By Amanda Murphy, Sustainability Manager
GreenSpot is a division of Sustainable Columbus and a classification awarded to businesses that pledge to use cleaner, healthier, sustainable and earth-friendly practices within their organization.
“GreenSpot inspires, educates, and recognizes households, businesses, and community groups that adopt green practices. GreenSpot is a membership-based program that provides a framework to think about sustainability and a way to log your successes.”
This month, M.J. Design was recognized with an award granted to a GreenSpot Business Member that implements and demonstrates sustainability practices used daily. This award is based on an audit of our 2022 Annual Report, where we list our “Pledges”, “In Progress” and “Completed” sustainable and environmentally friendly commitments.
We’re honored to be the recipient of this award for the practices put in place by our dedicated owners, Joel and Molly, over the years. These practices continue to be carried out by all M.J. employees working together to create a sustainable business environment.
As an example of our commitments, we were inspired by the designation of the month of March being labeled “Zero Waste Month.” It motivated our efforts to create a closed-loop process for recycling the millions (literally 2 tons) of plastic plant pots we generate in one year from our landscape installations. This season, we are excited to be partnering with the plastic manufacturer that supplies our growers with these pots. We will now be able to return these empty pots to this manufacturer so they can be recycled into new pots! We’ve also reached out to neighboring landscape companies and growers to work together so they can do the same. It’s a great feeling knowing that we can all work together to keep these pots and other materials out of landfills.
As I write this article, outside the window, another sustainability partnership is hard at work as our new neighbor clears the land for their building and a retaining pond. An agreement was made with them to utilize their excess soil to create mounding on an extension of our property. This mounding will be planted with trees and plants this season. This collaboration benefits both of our companies by decreasing the expense and fuel needed to remove or bring in these materials. Thus, we are decreasing our Carbon Footprint and creating a great example of reusing, recycling and upcycling the soil right outside our window.
Check back each month for updates on this issue and others to come.