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Where Green & Sustainable Meet :: by Jennifer Duffield White
Published:11/1/2007
(from the November 2007 issue of GrowerTalks magazine)
"We feel the sense urgency." This is the phrase I hear uttered several times one morning in September while standing in the office of In Harmony, a sustainable landscape care company in the Seattle area.
It's Ladd Smith's way of saying that business is booming—more and more homeowners want greener solutions such as compost tea treatments on their lawns. With nearly 2,000 clients, they're feeling the pressure to expand.
In fact, there isn't a single industry out there that isn't feeling this sense of urgency.
What is it?
The buzz word is sustainability.
Skeptics might call it a fad. And certainly, we can't deny that it is trendy to market products as "environmentally friendly" right now.
But what is it that made Ball Publishing concur with a number of folks who say this is not a fad? What made us decide that this was a topic that needed more than an article a month in the magazine? That it needed it's own e-newsletter: GreenTalks (CLICK HERE to subscribe now, for FREE).
Part of it, of course, is the undercurrent of urgency we sense as growers and retailers talk about the issue.
You might say that America is growing an environmental conscious—that we are reconnecting to idea that we need nature—its health and its resources—to exist. But with or without "trendy" products and famous stars to make it acceptable, sustainability is here to stay.
Why? As Anna Ball outlined during a panel discussion at the OFA Short Course in July: Our industry uses three major resources: water, energy and plastics (with petroleum origins) to produce our products.
Those are three resources in high demand, that can make or break your bottom line in regards to their availability and pricing. Their supply is not infinite. Efficiency and alternative technologies become essential. Sustainability becomes essential.
During a breakfast session at The Greenhouse Experience in September, BASF's Steve Larson pointed out that his company pursues sustainability for three reasons: 1. environmental performance, 2. improved profit (cost savings), and 3. for competitive advantage. And to illustrate his point, he emphasized that in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the companies who have embraced sustainability are having better business results than those who have not embraced the concept.
Sustainability: the definition
You were hoping for "a" definition? Sorry. There are dozens of interpretations. However, the one most cited—often touted as the definition that will have staying power—is attributed to a United Nations committee, the Brundtland Commission, assigned to address the problem of the degradation of the human environment and natural resources:
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Some will argue that it's not possible to calculate or ensure infinite sustainability in this sense. That's not to say, though, that you should throw your arms up and declare the idea a farce. For many, the sustainability revolution is not about becoming 100% sustainable by a strict definition; it is about becoming "more sustainable," moving in that direction—a process of constant improvement. While some definitions are more human centric than others, in the middle is the idea that sustainability is about protecting both the well-being of humans and the well-being of the ecosystem. (And given how interdependent the two are, it makes sense to protect both, right?)
How does horticulture fit into this? Sustainable agriculture, as defined by the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (www.attra.org), breaks it down into three guiding principles:
1. Environmental stewardship
2. Farm profitability
3. A prosperous farming community
That means you make decisions that are smart for the environment, for your business, and for the people who work for you (or in your industry) and who live in your community.
It's the thought that counts?
How do we approach sustainability when we don't even have an agreed-upon definition for the word? I'm going to argue, right now, that you probably already have the critical thinking tools to absorb this notion of sustainability.
You grow plants in your own mini environment, tinkering with water, nutrients, light, temperature, and chemicals. You run into unanticipated impacts. You have to think in terms of how the whole system functions. Your space, your labor resources, and your finances all impose limits on how you grow and how much you grow. Daily, you make growing decisions that require critical thinking in gray areas. You run, in essence, a fabricated ecological system.
When it comes to implementing sustainable practices in your business, it's also a systems approach. Except it's bigger, and more complicated than the greenhouse environment. It's not just about production practices; it's about your structures, energy efficiency, water use, the inputs you choose to buy, the way you build, the way you ship, and how your products impact the world.
The good news is that you're probably already doing a lot of things that have already put you on the path to sustainability—practical things that are easy to implement or just plain common sense for any grower who wants to run an efficient greenhouse. The flip side is that no one is all the way there; it is a series of innovations and steps in the right direction.
That's why we've started GreenTalks, to help you make sustainability a part of your everyday thought process.
I'm not done yet
I have one other point I want to offer, before we embark on this sustainability journey with GreenTalks: It is another reason why it's so important for individuals in this industry to practice sustainability.
If, as Andres Edwards suggests in The Sustainability Revolution, "the foundation of modern sustainability lies in the human connection with nature," it is urban horticulture and urban landscapes that will offer the greatest day-to-day visual interaction with a "greener" community. It is the trees, the grass, the flowers, and the community gardens that will be the biggest reminder of that connection. Children will learn the cyclical nature of this world through lessons of photosynthesis, composting, and recycling. Plants will be at the center of this greener consciousness.
If we, as an industry, are to represent the living, breathing world of plants in cities of concrete, if we are to give people that connection to nature, then we are obligated, also, to ensure that our businesses and growing practices function with responsibility towards the ecological systems and human communities we strive to represent, protect, and enhance. To do anything less would be hypocritical.
In my admittedly altruistic opinion, this is the ultimate argument why horticulture should embrace the notion of sustainability. It's all very well that it makes business sense and that it is becoming a necessary component of business transactions. But, to steal from Michael Pollan's Second Nature: we need gardens to teach us how to use nature without damaging it.
We need to be part of the solution, not a problem. --Jennifer Duffield White
Coming this November …
GrowerTalks launches a brand new e-newsletter dedicated to all things sustainable: GREENTALKS.
Stay connected to ideas, trends, and growing how-to's for the eco-minded business with GreenTalks, a new e-newsletter from Ball Publishing. GreenTalks is your source of information and commentary on everything sustainable for the original "green industry," from growing practices to business decisions, retailing strategies and consumer trends.
SUBSCRIBE NOW: CLICK HERE
GreenTalks is free and will be delivered to your e-mail inbox twice each month. And the best part is that it's environmentally friendly: no paper, no transportation fuel. Don't miss out on this opportunity to see how other growers and retailers are approaching sustainability, to learn from other industries, and to develop a more thorough overview of how you can make it work for your own business.
GreenTalks will be authored by GrowerTalks Editor-at-Large Jennifer Duffield White. Jennifer grew up working in her family's wholesale/retail greenhouse and earned her bachelor's degree from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, with a double major in writing and environmental studies. While at St. Lawrence, which has the oldest environmental studies program in the nation, Jennifer concentrated on the history and varying schools of environmental thought/theory, along with pursuing studies and writing on the effects that landscapes have on individuals and their psyches. She then followed three prior generations of Whites into the horticulture industry, beginning her career as an editor at GrowerTalks in 1999. Throughout the years, Jennifer has been a passionate advocate for the benefits of plants, and she is equally dedicated to bringing a sustainable viewpoint to the table that's both practical and forward-thinking.