Citations based on public vote

by Christopher Key

Since the program began in 1998, more than 500 local firms have taken the Whatcom Watersheds Business Pledge. It’s designed to help businesses protect water quality and reduce solid and hazardous wastes. Those who take the pledge receive a wall plaque and information about waste and storm water management. Benefits include discounts for hazardous waste disposal and a buying club for recycled office supplies. And, of course, there’s the media exposure.

Derek Long is program director of Sustainable Connections, one of the organizational forces behind the pledge, along with the City of Bellingham, the Department of Ecology and RE Sources.

“We have been experimenting with ways to help those businesses that are going the extra mile,” he said. “We want to give them recognition. These may not necessarily be the greenest businesses, but ones making significant progress. This helps supplement and reinforce the pledge program.”

Just after election day, Sustainable Connections ran its own ballots in several area newspapers. The idea was to give the public a chance to appreciate the businesses that are doing the most for the environment. Close to four hundred ballots were returned.

May I have the envelope, please?

The winners are the Community Food Coop and the RE Store. The Coop got one vote more than the RE Store.

“It’s really a lot more than just a beauty contest,” Long said. “The Coop has been doing this so long that it has become part of their culture. The RE Store diverts an incredible amount of construction material this might otherwise end up in a landfill. Bellingham is very conscious of environmental issues. Even those not identified as green business owners are eager for information. We want to support them every way we can. The bottom line is that it pays to be sustainable.”

The Community Food Coop began in 1971 as a small buying club formed by people who were dissatisfied with the political and corporate attitudes of the time. Essentially, they were conducting a social experiment in collective management. There is a long history of such experiments dating back to the mid 1800s. Ginger Oppenheimer is membership/marketing manager of the Coop.

“The way of doing business was the goal,” she said. “Food – any kind of natural, whole or organic food – was the method of delivery.”

They renovated an old building in Fairhaven and called it the Good Earth Building. There were eight items on the shelves: cornmeal, bread, honey, flour, rolled wheat, rice, wheat germ and granola, all purchased through the new Puget Consumers Coop in Seattle.

By 1981, the demand for natural food was such that the Coop was forced out of their original 900 square foot space into a 5,500 square foot space on North State Street.

“During the 13 years that the Coop occupied that space, membership rose from 200 to about 2,500,” Oppenheimer said. “Product selection moved from ‘pure’ products to more controversial items such as beer and wine. Demand for more selection and quality of good began to define the store’s core products.”

The Coop moved into its current headquarters at the corner of Forest and Holly in 1994.

“Floor space tripled, product selection grew to 20,000 items and there are now more than 8,500 members,” Oppenheimer said. “That doesn’t include non-members, who are also welcome to shop here.”

Unlike many such businesses, the Coop has never lost sight of its foundation as a cooperatively run business. Once again, it is experiencing growing pains.

“This time, rather than moving or expanding the current store, members voted to open a second store,” Oppenheimer said. “The location has not been secured yet, but it will be on the north side of Bellingham to serve the growing population there and the needs of members in the north county.”

The Coop was an early signer of the watershed pledge.

“To be a responsible community member is easy; it’s a no brainer,” Oppenheimer said. “If you believe in the community, you want to make a positive impact. The pledge makes it easy, but we do it because it’s right. This poll simply motivates us to find more ways to make a difference.”

The RE Store just celebrated its tenth anniversary, having been founded in 1993. It is a project of RE Sources, which also started Bellingham Community Recycling. Carl Weimer is executive director of the parent organization.

“We set up the recycling as a pilot project and it was so successful that it went city wide in the 1980s and eventually Sanitary Services had to take it over,” Weimer said.

They conducted some garbological research at the dump to see what people were tossing out.

“It was absolutely amazing how much building material people were throwing away,” Weimer said.

With a $30,000 start up grant from the county, the organization started the RE Store to recycle that used building material.

“It was a leap of faith for a nonprofit to go into retail, but we knew we could fill up our space,” Weimer said.

That first space was on Guide Meridian and it was sufficient for five years when the RE Store moved to its current location on Holly Street.

“Contractors know that we will work with them to save them time and money,” Weimer said. “Word of mouth was such that we were getting calls from all over Puget Sound. We were so overwhelmed with stuff that we had to open a second store in Seattle.”

Thirty to forty percent of what goes into landfills is construction waste.

“We diverted 2,000 tons of materials from landfills last year,” Weimer said. “We’re turning garbage into jobs and taxes.”

He is a little surprised that the RE Store finished a very close second in the poll.

“A very small percentage of the people who shop here do so because of environmental concerns,” Weimer said. “In order to survive, we have to appeal to a much wider audience.”

As with the Coop, sustainable practices are part of the culture at the RE Store.

“It’s not difficult,” Weimer said. “It’s the way we did things from the beginning. Other businesses had to work a lot harder.”

Some of those businesses earned honorable mention in the poll:

• Whatcom Humane Society;
• Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association;
• Sustainable Connections;
• Les Schwab Tire Stores;
• A-1 Builders;
• Cost Cutter;
• Everybody's Store;
• Terra Organica;
• The Bellingham Herald;
• Quicksilver Photo Lab;
• Northwest Recycling;
• Stockton's Paints;
• Kulshan Cycles;
• Jody Bergsma Gallery;
• Pepper Sisters;
• Old Town Cafe;
• Boundary Bay Brewery;
• The Bagelry.

For more information check out http://www.watershedpledge.org/pledges/bizpledge.htm