Becoming Green at Oregon

Businesses can now take a 10 week course on becoming green and lowering their carbon footprint. Course is offered at the University of Oregon. See article here from The Register Guard.

Food miles and cheap food

It may be snowing at my house today, but I am thinking about Spring. Specifically the garden. For the past four or five years we've grown our own vegetables and fruit in our vegetable garden. This started when my wife was pregnant with our first kid. My plan then was to provide a lot of organic veggies on the cheap. It ended up working very well. In the ensuing years I've learned a number of tricks about what to grow and how to grow it. I've learned that we'll pretty much eat as much lettuce as we can produce, as long as there is some variety. And My wife and kids can not have too many strawberries. I'm proud that my kids help in the garden and will even eat raw broccoli straight from the plant, hands free.

The last year or two I've been becoming more concerned with our impact on the environment. The side benefit to this garden is the reduced food miles we enjoy all summer long. For four or five months a year we deal in food feet, which, on an annualized basis makes a difference. And for this our trade off is fresher, healthier food. Now if we could figure out how to lengthen the growing season when it snows in March.

Wasteful Practices

UO Catering business is far from sustainble, just fyi. Maybe they do a few things, but it's far from effective. The amount of potentially compostable food that is thrown in the trash, the pounds of saran wrap that wrap everything that goes out of the kitchen, and the tremendous amounts of Sysco products that are shipped in from far away, the "compostable" products which are thrown in the trash (which doesn't mean it composts!), excess hot water usage, lights left on all the time, etc etc. all drove me insane when I was working there.
Just keepin' it real.
K

Sustainable Business Practice

Hey, Paul and Show Me Your Green Team! Great site and informative content.

I wanted to add my thoughts. I've committed to sustainable living in mypersonal life, but my bigger contribution is greening my company'spractices. We've won several community and sustainability awards for ourprogressive business values...and I'm pretty sure we'll win Best Company toWork For in Oregon (Oregon Business Magazine) when the awards are announced2/26/09. Our green policies are a huge part of building our companyculture, supporting volunteership, and promoting responsible practices tothe business community. Here's the link to our Green info:http://www.rosecitymtg.com/culture/ . I've also attached ourspread-the-green-word insert that we include in clients' loan packages, sothey can see that we care (and maybe get inspired for sustainable stuff theycan do).

Thanks for getting the word out! Hopefully the green movement will get soentrenched with companies' daily business practices that it won't fade likeother PR fads. It seems like being sustainable is becoming a fundamentalbusiness practice: both for the balance sheet and for customer confidence.

JJ

Jennifer "JJ" Lee Kwai

Rose City Mortgage Specialists 10737 SW Inverness Ct, Portland, OR 97219

503.768.4248 (Office) 503.768.4210 (Fax)

RoseCity Mortgage Specialists Has Been Awarded: 100 Best Companies in Oregon,BBB Small Business of the Year, 10 Most Dependable Mortgage Brokers

how we walk our GREEN talk:
We recycle everything. We offset our carbon consumption with the purchase of green tags. We clean our office with non-toxic cleaning products. We support local business and the environment by purchasing locally. Our office supplies are recycled and printed with soy inks. Loan files are handled electronically to reduce paper consumption. We work with a green Escrow Company, Appraiser and Realtors.
We donate back to the community with each loan we close – over $100,000 so far.
˛¸
www.rosecitymtg.com