated system? What are the most common shifts needed or trends that you see?                                  MG: I think the greatest challenge for most of us is learning how to operate outside our silos. It’s easy to get stuck in them because that’s what we have control over. Thinking outside of those lines can be overwhelming. Be it a business unit or a department or a location – people are worried about themselves. They are not worried about everyone else.

Going back to the HR, many departments will plan their own strategy for the coming year, but how often do entire organizations bring the planning to a shared platform? Very few make that leap and even fewer take the more important step of looking across the full matrix to find points of integration and collaboration. But unless we look across all of those disparate agendas to ensure we have cross-coordinated our efforts in order to move forward together, we will always have the possibility that things will get out of balance. For example, you might have the greatest learning and development team in the world, but if your compensation and benefits programs are not competitive – you’re going to fail.

The key is to regularly look across the matrix and coordinate agendas at every level within the organization. If any aspect gets out of balance, you are going to stop moving forward and it is not a sustainable long-term solution.

GG: What would you say is the biggest barrier you’ve run up against in maintaining balance? How did you surpass it?                              MG: Working outside silos is an on-going challenge. It’s hard and that ‘s why people don’t do it very often. It is easier for me to close my door and just worry about my work. If you take a collaborative approach, now I have to worry about everyone else’s work and how it fits together to create systems that are mutually supportive. Constant communication is required, as is a true commitment to a shared vision.

A very simple example: if my CEO came in right now and asked me to create a frontline bonus program for employees, I could close my door, pull up old documents of other frontline bonus programs created over time and come out in a few hours with a sixty page document that is a perfect frontline bonus program on paper. But would that be successful or would it fail?

It would fail, because I failed to ask a lot of questions that require looking outside of my own silo. What technologies are necessary to pay these bonuses and measure these successes? Are the measures I put within the program driving the right behaviors to lead to the right outcomes? Have we communicated to employees how they will be rewarded based on the desired behaviors and why that’s important to the overall success of the business? Have we trained leaders to help connect this rewards program with the outcomes we want? On and on and on—you can begin to see all the systemic interconnections in just that one example. Unless I work with all of those constituents—unless I coordinate across that matrix—the program won’t be successful.

GG: OK, lightning round (:30 or less!).

1. Best book you’ve read that’s not about sustainability, but totally applies to it?                                                                                               MG: “How Then, Shall We Live” by Wayne Muller

2. What’s the worst great idea you’ve put in place and turned out to be a flop? How would you make it better the next time around?   MG: We have what we call “Street Teams” in our organization. Traditionally Street Teams are a group of people that go out before a band hits the city and do things like chalk the sidewalks and post posters all around to gain excitement around the bands coming in to town. We have established street teams at all of our resorts and the idea is that they are the voice of our employee population—they are owning and fostering a culture around the environment and engaging our workforce further. We are utilizing them for outward communication and to gather information. It is a great idea, but it’s really hard to implement, organize, and to keep it alive, plus figure out how to fully leverage it. So, I still believe that it is a great idea—but it is certainly not optimized and it is a constant struggle to keep going.

3. The number one concept you drill into your students’ and employee’s heads about sustainability?                                               MG: Find and live your passion. You want to be able look back on your life and feel fulfilled in it. That is defined differently for each of us, but in order to do that we have to understand ourselves—what we believe, what’s important to us, what are we good at, what we like and dislike, what gives us energy. Once you find those answers and live them daily, success will result personally and professionally.

4. What’s one piece of advice you would give to an organization just getting started on a sustainability strategy?                                         MG: Help your people understand the potential of sustainability—that it is not just altruistic, but it allows you to do the right thing and make smart business decisions.

5. One piece of advice you would give to an organization ready to take things up a notch?                                                                            MG: Similarly, when you help your team see the greater potential in sustainability, you will have the foundation set to reach new heights. Again, I think it is about education, empowerment and making sure you are speaking to the triggers of your audience.

Mark Gasta is the Chief People Officer and a sustainability advocate at Vail Resorts Management Company. He is also a featured speaker at the 2012 Sustainable Opportunities Summit and share insights on driving sustainability via behavioral and organizational change with attendees, March 21 in Denver, Colorado. Learn more about the Summit at: sosummit.org.

To learn more about greenwashing and how to avoid its pitfalls, come see Kevin live at GoGreen ’11 Phoenix, Tuesday, November 15! Kevin will give a special lunch presentation on the topic for attendees. Learn more about Kevin and Enviromedia at their website and the Greenwashing Index (created in partnership with the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication)

GoGreen Conference: You’re taking on an issue of massive global scale. Food scarcity is something that civilizations have been forged by and wars have been fought over. We’re curious—most people say to start small on sustainability and to not take off more than you can chew. You went to the absolute opposite end of the spectrum and took on one of the biggest issues challenging civilization since people began forming communities. What inspired you to do that?
Miguel Jardine: I actually look at what I’m addressing as four big issues. And the inspiration behind that was that I pulled the string, so-to-speak.  Remember how your mom told you, “Don’t pull the thread, just try to cut it”? Well I went ahead and pulled the thing.

The four big things we go after are hunger, health, economic development and the environment. And we’re able to tie all of those together through the VermiSoks Virtuous Cycle. The reason being that we simplified the challenge down to a more approachable scale. Unfortunately, up until now, big problems have stayed big problems because we have people saying, “Hey! This is a big problem!” That attitude makes everything seem very complex and sometimes overwhelming. It affects the way that you think about solutions.

I spent several years researching the subject. By recognizing the root issues, we have developed a clear system to solve all of them. When you’re looking at a business that involves food, you have raw materials coming in. Those materials get made into something and then get disposed of—party’s over. When you work with that type of linear model it causes a lot of the problems we are experiencing today. However, if you look at nature, it’s cyclical. You start at one point in the circle and you end at another point in the circle. That is how the VermiSoks virtuous cycle came about—by looking at an input and seeing the cycle of how that waste can turn around and act as an input again.

GG: Give us a brief rundown of what the VermiSoks Virtuous Cycle is, and how it works.
MJ: First let me say, I am something of an environmentalist. When I was looking at the environmental challenges we face, to me, all things kept leading back to human activity—and one of the biggest human activities is the generation of waste. Generally, what we’re doing to dispose of it is digging a big hole called a landfill and then throwing everything into it. There are two major problems with that: The generation of methane (which is 23 times worse at trapping the sun’s energy than CO₂) and leeching (the seepage of nasty liquid made from the accumulation of oils and rotting vegetation) that seeps down into the landfill, which causes problems with the water table.

When looking at the methane issue, I saw that the gas was being created from the way that organic matter rots in a landfill. If we’re able to divert that organic material from our landfills that’s a big step towards reducing the amount of methane generated by this process. Again, through continued research that looked to nature as a guide, we discovered we can deal with this issue through composting. Composting is not something people tend to do frequently. In most parts of the country, we have one trash can and everything goes in it. It is difficult to separate organic material from inorganic material.

We’re looking to locate the food waste and divert it away from the landfill. Then we take that food waste and liquefy it. That substance acts as the foundation for VermiSoks worm wine, which is the liquefied waste with additional nutrients. Our worm wine is useful in several ways. First, it’s useful to the earthworms. It also builds up the soil with nutrients and this is beneficial to the crops which grow in the soil. This worm wine is drip irrigated into the actual “VermiSoks,” which are mesh tubes filled with ground coconut husks and earthworms. The earthworms eat the coconuts husks and worm wine and convert that into soil.

It’s a very fast process—the earthworms will plow through worm wine in approximately three days to a week, and will convert it into nutrient rich compost in the process. All of this is going on inside the sock. When this part of the process is complete, we then have an ecosystem inside the sock that is essentially arable land. All we have to do is lay the VermiSoks tube down on the ground, or even a parking lot, cut a hole in it, plant a seed, feed it worm wine and—viola!—we get a crop growing out of it.

Continuing around the circle: As the crop grows, we harvest it, turn it into an amazing dish—salad, lasagna, etc.—and collect the scraps and leftovers to start the cycle all over again.VermiSoks is all about is showing that we can use nature’s cycle in business as a competitive advantage with this particular model.

GG: It sounds like a very integrated system involving the coordination of multiple stakeholders. Does there have to be some behavior change? Some policy change? What are the accompanying issues you are working to solve beyond the physical process of closed loop food production?
MJ: Yes. A massive amount of education is needed, mainly with our audience and customers. We have three main products: A food waste disposal service, the VermiSoks themselves and a monthly subscription to the worm wine. The VermiSoks and the worm wine constitute what we call our “growing platform.” They are products for customers who are actually growing and harvesting crops. The other side of it is our food waste disposal offering. For that group, it’s a matter of showing them how their food waste, something that traditionally has absolutely no benefit to them, can be turned into something extremely useful to their communities and themselves.

One of the more obvious beneficiaries of this whole cycle is your average restaurant. So a restaurant has two main cost centers—the amount of produce they need to make the dishes they sell and the amount of waste generated through the food making process. So it’s very effective to be able to go into a restaurant and say, “If you use our waste disposal service, you’ll both reduce the cost of your inputs and increase the availability of those inputs. We can convert your waste into a solution for growing fresh fruits and vegetables that can be used in the restaurant again.” It’s an opportunity to create a great CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) story and it bolsters their bottom line.

Because education is one of our bigger challenges, we are really excited about working with Whole Foods. They have taken a real leadership position in working with us in utilizing our waste service, but also supporting our growing platform and educating their community.

GG: Let’s talk about scale. Does the VermiSoks Virtuous Cycle only work on a small scale or can you plant acres and acres of land this way? Can it support millions of Arizonans?
MJ: Yes it can. VermiSoks is a very local solution that’s applicable on a global scale. That aspect of the system was completely by design. One of the first pieces of education we work on when we collaborate with community organizations is letting people know that having acres and acres of farmland far away from where the food is actually being consumed is not the best model. When something comes from a great distance away and is perishable, like produce is, it has to be picked early in order to be transported without rotting. That means it doesn’t have the ability to develop on the vine with all of the nutrients and flavors it’s supposed to have. Unfortunately, we then use a lot of chemicals to do a ripening process on the way to the consumer.

So, on average in the United States, food is traveling between 1,200-1,500 miles before it is consumed. The VermiSoks Virtuous Cycle addresses that issue. We bring the growing space—the arable farmland—right into the city where people are. This essentially allows you to convert an abandoned parking lot or blighted land into arable space that can be used to grow the food that will support a community. Our vision is one where urban Phoenix will be filled with these small urban farms growing food for the local population. VermiSoks satisfies these sweet spots—anywhere from 48 VermiSoks (about a 20×20 space) all the way up to an acre of space.

That’s more than enough in the city setting, because a complete acre that isn’t spoken for is hard to come by. That speaks for one level of our scalability. The other is being able to replicate this model all over the world. That introduces a different perspective on scale, because now we don’t need hundreds of acres of farmland to grow enough food for everybody. Each neighborhood will be able to grow its own food.

This model also lends itself to a creating a lot of jobs. The VermiSoks cycle needs individuals to manage the garden/farm, to run distribution, and work in the industries we service. Then there are additional value-added products and businesses that become available as a result: a salsa line or beauty and spa products for example. You can have a grower who is specifically growing lavenders and mints and thyme for their particular formula or recipes for soap for lotion or essential oils. You also have the development of a naturopathy industry around medicinal herbs that again can all be grown close to where they are utilized.

This localized model is what we see going forward. We believe you’re going to get lots of farms and gardens all over the place that are able to feed millions of people by bringing the solutions in closer. What we do here in the Valley is replicable all over the world. You just need a “wine cellar,” which is what we call our facility where we bring all of the food waste to undergo liquefaction, create the worm wine and manufacture the VermiSoks. Wine cellars are the hub for processing that food waste, for creating this growing platform and then servicing a set of local installations of VermiSoks gardens.

GG: You mentioned getting in cahoots with Whole Foods. What’s next? What is your vision for 2012 to take VermiSoks to the next level?
MJ: The big thing our investors have been looking for is to see the whole cycle proven out—for us to have a facility working through the whole process. We now have our first wine cellar up and running. We are collecting food waste from Whole Foods and we will be installing gardens come the first of November. All of this will show the big picture. At that point communities around the world can replicate our model and develop their own wine cellars and waste source and then grow food.

The cool part is that in doing so, they will be actively addressing those four big things I mentioned before. We address the hunger issue by having the capacity to grow more food. We address the health issues, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease, by providing healthier food to our communities. We’ll spur economic growth by providing a foundation for jobs in all the industries I mentioned earlier. And we will regenerate the environment by adding back nourishing soil to the land.

That is actually one of my favorite impacts and I tend to not name it sometimes because people say “Miguel you’re harping on that one too much.” In all of this process many people would think the primary goal is food. But there’s more to it then that. At the end of season you have a sock full of 1.25 cubic ft of nutrient rich, composted soil. We know that a big part of environmental issues, especially around food security, are happening because of de-climitization or  the erosion of farmland because the soil doesn’t have the root infrastructure to keep it in one place. VermiSoks begins to regenerate the environment because the soil we create is latent with all of the nutrients necessary for healthy soil. So at the end of life for the VermiSoks, we not only got a naturally grown crop, but if you cut open the sock and then till the material inside into the ground, that begins to heal the soil.

GG: What people, books or ideas have influenced your outlook and helped you open up your mind to new ways of thinking?
MJ: Wow, that list is long! One of the big ones for me was “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore. That one really got me to start asking the question “What can I do?” The other book was written by William McDonough called “Cradle to Cradle.” I also love Richard Florida’s “The Rise of the Creative Class,” ”The Flight of the Creative Class,” and his latest book is “Who’s Your City?” The third one is really cool, it’s very much in line with Malcom Gladwell’s “Tipping Point.” The final book, and it’s something of a Bible for me, is Frans Johanssons book, “The Medici Effect.” That book is what got me to think about putting together an entire system of solutions as opposed to just solving one problem.

GG: Final question: Are there any topics we didn’t address that you would like to speak to.
MJ: The one thing that I’d like to touch on, before we finish, is collaboration. Now, more than ever, we need people to start talking together. Not just people with the same backgrounds, but people with very different life and professional perspectives. In my average day, I am working with a multi-national corporation like Whole Foods, local non-profits and regional businesses. It’s through something transferable like VermiSoks that we’re all able to see how this is not a situation that will be solved by a big powerful company donating either money or a non-profit working in the field. Each sector has a role to play in the solution. For us, the business model is also a model for collaboration between disparate groups who might not always think about talking to each other. We want to get them thinking about how this cycle can bring them together to not only talk to each other, but also be very successful at their respective missions, models, and objectives.

Miguel Jardine is the CEO of Vermisoks and will speak on the Collaborative Approaches to Achieving Zero Waste at Your Business panel session at GoGreen ’11 Phoenix, November 15. To learn more about businesses wanting to go green, come see Miguel live at GoGreen ’11 Phoenix! Event details and registration can be found here. For the latest event announcements and sustainability news, follow us on Twitter (@GoGreenConf) and be a fan on Facebook (facebook.com/gogreenconference). Join the GoGreen Phoenix email list here.

The City of Phoenix has a legacy of conservation—it’s had to. Building and maintaining a major metropolitan area in the desert takes complex infrastructure and smart management of resources. That’s something the city has been doing for 50 years. Looking ahead, Phoenix expects more growth and is taking measures to ensure that growth is sustainable, both from an economic standpoint and an environmental one. In this installment of the Green Line Series, City of Phoenix Sustainability Officer, Carolyn Bristo, merges past and present, with a vision for a very green future in the desert.

GoGreen Conference: What is your vision for a sustainable Phoenix? How is the City working to make Phoenix the most sustainable city in the country?
Carolyn Bristo: The end game, for the City, is always to ensure our residents have a high quality of life, now and in the future. The main spheres of influence that we’re concerned about are community, economy and the environment.

GG: Are there any elements—renewable energy, sustainable mass transit, etc.—that are key focus points for the City as you move forward?
CB: The areas you mentioned are very important to us. Because they involve complex planning, we have set stages of goals and priorities around these areas. One is that 15 percent of our energy needs will be met by renewables by 2025. Another is that our greenhouse gas emission levels will be 5 percent below the 2005 levels by 2015. We also have a goal that we will achieve 20 percent average shade canopy coverage at all city parks by 2030.

These are just some of the goals that we’ve set, and we’re working with our communities and agencies to prioritize values around neighborhood development. They’re outlined in Mayor Gordon’s 17-point Green Phoenix Plan that focuses on greening Phoenix neighborhoods, homes and businesses. That plan looks at energy sources and transit, but also waterways, efficiency measures, homegrown agriculture, urban mobility, transportation synergy, etc.

GG: How important is it to have buy in from the top levels of city leadership in Phoenix?
CB: We’re very fortunate at the City of Phoenix to have visionary leaders in our history that have fostered a culture of innovation and outstanding environmental stewardship for almost 50 years. We’ve implemented many ground-breaking initiatives over that time. We were one of the first adopters of using recycled tires in our asphalt and that started in the 1960s. We developed a water conservation plan over 30 years ago and we’re actually using less water now than we were in 1997. We have also had an energy efficiency and conservation program for over 30 years and have quantified over $120 million in cost savings or avoidance over that time. Today we are looking at how we can buffet our environmental sustainability legacy, get to the next level and achieve our goals over the next decade.

Finally, we have embarked upon a update process for the City’s general plan that will certainly focus a lot more on community well-being and sustainable economic development in the near future.

GG: How does Mayor Gordon’s Green Phoenix Plan specifically support the development of sustainable businesses in Phoenix?
CB: Much of the Green Phoenix Plan focuses on partnership and collaboration. The community and economic development part of the plan is very important. One of our key programs is called Energize Phoenix and the goal of that is to create a higher level of building stock and neighborhoods by making them more energy efficient. Our goal is to enhance 30 million square feet of office space through energy efficiency upgrades along the 10-mile stretch of the light rail corridor.

That’s just one example of the many programs we’re putting forth as a collaborative effort between the business community and the City. Another very successful partnership with the business community is the Solar Phoenix program. This program is for residential upgrades, but this program could not have happened without financing from National Bank of Arizona and working in close concert with Arizona Public Service, our public utility in Phoenix. We also needed a well-qualified work force to install the upgrades. So far, with a $25 million investment, they’ve been able to install solar on 444 homes and have generated over 2,800 kilowatt-hours of solar energy. Through leveraging the investment of our private sector and the dedication of our public utility to advance renewable energy, we’ve created one of the largest residential solar programs in the nation.

GG: How does the City of Phoenix ensure the viability of water as a resource moving forward, as the metro area grows and expands? Are there ways for businesses to better manage this shared resource in partnership with the City?
CB: The City has an aggressive water conservation program and has worked extensively with businesses to manage our water for decades now. We have a long established set of best practices that the community works under, including reusing 90 percent of our waste water for industrial, agricultural and recreational purposes. That infrastructure is a huge support for our parks and golf courses.

We’ve also reduced ground water usage from approximately 35 percent of the water supply in 1984 to less than three percent in 2010. And we continue to promote water efficiency and re-use programs through new commercial and residential plumbing codes. We recently passed a voluntary Green Building Code to encourage building green through commercial code, which ties into efficiency as well.

GG: Are there any public/private partnerships that have been particularly successful that you could highlight for us?
CB: There have been several that come to mind through our Energize Phoenix program. We worked with many local businesses, including CB Richard Ellis, American Cleaning Systems, Nibblers Catering and Hines GS to upgrade commercial facilities through our grant program and incentives, make their space more efficient and save them money in operating costs—as well as conserve resources. Businesses interested in the program can learn more at the program website: energizephx.com

Carolyn Bristo is the Sustainability Officer at the City of Phoenix and will speak on the Overcoming Barriers to Sustainability panel session at GoGreen ’11 Phoenix, November 15. To learn more about the City’s resources for businesses wanting to go green, come see Carolyn live at GoGreen ’11 Phoenix! Event details and registration can be found here. For the latest event announcements and sustainability news, follow us on Twitter (@GoGreenConf) and be a fan on Facebook (facebook.com/gogreenconference). Join the GoGreen Phoenix email list here. 

The U.S. Government is the largest landowner in the world—so when they decide to go green, it amounts to huge impact. In this week’s Green Line Series, U.S. General Services Administration’s Northwest/Arctic Regional Administrator, George Northcroft, tells us how greening the government’s supply chain is driving a more sustainable economy in Oregon and beyond.

GoGreen Conference: When the government decides to green its supply chain—what does that encompass? How far is GSA going in terms of implementing sustainable best practices?
George Northcroft: GSA is looking at the big picture of our carbon footprint, and that includes the supply chain. Right now, we are looking at how we can incorporate sustainability requirements into our supply chain contracts. While we’re still working out the details, this would likely mean asking our suppliers to provide a greenhouse gas inventory of their own emissions, for GSA to use in procurement decisions. We are currently doing a pilot program called the GreenGov Supply Chain Partnership to work with industry to learn the best way to do this.

GG: The U.S. Government is naturally a huge consumer of goods, services and raw resources. How do your choices impact the overall supply chain of sustainable goods in this country?
GN: In our region alone – Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska – GSA leases or owns more than 600 office buildings, and procures $10 billion in goods and services each year. We have enormous leverage on the supply chain, and are using our purchasing power to encourage businesses to make more sustainable goods and services available, since there is an tremendous Federal market seeking them.

GG: Do you believe that GSA and other large organizations have a greater weight to pull in shifting the paradigm towards a green economy because your potential for impact is so much greater than most? If so, what kind of role is GSA pursuing and how?
GN: As the world’s biggest landlord and purchaser of goods and services, we have a special obligation to lead the shift to a green economy. In green building, we have established a Green Proving Ground project where innovative green-building technologies are being tested at Federal buildings across the country and the agency is learning more about those technologies to apply them elsewhere. We also manage the Federal vehicle fleet, and have been making steady progress toward greening our vehicles. In the last two years, we’ve moved the Federal fleet to 50% alternative fuel vehicles and that number is still increasing. We are conducting a 100-vehicle pilot of electric vehicles (Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs, and Thinks) across the country to learn how electric vehicles can work in the government setting. As stewards of taxpayers dollars, the governments needs to be on the cutting edge and I think we are doing a good job of leveraging our purchasing power while making sound financial choices in a lean budget environment.

GG: What key resources does GSA offer to American businesses that can help them green their own supply chains and/or be better stewards of shared resources, while still maintaining their vitality as a profitable enterprise? What opportunities should GoGreen attendees look into for their own businesses?
GN: We look at our relationship with the private sector as a partnership. Through the GreenGov Supply Chain Partnership, we are working hand-in-hand with industry to find a mutually-agreeable system for tracking the Federal government’s supply chain emissions. We are also leading, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, the government’s effort to make sure that all government electronics end their useful life at a certified e-waste recycler. We expect to soon require any agencies who aren’t doing so already to use certified recyclers for disposing of e-waste. We think this effort will not only prevent government e-waste from causing environmental problems overseas, but it will also create jobs in the e-waste recycling industry in the U.S.

GG: Could you give an example of a local/Oregon project that shows the depth of GSA’s commitment to sustainability and how you are supporting the development of the green economy in this state?
GN: You’ve probably heard about GSA’s major modernization of the Edith Green/Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in downtown Portland. We are investing $139 million in downtown Portland to modernize Edith Green into a LEED Platinum building that will be a cornerstone of GSA’s national green building portfolio. Benson Industries of Portland is one of the major subcontractors on that project, and they’re responsible for the entire curtainwall of the building. We are working with many small sustainably-minded companies, too. City of Roses Disposals, for example, does construction waste recycling and they are growing their business by working on this major project. This project is creating jobs and providing learning opportunities for those businesses and their employees, and supporting Portland’s green economy well into the future.

GG: What was the major push behind GSA taking on sustainability as a core tenant? From your perspective, why is this so important for the business and industry communities to get on board with?
GN: President Obama is leading the Federal government on this issue. He signed an Executive Order in October 2009 that required every single Federal government agency to baseline and make a plan to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and solid waste. The President sees the potential not only to improve our environment through sustainability, but the very real opportunity to transform America’s economy into a clean energy and green economy that is prepared to meet the needs of the global marketplace, as people and governments everywhere look for more sustainable solutions.

GG: What have you learned in the past five years about building a business case for sustainability What “been there, done that” advice do you have for businesses that want to be green AND profitable?
GN: Businesses already know that energy efficiency investments will save them money, and that’s why they are making investments in energy efficient buildings and sustainable products. That’s the “been there, done that” that we all already know.

By making investments in alternative energy – wind, geothermal, biomass, and others – the government is acting as a catalyst to make those technologies more widely available to citizens and the private sector. Like the modern air transport system or the Internet, large-scale investments by the Federal government now are creating opportunities in the future for businesses to adopt new technologies at a better, faster, cheaper rate.

George Northcroft is the Northwest/Arctic Regional Administrator for U.S. General Services Administration. Learn more from George at GoGreen ’11 Portland, where he is a featured speaker, October 4th. For more information on GoGreen ’11 Portland or to register, please visit: portland.gogreenconference.net. Get the latest GoGreen ’11 and sustainability news by joining our email list or via our Twitter feed (@GoGreenPDX) and Facebook Page (facebook.com/gogreenconference).

GoGreen Conference: Sustainability is a complex undertaking at any size business—especially at one as large as Nike. What are your priorities? How do you ensure you’ve accounted for all known aspects that affect your goals on sustainability?
Hannah Jones: We have been on a journey to build a more sustainable company ever since Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight started the company. Bowerman was always interested in creating a lighter shoe which translates into less waste.

NIKE, Inc.’s long-term vision is to create products and business models that are decoupled from constrained resources. Nike has made progress, we’ve learned a lot from being in this space and we’ve applied these learnings to address key industry issues around labor, environment and our supply chain. But there’s still more work to be done.

We’ve taken on challenging issues and invested significant resources in new ways to make products and share what we’ve learned. However, in order to accelerate the industry’s progress to a sustainable future, it’s imperative that the industry works together and collaborates in order to create lasting, scalable, systemic change.

We cannot do this work alone, and so collaboration is key.

GG: What has been more difficult to enact—operational change at the corporate level, behavior change at the consumer level, or controlling a global production supply chain? What solutions have you developed to make progress within this biggest challenge/opportunity area?
HJ: Nike’s global supply chain is large and complex. It has taken years to address certain issues, but as our business continues to become more complex, we see the need to create new solutions. In the absence of industry standards, the challenge is working together as an industry to reshape the system and how we all approach supply chain processes.

Nike was the first to disclose the locations of our Nike brand contract factories. Once you start to measure and demand transparency, you find issues and areas that do not meet your standards. The good news is we are committed to continual improvement.

Auditing and monitoring factories are a key component of Nike’s approach to addressing challenges in our global supply chain. However, we believe that focusing on the root cause of these problems will have the most positive impact, and it will require bringing together a wide spectrum of stakeholders to develop innovative solutions to solve for these very complicated issues.

For example, this year, we helped Indonesian contract factory workers receive Freedom of Association (FOA) rights through a two-year negotiation process with the Play Fair Campaign and other stakeholders. We have more work to do, but encouraging industry transparency will only help us to collaborate and accelerate our path to a more sustainable economy.

GG: How important has proper reporting been to your continued efforts? Is it as important for a privately-held company as for a publically-held company, like Nike?
HJ: Reporting is an important component in our efforts to address sustainability issues. Reporting demands accountability that makes us stronger, better, wiser and more conscious of our mistakes, and the opportunities still to be met. If the industry is truly to work together, encourage transparency and collaboration to move us towards sustainable innovation, reporting is a necessary component for any company.

GG: We hear regularly that when you take on sustainability, you have to be ready to take criticism. How do you approach critique of the work you’ve committed your career to, at a company you believe in? Does it inspire or frustrate you?
HJ: We have learned a lot on this journey over the past 15 years. Early criticism challenged us to look at our supply chain and find new solutions. But now a larger industry effort is needed to ultimately move us forward to our vision of a closed loop future and a sustainable future.

GG: Are there publically available resources/tools that Nike has found useful and that other businesses can tap into in order to enhance their own sustainability programs?
HJ: The Natural Step Network has been a great resource in helping to align our “North Star” of a closed loop future. In the absence of industry standards, these resources are very important and we believe that industry transparency will be key to ultimately accelerate sustainable innovation.

Our most recent tool that we shared with the industry, the Environmental Apparel Design Tool, is an example of more than seven years and $6 million investment in research. We feel it’s important to share these tools and insights with each other to hopefully build on what we’ve learned.

GG: In Portland, we’ve experienced first-hand the advantages of having a city/state government that is committed to sustainability. How big of a role can business play in shaping our political response to climate change? 
HJ: Businesses can be influential in shaping policy. Nike is deeply committed to the passage of meaningful climate and energy legislation. As a founding member of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), we believe state-level and federal legislation will create a platform for stimulating green job growth to help reboot the economy and unlocking innovation that is essential to help create technology and infrastructure solutions.

GG: Nike’s sustainability efforts started with employees. What advice can you offer to green teams or individual personnel looking for inspiration on how to drive change at their companies/organizations?
HJ: Enable employees to think big about sustainability and reward well-crafted plans. At Nike, sustainability has become an internalized value on campus, from our composting system (employees compost their own garbage) to our community garden. To find inspiration, you must first make sustainability a real priority, and then internalize the value as an integral part of your business.

Hannah Jones is Vice President of Sustainable Business & Innovation at Nike, Inc. Learn more from Hannah at GoGreen ’11 Portland, where she will give plenary remarks, October 4th. For more information on GoGreen ’11 Portland or to register, please visit: portland.gogreenconference.net. Get the latest GoGreen ’11 and sustainability news by joining our email list or via our Twitter feed (@GoGreenPDX) and Facebook Page (facebook.com/gogreenconference).

GoGreen Conference: Tell us about the connections between Intel’s penchant for chasing invention, ingenuity and discovery as a technology company, and sustainability. How does a greener mindset fit into that picture?

Lorie Wigle: It’s interesting because that question causes us to ask: What does sustainability mean? There’s a writer and proprietor at Greenbiz.com, Joel Makower, who has formed a framework to describe it in the context of business. His theory is that companies go through three stages of evolution in sustainability.

The first one is to do no harm. For Intel that’s very germane to the way we run our factories. Our factories use energy and water. If we want to do no harm, we have to figure out how to minimize our impact. Intel has actually been reporting our environmental footprint since 1994. We make goals well in advance of necessity and we look closely at our environmental footprint in order to ensure we’re meeting them across the board.

The second stage, as Joel puts it, is to do well by doing good. A great example of that at Intel is how we look at our microprocessors. Microprocessors are used in servers, data centers and the notebook computers and smartphones we all carry around with us. Energy efficiency has become a prime basis for competition with the microprocessor—so the more energy efficient we make our products, the better we do in the marketplace and by the environment.

We did an analysis for our CEO recently, looking at the overall energy consumption of the first one billion connected PCs. There were approximately one billion connected PCs in 2007 and together they consumed about 320 terawatt hours of energy per year. Now, we’re forecasting there will be two billion connected PCs globally by the end of 2014—but the amazing thing is that those two billion PCs will use half the energy that the first billion used, and they’ll do seventeen times as much work. The reason for that is that we’ve been able to capitalize on Moore’s Law—which is the doubling of transistors every 18 to 24 months—to drive better energy efficiency and form factors. Through things like this, we do well by doing good.

The third stage that Joel talks about is figuring out how to grow the top line, or revenue, by offering environmentally sound products and services. We’ve been thinking a lot at Intel about how our technologies can be applied to solving big environmental challenges. We’re asking questions like: How can we use technology to reinvent the electricity grid and drive the adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency? How can we use Intel technology to manage water better, as it becomes a more scare resource across the planet? How can we use our technology to make transportation systems more intelligent, so that we’re using less fuel? You know, a third of cars driving around in any given metropolitan area are typically looking for parking places. So if we can create technology that allows you to reserve a parking spot or show you where an open one is, we’ll be saving lot of time, fuel, pollution and money.

GG: You mentioned finding ways to conserve and be more efficient with resources such as water. That’s a hot topic right now and will likely continue to be so going forward. How are Intel products contributing towards our ability to conserve water and other resources?
LW: I spend a lot of time trying to figure out things like how an Intel processor can be used in a metropolitan water district to detect leaks and provide better management information to the people who are determining how to optimize their water use within a city. Internally we’re also looking closely at our FABs (fabrication plants) for ways we can return water to a high level of purity after the manufacturing process, so that we can replenish aquifers rather than drain them.

Looking at water, my team has identified three new business opportunities. One of them is what I just described to you—managing municipal water supplies. It turns out that in many cities, upwards of 40 percent of water loss is a result of leaks or theft. And that’s true across developed and developing countries across the planet. It’s not just a problem for the developing world.

The second area we’ve been looking at is watershed management. I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Bull Run Watershed management tour. It was fascinating. If you look at managing something like the Bull Run Watershed, there’s great deal of processing that goes into modeling what will happen with the watershed under various scenarios of rainfall, heat indexes and water usage. They told us that right now, the Watershed and connected reservoirs are relatively full because we had a relatively cool summer in the Pacific Northwest. We haven’t been drawing it down as much in the Portland area as we would during a scorcher. But that changes yearly and when we do have those hot summers, effective management of the resource is crucial to being able to provide water to the metropolitan population.

The third area we’re looking at is the nexus of agriculture and water. Many people don’t realize it, but so much of our water is used for crops. We’re building technology that lets us more effectively manage water in agricultural settings. We already have some really interesting projects underway using moisture-sensing technology combined with weather prediction technology that gives farmers very direct instructions about when and how much to water their fields. As you look across these environmental categories—such as water, agriculture, energy and weather—they often intersect to a great extent. If you’re find ways to save water, you’re probably also saving energy, because you don’t need to pump as much water. And having better information about weather patterns helps you optimize the use of water, which optimizes agricultural output. It’s all intertwined.

GG: Moving into the process of goal setting. What are your team’s “BHAGS”? What big, hairy, audacious goals are you chasing and what was the process for setting them?
LW: We don’t have a set of quantified goals for our program. What we have is a vision statement that applies to all aspects of our program and it’s that we will always strive to develop and use Intel technology to empower everyone to care for the planet in their own capacity.

The reason we’ve adopted a vision that includes both technology and empowering people with it is because we believe there is an incredibly important role for technology to play in terms of driving sustainability—not just in automating things, but also in providing people information about their environmental footprint and the impact of their decisions. Enabling technology to be a means of empowering people is very important to us.

Take, for example, the energy industry. We’ve done a lot of work on developing the smart grid, with a focus on consumers of energy. What does it mean to empower them more than they are today? We want to make electricity consumption as personal as your personal computing is today. Intel played a large role in the evolution of personal computing, so we started to think about how we can parallel that impact in terms of electricity usage. What if you could go to Home Depot and buy a backyard wind turbine, bring it home and a screen on your PC pops up with a prompt to configure your new energy generation device? And it’s as seamless as plugging in a mouse to your PC today?

There’s a huge amount of work needed to make that technology interoperable and to put standards in place. The treadmill of innovation needs to be enabled, and that’s why we think Intel can help drive development and adoption of more sustainable life tools. As we give consumers better controls and information about their energy use, we think we’ll see behavior change. We can give homeowners the ability to compare their energy use day-to-day, appliance versus appliance, and make better decisions. We can also work at the commercial scale and help reduce energy consumption in the work setting. Even if a typical office building lowers consumption by 10 percent via the use of a smart grid, that’s still a pretty significant contribution.

GG: Sustainability was recently added into Intel’s charter. Why is it important to get it into the core of the brand, rather than just developing a Green Team and letting them handle it?
LW: Sustainability has certainly been part of our goals at Intel for quite some time. A number of years ago, we embraced safety as part of the culture. We really thought about what it means for something like that to be ingrained into our culture. A big part of it is that permeation throughout an organization. Five years ago there were advocates for energy efficiency, but it kept becoming a trade-off in favor of other features. So we started to put bonus and compensation goals around products that achieved greater energy efficiency in order to drive the technology. Today we don’t have to do that. All of the project teams understand energy efficiency is as critical as performance, and that things like battery life are crucial to the consumers who buy our products. That one aspect has made its way into the mainstream and is a point of competitive advantage for us now. Likewise, there are aspects of sustainability that are permeating the company and society across the board, and there are others that require the attention of specialists.

GG: We often hear about the upfront costs of making capital investments in sustainability. But a trend in thinking that we’ve noticed taking shape—at the least from business leaders looking at the long-term viability of their organizations—is that sustainability can really help you make sound capital investments. That it can help your company survive harder economic times, but also that it will set you up for success when the economy hits its stride again. How has this broad focus on sustainability helped Intel develop products that sell in both high and low economic times?
LW: We’ve always had the philosophy that it’s important to keep investing through a downturn and that includes investing in continued improvements in our sustainability practices across the company. That mindset has worked out extremely well for Intel and become deeply ingrained in the corporate culture. I think the interesting thing about Intel, and more generally, about Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is that they can help us get to where we need to go faster. We need to drive greater use of ICT as we move into a carbon-constrained world. Everyone has views on if and/or when there will be a price put on carbon output. But the reality is that we are quickly moving towards a world where if there isn’t an explicit price on carbon, there will still be significant limits in place via codes, etc. We have to prepare to compete in that world.

We believe very strongly that the adoption of ICT can play a huge role in helping us achieve those goals and studies show this to be true. We recently commissioned a study on digital music delivery. When people think about downloading music from iTunes, they aren’t necessarily thinking about the fact that they’re saving the planet in the process. But when you buy music on a CD, you make somewhere between 40-80 percent more impact on the planet—through raw materials and resource consumption, plus packaging and transportation impacts—than you would with a digital download. That includes the server and communications infrastructure that is required for digital downloads. And most industries have similar examples where converting atoms to bits can deliver significantly more value to their audience with less impact on the planet.

GG: Since we’re moving into a political cycle, there is a lot of talk about the politicizing of sustainability and climate change. In the midst of political stalemate on climate change, with no unforeseeable end in sight, how do you think the private sector can continue to make real progress on sustainability on its own? Can business drive a revolution in both technology and mindsets across America?
LW: When you get down to it, the private sector is in the business of serving shareholders as profitable enterprises. We are going to do things that uphold our profitability. But there are also tremendous business opportunities in sustainability. I think we will see more and more people looking for that win-win outcome—where a company makes a positive impact on the environment and a positive impact on revenue and profit at the same time. The enlightening thing for us has been to look at the world though an environmental lens. Yes, we want to grow revenue as a main tenant of our own sustainability as a company. But when you start to look at things this way, you discover new opportunities through creating solutions to environmental challenges with your technology or offering. And in that way, you can increase your positive impact on the world in a way that consumers appreciate, while still serving your shareholders simultaneously.

Lorie Wigle is the General Manager for Eco-Technology at Intel and President of Climate Savers Computing. Learn more from Lorie at GoGreen ’11 Portland, where she will give plenary remarks, October 4th. For more information on GoGreen ’11 Portland or to register, please visit: portland.gogreenconference.net. Get the latest GoGreen ’11 and sustainability news by joining our email list or via our Twitter feed (@GoGreenPDX) and Facebook Page (facebook.com/gogreenconference).

GoGreen Conference: Oregon is a pretty progressive state when it comes to environmental and social considerations. We’d like to know how you think business can best partner with the state legislature and representatives in government to continue the support for sustainability that we enjoy here?
Jules Bailey: One of the real advantages we have here in Oregon is that sustainability, especially as it relates to clean energy, has become a bi-partisan issue in our state. I think that’s evidence of a legacy of interest we’ve had in sustainability over the course of Oregon’s history and the leadership efforts we’ve made that are now nationally and internationally recognized.

In this last session, a bipartisan legislature came together to unanimously pass Governor Kitzhaber’s Cool Schools Initiative. We also came together to pass a reformed Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) and the Residential Energy Tax Credit. We preserved the core of programs and had representatives on both sides of the aisle saying we need to prioritize keeping these programs and making investments in clean energy—even if we’re not able to spend quite as much on them as we have in the past. I believe we have an opportunity to build on that bipartisan support and use the economic development benefits of clean energy as the gateway to a larger conversation of how we build better triple bottom line accountability.

GG: What role do you think government should play in creating this more supportive business environment that upholds not only profitability, but also takes into account people and planet (i.e., Triple Bottom Line focus)?
JB: There is a real opportunity for government in this arena. The private sector can take care of much of this, but the public sector can accelerate adoption. The public sector can help bridge information gaps and financing gaps. We can make sure that projects that could be viable in the long run are viable now. We really can’t wait. We can’t wait for the jobs or for the reduction in carbon. And this is where the public sector’s role as a facilitator and an accelerator can help us achieve goals and set standards.

GG: Oregon is ahead of the curve on sustainability compared to most places, but nobody’s perfect. Are there areas where the state is lacking in terms of supporting sustainability? And if so, how are you working with your fellow elected officials to develop and implement solutions?
JB: I think there is a real need for Oregon to evolve out of this desynchronized, uncoordinated approach of doing innovative one-off programs. The hard conversation that we need to have is around how we coordinate all these efforts into a comprehensive strategy. That’s really what the Governor’s 10-year Energy Plan is about.

We need to plant a flag and make a statement about where we’re going in this state. We need to say what that means for both the private and the public sectors and show how we’re going to get agencies to align to that plan so the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. It’s basic coordination.

We also need to start thinking about our transportation system as part of our energy system and bring all of the pieces together. How do we identify future projects? How do we get transmission capacity to those projects? How do we streamline and eliminate waste? How do we provide the financing structures? All of that depends on us figuring things out and what the mix will look like in the next 10 years. Because if we don’t start doing this now, we’re never going to get there.

The other great opportunity we have is our huge potential in energy efficiency savings. We’ve made some initial efforts on that with the Clean Energy Works Oregon and the Cool Schools efforts, but there is far more opportunity there. And I think we have a chance to do some major economic development at the same time we’re making our economy and buildings more efficient.

GG: You mentioned that Oregon enjoys bipartisan support on sustainability—especially on the Governor’s Cool Schools Initiative. That’s a rare thing on any issue that involves government. How do our legislatures accomplish this while others are in gridlock? What is the Oregon difference?
JB: I think both parties have a bit of a ‘show me attitude’ when it comes to sustainability here, which is a good thing. Both sides want to make sure jobs are part of our goals and both sides want to see job creation benefits. We want to see projects that are actually advancing technology and enhancing quality of life for the next generation. The more we have a shared experience in getting programs off the ground, getting things built and demonstrating higher performance—the more we’re able to find tangible things we can uphold as neither Republican nor Democratic, but rather, that are just good projects for the community that we can all agree on.

GG: Given that the conversation on sustainability is often framed as a partisan or political issue, do you believe our success in Oregon in upholding environmental stewardship in a bi-partisan way is proving that’s not true?
JB: Absolutely. I don’t think there’s any reason why this needs to be a partisan issue. Unfortunately, the debate around the science of climate change has become a very partisan issue. I don’t think it’s safe right now for some to even join the dialogue about the carbon and climate issues, because of that. But everyone can talk about jobs. To the extent that we’re talking about jobs, sustainable and successful long-term businesses, renewable sources of energy and the national security aspect of transitioning to a clean energy economy, I don’t think there’s anything partisan in any of that. And it just so happens that Oregon is a state with enormous renewable energy resources in both urban and rural communities.

GG: You’ve already mentioned that sustainability has evolved into this idea of a Triple Bottom Line, which includes people, planet and profit. How do you think government can support equity and diversity without overreaching? Are there any examples of Oregon’s leadership on this topic that businesses in the state should know about, and take advantage of, when working to implement equity and diversity strategies?
JB: Energy efficiency is one area where we have a really good story to tell in that one of the key parts about energy efficiency is that you need to have the job done right the first time—every time—in order to realize the savings that are the basis of the financing. That makes it crucial to ensure you a have highly skilled and qualified workforce doing the job. And that means, essentially, you get what you pay for.

We’ve been able to advance opportunities to do that through Clean Energy Works Oregon Community Workforce Agreement. We have a worker-training pipeline, with labor standards and diversity standards to ensure we’re developing a broad range of the best contractors available. The feedback we’ve received so far from the residential participants—over 500 of them already—is that people have been extremely happy with the contractors and experienced very few issues with quality. So we’re delivering better quality and better energy performance by delivering on equity as well.

GG: What are some incentives Oregon offers businesses that want to become greener? Programs that can help companies take on bigger or faster investments then they would be able to if they were putting up the full investment themselves?
JB: We have a number of things in Oregon—the Residential Energy Tax Credit and Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) are two big ones—both of which provide low cost incentives for adopting energy efficiency and clean energy. The way they’re structured, they push the market towards higher standards, just not a baseline. We also have financing programs like Clean Energy Works Oregon, which grew out of the City of Portland’s model, and the Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology Act, which provides very low cost upfront loans to owners to install solar devices on residences and businesses. So we’ve got a whole suite of different programs that provide a lot of tools for residences and small businesses to access energy efficiency and clean energy. The trick now is to take each of those tools, build them to the next level and work to combine their effects.

Jules Bailey is the Representative for Oregon House District 42 (Southeast Portland). Learn more from Rep. Bailey at GoGreen ’11 Portland, where he will moderate the panel on 2011 Energy Innovators: Changing the Business Landscape, October 4th. For more information on GoGreen ’11 Portland or to register, please visit: portland.gogreenconference.net. Get the latest GoGreen ’11 and sustainability news by joining our email list or via our Twitter feed (@GoGreenPDX) and Facebook Page (facebook.com/gogreenconference).