Kermit Said It So Well
Kermit Said It So Well
June 17, 2011 by Taylor Studios
Welcome to our latest blog series, Being Green. Our Green Czar, Ryan Burkhalter, will be writing on all things green every other Friday. If you have a question for him, please post it in the Comments section below.
Trying to be a Green business seems to be a world away from being Green in your personal life. A business has to stay profitable, please its customers, and produce a quality product (not necessarily in that order). Any changes have to be weighed against the costs they may incur, but change is always part of business.
Because Taylor Studios specialized for a long time in doing exhibits at nature centers, we started out aware of our culture’s impact on the environment. We made exhibits about it constantly. Betty loves to be outdoors and finds the natural world very inspiring, so she saw the value in being Green long before it was in the headlines. Taylor Studios has recycled for years, and while we still have ways to go, we have made it easy for staff to recycle. Our staff car is a Toyota Prius, and it gets a lot of use. We moved our fabrication department into a former Walmart instead of building a new shop. Our heart is in the right place.
Now we are taking it to the next level, and we’re getting help. As with any big change, it’s good to have a plan. In this case, the plan is provided by the Illinois Green Business Association, a non-profit organization that is helping businesses in Illinois make decisions that lessen their impact on the environment. They looked at everything, from how we water our lawns (we don’t), to what cleaners we use in our offices, and how many people have personal heaters (let’s not go there…). In the coming months, I will be working on a long list of new policies to both formalize what we already do and start Greening every inch of Taylor Studios. How much will it cost? How much time will it take? Can we walk the walk? I’ll keep you posted.