Buying Locally made goods the goal of new group

By: Vanessa Blackburn

Sustainable Connections hopes to foster increased knowledge of sustainable economies and environmentally friendly business

When Rick Dubrow and Michelle Long met this past fall at a state conference on sustainable economies, they realized they had a similar vision – they saw the connection between promoting local businesses and environmentally friendly business practices, and they thought the time was right to help others who felt the same way.

When they came back to Bellingham, they began working on Sustainable Connections, a network of Northwest Washington businesses and individuals who believe in supporting local businesses and the environment.

“It’s a diverse mix of people with conscious goals to work toward quality of life here,” said Long, the Coordinator for Sustainable Connections.  “Our area can be a model for the rest of the country because of the people here and the assets we have: natural beauty and resources, a university, a strong group of small and medium-sized local businesses.  It’s a great base for something like this.”

The two got together with a few other Whatcom County community members and organized Sustainable Connection’s first public forum on April 9th at the Bellingham Cruise Terminal.  More than 100 businesses and individuals attended the event, and by the end of the meeting, almost half of them were signed up as members.

Long, who moved to Bellingham a few years ago and has owned businesses in the Seattle area, said she has worked for years to help companies and individuals learn how to make meaningful changes in their lives, their communities and their business practices.

“We’re facing issues that are so big they almost seem omnipotent,” Long said.  “When you hear about sweatshops in other countries or the destruction of the rainforest, it’s hard to feel like you can do anything about it.  But here, in our own communities, we face some of these same issues, like decreasing wages, the loss of farm land, and development encroaching on endangered species.  Through organizing and sharing ideas and helping one another, we can do something about it by approaching these issues in a positive way.”

Reaching out to consumers

Part of the group’s mission is to do educational outreach on how doing business with locally owned companies benefits the entire community.  Buying locally grown food helps Whatcom County farms, for example, and this keeps money in the local economy and supports business owners who are personally invested in the community.

“Small and mid-sized businesses tend to have local owners who have families and houses here and they are concerned with the parks down the street and where their kids got to school.  This creates a real sense of community ownership by local business owners,” she said.  “At the same time, it’s harder for small businesses to compete, but communities need these businesses to thrive.”

Long said most businesses want to do something to support each other, and one way is to buy from each other and create a mentoring system.  Business owners who are involved with the organization receive peer support on how to support other local companies and have more environmentally sound business practices.

Members will also eventually receive decals that they can put in their businesses or a logo for use in advertising.  This will help consumers identify which businesses are members of Sustainable Connections.

“Many business owners are interested in connecting their actions to their values, and they need some degree of recognition from the public for that,” she said.  “The idea is that when we wear our consumer hats, we will choose them. It’s important for me to know what the businesses I support are doing, and this is a way to do that.”

Sustainable Connections also aims to help remove obstacles businesses may face in easily implementing these sustainable ideas, said Dubrow, owner of A-1 Builders.  Businesses will be able to join together to buy recycled paper, for example, which may be more expensive to buy as an individual company, but the costs are greatly reduced when the product is bought in bulk.

Encouraging Change

Dubrow said members of the group have discussed what they would do if a company that has questionable past environmental practices wanted to join the organization.  The group decided as long as the business made a pledge to reach for more sustainable business practices, it should be encouraged to become part of the organization.

“If a person or business is willing to embrace sustainable ideas, we want to support that because that means they’re heading in the right direction,” he said.  “It’s not so much where we are that’s important, but where we’re going.”

Long said all businesses are encouraged to join the organization, even if they have made mistakes in the past.

“Most people want to do the best thing for the community,” she said.  “We don’t want companies to come in and ‘green wash’ themselves by claiming to have environmentally friendly businesses practices, but we don’t think that will happened. If it does, we’ll deal with it as a group when the issue comes up.”

The time is right

Dubrow said there was a similar attempt to form a Sustainable Connections group several years, ago, but there didn’t seem to be enough momentum behind it to keep the group going.  This meeting in early April seemed to show that the time is finally right.

“I think people are pretty fed up with what growth is doing to this community,” he said.  “They’re watching their quality of life disappear, and you hear people say that growth is inevitable, but I think it’s only inevitable if you let it be.”

Dubrow said what he hopes to see happen is the creation of an “emergent culture,” where people recognize the importance of supporting small local companies instead of large corporate chains.

“The concept I keep hearing is that it’s probably better to spend time to birth from within – rather than try to change some of these huge chain stores we should be helping smaller companies that offer something different,” he said.

The phenomenon of business and community members joining together to create group s like Sustainable Connections is happening all over the country through the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, Dubrow said.  This area is particularly suited to this type of organization however.

“We’re known in the Fourth Corner for being innovative, and if it’s going to happen anywhere, it’ll be here,” he said.  “People here want to have some more control over what is happening in our community.”

Working from within

One of the challenges with trying to make change is working with city and county laws and codes to try to modify the way the community grows.  One way to decrease the impervious surfaces in town, for example, which would decrease water runoff and related wastewater problems is to have sidewalks down only one side of the street in new developments, Dubrow said, but this can be difficult because it’s contrary to some city codes.

“We’re talking about removing barriers, because you might have an innovative idea but you can’t get a permit because of a law that was passed more than 25 years ago,” he said.  “These obstacles need to be dealt with.”

Sustainable Connections member Cindi Landreth said one of her challenges as a residential designer is in her industry she is often confronted with values that don’t match her own.  Through her work, however, she is able to specify which materials are used when building a home she has designed, and she tries to work with general contractors and engineers who support and practice “green “ building and local sourcing.

But her support of the local environment and economy doesn’t stop there.  She said she also tries to act out her values as a consumer as well.  “As a homeowner and mom, I make choices about cleaners, where and what to buy for groceries, where to go out to lunch, where to get my car repaired – I want to be able to identify and support those who work hard at tending to their values by putting them into action,” Landreth said.

As a member of Sustainable Connections, she is hoping this will be easier for all community members who have similar concerns.  “That’s what Sustainable Connections is all about – collaboration, communication, putting your values into action and voting with your actions and your dollars,” she said.