A little goes a long way

With more and more communities looking to eliminate gas-powered equipment, along with drought and water conservation efforts becoming more commonplace, green industry companies across the country are being forced to look into more sustainable practices.

But, it doesn’t have to be such a dramatic change to a company. That’s what Bob Grover, president of Pacific Landscape Management, and Jeff Rossen, founder of Rossen Landscape, said when they discussed sustainability at NALP’s annual Leaders Forum held recently in Maui, Hawaii.

The pair both agreed that slow, thorough, sustainable changes now can keep a company from being overwhelmed when these environmental measures become more mandated.

Grover recognizes that while landscaping companies can do a lot of good for the communities they serve, it’s irresponsible to think they have no impact on the environment.

“Sustainability has been a bigger issue in Oregon, and the West Coast in general, a lot longer,” he said. “In reality, a lot of the things we do in our business have some negative impact on the environment.”

Grover said for years now, Pacific Landscape Management has been looking to make small changes to lessen it’s carbon footprint and help be good stewards of the environment.

“At first I thought all this was going to cost more, so I asked customers to pay 5% more,” Grover said. “But then they wanted to know what we can do without costing them more.”

That’s when Grover started to look inside at what the company was doing and what could be curbed.

“We took a look at the products we used… are there ones we can use less of? And we looked at our fleet and tried to reduce the amount of fuel we were using,” he said. “We also looked at water conservation and started to use less water. It’s really been a mission.”

Now, the company is focused on upgrading irrigation systems, weather-based irrigation, pressure regulation, drip irrigation, hydro-zoning and other sustainable practices.

“You need to start doing something,” Grover said. “Just do something a little bit better every year.”

He added that he knows for most companies making the switch to 100% organic or completely battery-powered isn’t feasible and unrealistic. Instead, he said don’t have that all or nothing approach just find avenues to make small changes that add value.

“Water conservation, I think, is where we’ve made the most in-roads,” he said. “For us, finding places where we can attach a sustainable mission and find people a way to save money is great. Half of our water conservation work is looking, evaluating and changing the landscape.”