One of the first actions Verdigris Group has taken in 2019 is once again bolstering our commitment to our corporate sustainability and social responsibility policies. Verdigris Group has operated as a carbon-neutral company since our inception in 2007 and has built our corporate vision and culture around sustainability, and into each of our operating divisions.

Verdigris Group ‘walks the talk” when it comes to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics through significant research and meaningful practice in the field, both in-house and through our engagement with like-minded businesses and other entities.  Each year we measure and verify our corporate environmental footprint and invest in reducing and offsetting our impact in order to achieve the CSR goals we set forth as part of our corporate higher-calling.

Verdigris Group has partnered with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation for twelve years now in order to balance the environmental footprint that cannot be avoided. Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) serves as Verdigris Group’s third-party, non-profit corporate partner in managing our ongoing efforts to maintain our socially responsible enterprise.

Taking full account of the environmental consequences of our operational activities is one of the first steps in achieving success as a leading sustainable enterprise. In doing so, our business operations have reduced waste, improved efficiencies, and increased employee productivity, all of which have decreased operating costs and increased profit margins - and the positive impact our business has on our community is tangible.

"Fundamentally, carbon-offsetting can help reduce the impact of our activities in the short term but offsetting is not a long-term solution to global climate change and is not a substitute for reducing our consumption and emissions at their source – our daily business operations. It is our goal to achieve as lean of an organizational carbon footprint as possible before implementing offset solutions and other efforts, and this has been a focus of our organization since our inception, discovering, developing and measuring new ways of reducing our footprint in order to minimize our consumption and waste before balancing our impact.” Said Mr. Garratt Hasenstab, Principal, Sustainability Consultant at Verdigris Group.

The operational boundary of our environmental footprint assessment includes an analysis of our offices’ energy and water consumption, waste production and disposal, business travel and commuting habits.

BEF states, “We are committed to helping our partners build environmentally sustainable businesses and events by offering a trusted and efficient method to measure and balance their electricity use, carbon emissions and water use. We are the only provider offering a comprehensive three-pronged approach for sustainable businesses.”

Verdigris Group ensures that our sustainability goals are successfully achieved through our investment in the following:

 

Carbon Offsets

Renewable Energy Certificates

Improved Forest Management Carbon Offsets

Change the Course Water Restoration Certificates

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• By investing in Green-e Energy Certified Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), our electricity consumption comes from renewable resources such as wind and solar farms, biogas, landfill gas and geothermal energy production facilities throughout the U.S. thereby supporting the nation’s renewable energy market’s development.

 

• By choosing BEF’s U.S. Carbon Offsets, Verdigris Group balances the greenhouse gas emissions that result from our daily business operations and also directly supports a wide range of innovative carbon reduction projects throughout the United States. These projects capture, destroy or reduce harmful greenhouse gases emitted from sources such as animal waste, landfills, fossil fuel use or refrigerants.

 

• Through Verdigris Group’s financing of Improved Forest Management Carbon Offsets we are able to further balance our business’ unavoidable carbon footprint while supporting sustainable forest management practices that improve water quality and habitat for wildlife. These projects help permanently protect forests from fragmentation, development and conversion to non-forest uses.

 

• Verdigris Group has also chosen to utilize BEF’s Change the Course Water Restoration Certificates® (WRCs) which help to restore water to critically dewatered rivers and streams across the United States, these specifically focused first on the endangered Colorado River Basin. The Change the Course Water Restoration Certificates® enable Verdigris Group to restore our unavoidable water footprint gallon-for-gallon to critically dewatered rivers and streams within the Colorado River Basin—from the headwaters to the Delta.

 

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“At Verdigris Group, we believe in the power of collective intelligence, and our partnerships with key industry leaders enable us to continually move game-changing environmental solutions forward” said Hasenstab. “We’re honored to have developed strategic partnerships with BEF, the US Green Building Council, and the Natural Resource Defense Council among other organizations. Together, we’re building a different way of doing business—where our capability to innovative is helping to achieve sustained balance between people, business and our natural resources.”
 

Doing well by doing good is our corporate citizenship perspective, and this business strategy is not only an investment, but it is an asset and a competitive advantage which contributes to our company's success.

 

We take our commitment to the environment to heart as one of the core values of our company.  Our commitment starts with maintaining a strong company which invests its resources wisely and focuses on operational excellence, while using sustainability as a means to drive growth, profitability, and value throughout the communities we're a part of.

 

 

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