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Abode Luxury Rentals won the Zest for Zero award which recognizes a company that has made fast progress entering the program. As they have done in their properties, their eco-friendly suggestions include reducing their heat to 55 degrees in unoccupied home; eliminating bottled water and liquid soap pump bottles; using timed aerated faucets; using dissolvable laundry detergent sheets; following local no-idling regulations; providing guests recycling bins and recycling guidelines; utilizing transit schedules and maps.

Park City Mountain Resort, performing at the highest black diamond level (now called GOLD), is the 2023 Green Business of the Year. Perhaps the most noticeable of their sustainability initiatives is their waste diversion operation. Restaurant guests take their food trays to sorting stations and staff sort it into compostables, recyclables, soft plastic wraps and snack wrappers. This system keeps contamination from improper sorting to a minimum. There are trash, recycling, and snack wrapper cans for guests to use outside. Last year, Park City Mountain diverted a whopping 546 tons of waste from the landfill with 185 tons of it being food waste! To work, it takes our cooperation.

When the new Green Business program categories were unveiled, one may have stood out to you as an outlier: Thriving Community & Equity.

We often think of sustainability as ‘meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ Of course, part of this means ensuring that the natural environment is healthy, but it also means ensuring people and communities have what they need to thrive. 

From a business perspective, social sustainability is about understanding the impacts of businesses on people and society. For your business, social sustainability may not always be as clearly defined or tangible as environmental sustainability, but it’s vitally important for the health of your business and our community. Directly or indirectly, companies affect what happens to employees, workers in the value chain, customers and local communities, and it is important to manage impacts proactively. 

Our business community has a huge impact in how our community embraces human rights, fair labor practices, living conditions, health, safety, wellness, diversity, equity, work-life balance, empowerment, community engagement, and philanthropy. Remember, all aspects of sustainability are about continuous improvement. As with environmental sustainability, social sustainability has no endpoint. If we keep working, we can find our way together. 
 

A local distiller for whiskey and gin since 2016, Alpine Distilling has committed to eco-friendly practices from the beginning with transparency and openness. They support multiple non-profits in Park City via time and money, hire locally and purchase local products as much as possible. They’re always seeking new innovations in production and manufacturing, sustainable purchasing, and water conservation. Alpine Distilling consistently strives to reduce its carbon footprint, and they encourage suppliers, affiliates, and partners to do the same. They were the recipients of the Green Business Leadership Award from Utah Business, Blue Sky Renewable, and Rocky Mountain Power in 2021. Congratulations!

Accomplishments:

• Switched gas furnaces to heat pumps and invested in chillers to cut water demand in half.
• Rerouted water through a steam boiler to limit electrical demand for heating units.
• Sent all spent grains for distilling to Wasatch Recovery, which turns compost into methane for a renewable energy source.
• Retrofitted buildings to include low flush toilets, faucet aerators and a state-of-the-art water reuse system.
• Reduced turf by 25% to replace with native, drought tolerant and firewise landscaping where possible.
• Diverted 80% of their waste from the landfill.
• Sourced all products from local vendors and prioritized vendors with sustainable packing and reuse principles.
• Implemented a trip chaining policy and incentives for carpooling, bus passes, and e-bikes.
• Paid all employees and contractors a living wage with health insurance to employees.

EATS Park City originated in 2014 and has evolved into an essential non-profit advocate and resource for improving the health and well-being of children and families in our community. They are dedicated to teaching our next generation of land stewards how to be mindful of climate impact by learning how to grow vegetables, eat locally grown produce, increase plant-based consumption, and compost. EATS has been instrumental in contributing to lunchroom compost programs, school pumpkin compost programs, and community-wide Christmas tree collection. They communicate their sustainability efforts through camps, cooking classes, after-school programs, local Tower Gardens, and more.

Accomplishments:

• Advocated for use of compostable lunchroom trays vs. Styrofoam and plastic.
• Managed a school greenhouse with drip irrigation connected to rainwater bins.
• Eliminated office space with most employees working from home or using shared Kiln space.
• Donated/repurposed numerous supplies and furniture to transition to Kiln.
• Utilized DocuSign and Adobe products to sign documents and reduce printing.
• Paid staff a living wage with equity across race and gender.
• Addressed food security by partnering with PC Christian Center for food storage and distribution of afterschool ‘backpack’ snacks.
• Aiming to further enhance partnerships and opportunities to educate and advocate.

Continue exploring costs and benefits of returning to reusable lunch trays in our schools and how to best form lifelong habits for sustainable food waste disposal for our community.