Open Letter To Business Leaders

The public is increasingly aware about environmental impacts and sustainable practices. Many companies recognized this trend and implemented “green” programs. Some of these initiatives are natural, logical progressions for the company’s line of work:

Railroads, such as Union Pacific and CSX, promote fuel-efficient freight transport and energy conservation.
Energy producers—from traditionally fossil-fuel giant Chevron to newer and smaller alternative energy startup companies—advance renewable energy technologies.
Beverage company Coca Cola is involved in many environmental aspects, from clean water to sustainable sugarcane harvests, joining together with the World Wildlife Fund to achieve its goals.

Biotech leader New England Biolabs (NEB) continuously strives to reduce its footprint, ranging from recycle programs to constructing an energy-efficient building. Promega Corporation, another innovative biotech company, shares some of NEB’s green approaches. Additionally, Promega engages in habitat restoration, such as landscaping over 25 acres of its Madison, Wisconsin headquarters’ property into a native prairie. This project promotes biodiversity, reduces runoff, decreases lawn chemical application, promotes a healthy environment, and demonstrates a committed, community effort towards being a good neighbor. In fact, habitat restoration is such an easy, cost-efficient, and beneficial Earth-friendly initiative that many small groups—such as churches and grade schools—participate in these projects. More organizations (publicly held, privately owned, non-profits) and individual citizens are embracing landscape designs with native plants—that is, choosing species with historically endemic populations in that immediate area.

What is your company doing to promote a healthy environment? Some simple steps your business can take to improve its grounds include:

• Remove non-native invasive plants from the landscape. Species such as winged burning bush, Nandina, Japanese barberry, English ivy, bamboo, and Bradford pear trees are glorified weeds. They escape cultivation (usually through seed dispersal), root in natural areas, and overtake native flora in the absence of their otherwise controlling natural predators and parasites.
  Plant species native to your immediate area. Natives are naturally suited for that region’s weather and soil conditions, help reduce erosion, and provide food and shelter to large numbers of wildlife species. These plants may either replace the above mentioned weeds or expand gardens into grassy areas, thereby reducing lawn maintenance.
• Reduce or eliminate synthetic lawn chemicals (“fertilize in the fall if at all”). Most of the lawn chemicals wash away anyway; regardless of how far the property is from streams, the true chemical runoff effect is as close as the nearest storm drain emptying into a waterway. Applying compost and compost tea is a growing alternative, having a proven record at heavy traffic places from Battery Park City in lower Manhattan to the Yard at Harvard University.
• Use leaf-based mulch. Mulching with the ubiquitous shredded wood actually robs the ground of nutrients: wood is made of cellulose (a sugar, made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen). As microbes metabolize this sugar, they need other life-supporting elements (phosphate, nitrogen, potassium, calcium, etc.). Furthermore, wood mulch promotes artillery fungus (Sphaerobolus sp.), so called because they shoot dark, tar-like spore packets which discolor nearby buildings and vehicles. These unsightly spores are difficult to remove.
• When mulching, only apply a two inch depth. Mounds around trees promote shallow secondary root growth or, in the worse case, encourages bark rot around the trunk. A small mound for root balls is seen in newly planted saplings, but that allows the tree and soil to settle. Trees more than two years in the ground should not have any mounds around them. Another reason to keep the spreads shallow is that some mulches (especially wood-based) may attract termites.
• Conduct an ecological audit. Are the wildlife populations on the corporate grounds healthy and diverse? Maintaining biodiversity and encouraging food chains economically controls pest levels. Often, wildlife mass deaths, such as fish kills from watershed contamination or bird strikes on windows, are both preventable and make the grounds unsanitary! Finding more sensitive wildlife usually indicates a healthier area.

Many of the above listed problems extend from bad habits formed in the mid-twentieth century. The public is ever more attuned to these practices’ deficiencies. Why would a company stay with antiquated landscaping techniques when both modern science and “Mother Nature” prove that better, sustainable techniques exist? Finding the right commercially available species is easier than ever with resources such as the Plant Lists for Professionals; this list is for Northern Virginia but others like it are regionally available. If grounds maintenance is outsourced, why would you allow those workers to make your property look behind the times? How can corporations call themselves “innovative,” “cutting edge,” and “global leaders” while keeping overrated weeds and employing archaic landscaping techniques on their front yard for all of the world to see? Analyzing the long-term cost-benefits, ecologically friendly approaches are more advantageous. Investing in an environmental policy that incorporates native-based landscaping is a way you can exhibit your progressive leadership. One would especially hope to see healthcare institutions, biotech/high-tech companies, and life science industries demonstrate commitment towards a healthy community—a thriving land.

Thank you for your time and reflection upon your corporate environmental stewardship policies. Please feel free to explore the resources on this website, www.grsykes.com, for further information.

Sincerely,
Greg Sykes