Works program teaches to be in it for long haul
By Daily Press staff
MAIN STREET — Local residents and business leaders were honored Friday night for their respective contributions in making Santa Monica a sustainable community over the past decade.
The Sustainable Leadership Awards are part of 10Fest, a week-long celebration commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the Sustainable City Plan, a long-range planning policy adopted by the city. The plan is designed to strive for environmental, social and economic sustainability in Santa Monica.
“Sustainability is ensuring that future generations have the same access to resources and opportunities that we do today,” said city spokesperson Michelle Pettit. “It’s keeping an eye on what we’re using and consuming, and making sure that we’re not using more than our fair share.”
Many business organizations have been working with Sustainable Works of Santa Monica, a non-profit organization that offers special programs that show individuals and businesses how they can adopt sustainable practices that improve quality of life, reduce impacts on the environment and reduce costs.
Representatives from Sustainable Works did an initial survey of the business and offered ideas for improvements.
“When they (Sustainable Works) came to us, the timing was good because on our own we’ve been doing stuff like using separate trash receptacles where employees eat, recycle to lowering electrical needs by using alternative bulbs in the store, watch our water usage,” said Todd Roberts of ZJ Boarding House.
“We took very seriously every suggestion.”
The award ceremony was staged Friday evening at Patagonia, which cleared out retail space to host the fete. Close to 100 community members were on hand, eager to recognize their peers’ substantial and sustainable efforts.
The Sustainable Leadership Award honorees include: Outstanding Individual: Mark Gold. As chair of Santa Monica’s Task Force on the Environment since its creation in 1991, Gold could be called the father of sustainability in Santa Monica. Under his stewardship, the Task Force was the driving force behind development of the Sustainable City Plan in the early 1990s.
Outstanding Non-Profit Organization: Step Up On Second.
Step Up is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping individuals with severe mental illness reintegrate themselves back into the community. According to CEO Tod Lipka, the organization improved recycling, not only paper, but food waste that goes into compost.
“They helped us set up recycling of food waste since we have an industrial food kitchen that serves about 40,000. They also helped set up a food waste recycling program, provided bins for paper, low energy bulbs and helped move us away from using water to clean the sidewalk.
“We shut down unneeded lights, and printing double-sided wherever we could, on recycled paper, using soy ink.”
Outstanding Business Association: Main Street Business Improvement Association.
Main Street is home to the highest concentration of sustainably-managed businesses in Santa Monica. The Main Street Merchants Association, chaired by Library Alehouse owner David Lackman, has sought to improve awareness through environmental-friendly practices.
“We’ve been working closely with the Sustainable Works department, and we have a lot of businesses on the street that have won their own environmental quality awards in conservation efforts,” said Gary Gordon, executive director of the Merchants Association.
“What we’ve done is been supportive of the efforts, in trying to get the word out and participate,” he said. “It is really the individual businesses that step forward. We think there is a general consciousness on Main Street to do this kind of thing.”
Outstanding Institutional Program: SMMUSD Farmers’ Market Salad Bar/School Garden Program In 1995, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) partnered with the city to create an award-winning school gardening program that resulted in the creation of organic vegetable gardens at all of the Santa Monica public schools. In 1997, the program was expanded to create the Farmers’ Market Salad Bar program.
Outstanding Green Building: Natural Resources Defense Council Robert Redford Building.
The Robert Redford Building, NRDC’s new headquarters at 1314 Second Street, has been called the greenest building in the country. The NRDC took advantage of existing space rather than build a new structure, and redesigned the building to conserve water and energy using environmentally sound materials. The facility includes showers and bike racks, so employees don’t have to drive to work.
Other features include: dual-flush toilets that use only as much water as needed, light-colored roofing (including solar panels), shade-bearing plants to keep the amount of heat generated low, reclaimed water from showers and sinks that goes to landscaping and toilets, and an air-conditioning system that uses displacement ventilation.
Receiving sustainable business excellence awards for their leadership for promoting sustainability in the business community were: American Red Cross, Cleaner By Nature, Co-Opportunity, Duvivier Arch-itects, Hines Lantana, Library Alehouse, New Directions, Patagonia, Sanford-Papermate, Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, Syndesis, The Real Earth Envir-onmental Company and ZJ Boarding House.
“It was a multi-phased project, said Roberts of ZJ Boarding House, which received a sustainable excellence award.
“We now have motion sensors that light up rooms only when you’re in them in the bathrooms, offices, common hallways,” he said. “We put stickers to remind customers to turn switches off. We have ‘recycling champions’ employees that go through the bins to make sure they are correctly sorted.
“I found most of our staff is pretty motivated.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 2, 2004. Read the original PDF.