Conscious Choice: Chicago’s Green Business Strategy

Choice 3: Green Drinks

Chicagoans sure like to drink, or so said the Federal Government last month when they named us the “Number one binge-drinking city” in the nation. Well, this is the city of a thousand bars, but not always the city of a thousand choices. If you live healthy and go organic, what drink choices do you have when you go out? Well, have no fear. Here are three organic selections that you can find at places like the Funky Buddha. Come sample them at one ofConscious Choice’s Green Train parties.

Frey Vineyards is a California-based Organic and Biodynamic vineyard. Biodynamic methods of food production seek to minimize damage to ecosystems. At Frey Vineyards, cows and sheep and chickens graze throughout the vineyard rows. They also grow their own herbs and encourage a diversity of plants to grow in buffer zones around their vineyard plots.

March 2007 | Ask the Green Commish

Chicago’s Green Business Strategy

by Sadhu A. Johnston

The City of Chicago has one of the most vibrant and diverse economies of any major city in the United States. We are known as a center of global commerce, finance and good old-fashioned business ingenuity. But we are also increasingly becoming known as a center of environmental innovation. In Chicago, environmental protection and economic development go hand-in-hand.

This unique convergence couldn’t have come at a better time. You can’t open the business section of any major daily newspaper these days without finding an article on sustainability, renewable energy, climate change or a story about how the considerable power of global markets is developing innovative business models to address the major environmental issues we face. The environmental community and the business community are no longer sworn enemies—they are increasingly becoming partners. They have recognized that the environmental challenges and crises we face are often opportunities for business innovation that can improve the environment while strengthening and diversifying the economy.

Mayor Daley recently challenged us to develop a strategy to integrate these two fundamental Chicago capabilities. The result: Phase One of Chicago’s “Green Business Strategy.”

The City is already engaged in several initiatives that support the development of green business. The Department of Construction and Permits’ Green Permitting program has issued 104 permits since its inception in June, 2005, drastically reducing the time it takes to begin construction and waiving developer fees for projects that can prove they are efficient, high performing green buildings. The Department of Planning and Development requires green roofs or other green measures for any large development built within the city limits that receives City funds. We are working with the City’s museums to green their operations, and are helping the Museum of Contemporary Art install wind turbines on its roof. We have granted hundreds of solar hot water panels to local businesses that use large amounts of water such as laundromats and gyms, drastically reducing their costs.

We felt, however, that we needed a better strategy to engage the business community in our efforts to bring lasting change to the region. As with most of our work, we began by reaching out to our partners. Last summer we asked the Foresight Design Initiative, promoters of the Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance and Green Drinks, to survey green business programs nationwide and develop a comprehensive report of some of the best practices across the nation.

We then partnered with the Civic Consulting Alliance and Bain and Company, a global strategy firm, to ask two primary questions: which business sectors leave the largest environmental footprint; and which environmental issues have the most potential to affect a business’ bottom line? The two sectors that most fit the bill were commercial office space and the industrial sector. Energy and waste disposal continue to be high-cost items for many of the businesses in these two sectors. Commercial office space uses approximately one-third of the energy consumed in Chicago, while the manufacturing base uses another one-fourth of that energy. Business as a whole, excluding construction and demolition debris, accounts for just under a one-third of the municipal solid waste generated in the City.

These and other projects, like the Waste to Profit Network, are only the beginning of our efforts. The solutions to our pressing environmental problems will have to emerge from public-private partnerships that involve all Chicagoans, whether as environmentalists, entrepreneurs, residents, employees or employers.

I will keep you updated, in this column, of our progress toward expanding our reputation as a center for environmental and business innovation.

Sadhu A. Johnston is commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Environment.

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