Last Thursday (12/17) we got a lucky break—KC Golden (Policy Director at Climate Solutions, Seattle Magazine's #1 Eco-Hero and GoGreen Seattle 2010 keynote speaker) took time out of his slammed schedule in Copenhagen to have a chat with us via Skype. Sitting in a Danish coffee shop 5000 miles away, KC gave us the lowdown on the urgency surrounding a binding climate change agreement, what we have to accomplish on the homefront and where we need to be by 2020.

GG: You’re in Copenhagen right now—what issue keeps coming up, what’s the trending topic (other than we need to get this done)?

KCG: We won’t know until it’s all said and done. It looks discouraging right now, but that’s pretty typical for the late stages of these type of negotiations. Most of what you hear publically is the political posturing and positioning. The head’s of state are just starting to arrive, so the real decisions won’t happen until then.

What we hope we’ll see is the infrastructure of a commitment from the whole world to do what right and necessary, and reduce emissions to safe levels in order to stabilize the climate. Under that promise is also a commitment for clean development—most urgently in the global south, where poverty is rampant. But it’s also important in developed countries that need to transition their economy from a fossil fuel-based economy to a clean energy economy, based on efficient use of renewable energy resources. That has enormous implications for lifestyle, for urban design, for the way we get from point A to point B, and for the way we live our lives. It has to be a whole-scale transition.

I heard a remarkable speech by, of all people, United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, who is a very sharp, practical, level-headed, numbers guy. But in his speech, he laid out a really powerful vision for a major transformation in our economy. Locke said that it’s not just about a couple of windmills and solar plants here and there— it’s about a completely new model for economic prosperity. He talked about re-tooling and re-fitting every industrial activity. He wants to see a profound and systemic change in the global economy, which will open up a world of opportunity for green business, for job creation and for making our communities healthier, more productive, more neighborly places.

GG: Are you sensing that everyone at Copenhagen is invested in getting these goals accomplished or is there still reluctance to change?

KCG: There’s still political reluctance to change—there’s fear of domestic politics and how that will constrain our ability to make good commitments where we need them on the international stage.  But I would contrast that political fear with a lot of confidence and a lot of enthusiasm and forward momentum among civil society participants, the NGOs and businesses who are here—and chomping at the bit to start this clean energy economy—and among the mayors, state and local elected officials.

There is a real sense of eagerness, readiness and hunger to begin this transition.  Everyone knows that it’s difficult to do that at-scale; it’s difficult to take the full measure of that opportunity and do what we must do to stabilize the climate without an international agreement and the nationalized laws that must support such an agreement. That’s where we run into the political fear and resistance, which could keep us from reaching a satisfying and adequate outcome.

GG: So what happens if our governments don’t reach the agreement that we’re all hoping for in the private sector? How do we continue to pressure them?

KCG: We’ll have the opportunity in January when the U.S. Congress reconvenes—though, I have to say the failure of the United States Congress to deliver a national climate policy before the Copenhagen Summit is a real cloud hanging over the international effort. People are so frustrated that America hasn’t come to the table to get a legally binding deal, because our Congress didn’t act.

I had a woman from Japan grill me last night in broken English on how the Senate and the House work—and what are the committees, and why does it take so long and why do we have to keeping waiting? It feels like the entire world is being held hostage by 100 senators from the United States. The world is not pleased about that.

We have to do whatever it takes in the next three to four months to get our Congress to move after the conclusion of this conference. And it will be a battle—it’ll be tough, but we absolutely have to do it, we have to turn the heat up. And the perfect place to focus your energy is on your United State’s senator.  Now if we don’t get a meaningful international agreement here, businesses will continue to move forward because of the economic imperatives to reduce fossil fuel dependence and increase efficiency. States and cities will continue to move forward, civil society will continue to move forward—but we will not be moving forward on a path that prevents catastrophic climate destruction. We just won’t be able to do it at the level or with the urgency and coherence that’s required to reduce emissions by 90 percent in the developed world, which is what we have to do.

Political change is not linear. To be honest, it’s hard to see a path through the political obstacle course right now. Unfortunately, we are going to continue experiencing tragic and enormous costs associated with our fossil fuel dependence in the path we’re on now—more Katrinas and natural disruptions, more disruptions to oil supply, more events like 9/11, which I don’t think many people think would have happened if Saudi Arabia’s principal export been broccoli.  A lot of these truly disruptive events in the pipeline are associated with our fossil fuel dependence and they’re going to keep whacking us over the head until we do something different.

If we don’t get a meaningful deal out of Copenhagen and/or a good bill out of this Congress, we’ll just keep experiencing those costs.  Washington State’s economy lost $60 Billion last year to import fossil fuels and Oregon lost about $9 Billion. Those are huge holes in the bottom of our economy! We have to do something different if we ever want to plug those holes.  Eventually we will. Humans are a little slow on the uptake—but we’re not suicidal. We’re going to keep getting signals to change course until we change course with more ambition and more aggressively. In the meantime, all the great things that people and businesses and cities and states are doing are going to prepare us well for the moment when we’re really ready to turn the corner.

GG: So what do you do at Climate Solutions to encourage that kind of behavior? To push government to act in order to turn the corner and more quickly reach a tipping point?

KCG: We are trying to replace the vicious circle of denial and inaction with a virtuous circle of good public policy and accelerated private investment solutions. Let me put a little more substance to that. The vicious circle is that the more we remain in denial about the problem, the less we act. The less we act, the longer we stay in denial about the problem. We had someone tell us once that she didn’t think that [climate change] was that big of a problem because nobody was doing anything about it.  We expect our leaders to respond to really big problems. When our leaders don’t, it confuses us about the severity of the issue.

That’s the vicious circle we’ve been in. What we aim to replace it with, at Climate Solutions, is getting more and more people actively engaged in implementing and delivering practical and economical attractive solutions to global warming.  There is so much of that going on, particularly in the Pacific Northwest—which is great because the more people are engaged in being a part of the solution in their business, homes, lifestyles and government agencies, the stronger the constituency and confidence becomes for passing public policy that we need to accelerate the coming of the clean energy economy.

When we pass those policies, we make it more economically feasible and desirable for people to engage in the solutions. That’s the circle that we’re working to build at Climate Solutions. We do a lot of work on creating the public policy infrastructure and incentives, and encourage the rapid accelerations of a clean energy economy to replace the fossil fuel economy.

GG: What are your goals, coming into a new decade?

KCG: Beyond what we get done in Copenhagen, we absolutely have to set a fire under the United States Congress to both raise the bar on what they will do to promote America’s clean energy economy and get a bill passed so we can get the show on the road. That’s the objective for the immediate foreseeable future.

By 2020, we should have reduced our carbon pollution in the Northwest by 40 percent. We should have dramatically reduced our consumption of fossil fuels for transportation by electrifying the majority of our transportation and also by developing advanced, sustainable bio-fuels—plus using sustainable alternative transport rather than cars. We should have de-carbonized our electric power system. We should no longer have any coal plants operating in the Northwest. And our communities, our homes and our lifestyles should have a much lower carbon footprint and much more community oriented and conducive to a good lifestyle where we engage our friends more, eat more local food, ride our bikes more, waste less and waste less time on inefficient transportation modes.

KC Golden is a keynote speaker at the GoGreen Conference 2010 in Seattle, Washington. GoGreen 2010 Seattle is a full-day sustainability conference geared towards businesses seeking actionable steps to greening their operations. The conference takes place April 21, 2010 at the Olive8 at the Hyatt (LEED certified Silver). Early Bird tickets are on-sale now through April 1, 2010. Tickets are $175 each for single Early Bird Full Day Admission and $150 Early Bird Full Day Admission for Groups of 2 or more. More information can be found at: http://www.seattle.gogreenconference.net/registration/

For more information about KC Golden and Climate Solutions, please visit: http://www.climatesolutions.org/

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Anne Weaver has been a Portland business owner for 30 years. In that time, she's pushed the home-grown Elephants Delicatessen to soaring heights as an exemplary sustainable business. With four locations, Elephants is dishing their hand-made green menu to a grateful crowd of eco-minded citizens and picking up some sustainable bling along the way. In this episode of The Green Line Series, Weaver details the advantages and challenges of being a small business with a deep commitment to sustainability, points out the importance of engaging your employees and community, and reminds us that the little things add up to big results.

GG: You’re a small business owner. In what ways does working on a smaller scale help you achieve sustainability faster than a big corporation?

AW: One great thing about being a small business like Elephants Delicatessen is that there aren’t too many layers between the people who make our fresh foods every day and those who run the company. In a large corporation it could take quite an effort for one employee to be heard, but here at Elephants everyone from the top down is interacting with all of our employees daily. This is especially important for our managers because they very quickly can let upper management know when someone has a suggestion or a great idea. Sometimes something as simple as a tiny tweak in our kitchen can equal huge returns in terms of sustainability.

We also have a Green Team that is made up of employees from all levels and departments. These team members become ambassadors of our company’s message and help spread the word throughout the company. Because we’re small, our staff pretty well knows each other by name. That is really important for us. We’re not a business where everyone sits at a computer and reads company emails. We’re working together, face to face, every day, and that means we don’t have too much of a delay from suggestion to implementation. 

GG: On the flip side, what are some road blocks to being sustainable that you’ve run into as a small business? How have you overcome them?

AW: Elephants Delicatessen is in a unique position in that we are not too small, but we’re not the big dogs either. If you’re a paper supplier and Starbucks wants a certain type of compostable cup, the suppliers can’t wait to make it happen. A business of our size can ask, but at the end of the day, the bigger account may get more attention. Instead, what we have chosen to do is work to forge strong relationships with vendors. We outline our own sustainability goals and ask them to partner with us in meeting them. 

GG: How does making your food from scratch provide an advantage to Elephants in terms of keeping things green?

AW: The closer you are to your food, the more control you have over its impact on the environment. One example is reduced packaging on the front end because we buy individual ingredients such as flour, sugar and butter. Then, we use those bulk ingredients to make our own breads, cakes, cookies and pastries. Since the finished products are made fresh daily, we use minimal – if any – packaging to transport foods to our retail stores. These simple steps save a lot of unwanted waste. 

GG: What are some of the most important, most impactful components of your business that help you be more sustainable (recycling, power conservation, etc.)

AW: In the food business, composting is huge. It sounds like such a small thing, everyone’s doing it in their backyard, right? Well, when you produce the volume of food that we do, every day, it adds up to a lot of waste. We have compost bins throughout our kitchens, and we train staff about what food waste can go into those bins.  Energy conservation is another huge opportunity for us. Through PGE’s Clean and Green program, the electricity used to power our entire operation is generated from wind farms in Oregon and Washington. We also purchase high efficiency food service equipment through Energy Trust of Oregon, and energy efficient fluorescent light bulbs from Pacific Lighting. 

GG: How viable is purchasing wind power for small businesses? Is it affordable?

AW: As we mentioned, we participate in PGE’s Clean and Green program. That means 100 percent of our power is generated from a renewable source – wind farms in Oregon and Washington. One challenge small businesses can face is determining how to make the switch to wind power when you are one tenant in a large building. We fought that fight, and we’re proud we did. We think it helps raise awareness for everyone involved.  Wind power was more expensive when we first signed up, but we assumed power rates would rise in general. We were right, and we are proud to have been among the first local businesses to pursue wind power. 

GG: Has being an award-winning sustainable business helped your bottom line?

AW: We think so. We think our customers appreciate our efforts. It certainly means that we have to put some energy into rethinking things at times, but ultimately, being sustainable isn’t a cause we’re into – it’s simply our business standard. 

GG: Going green is sometimes an overwhelming concept. Do you have to go big to go green?

AW: It certainly can be overwhelming. We have a Green Team committee that meets weekly to discuss our sustainability efforts. We can spend weeks debating the merits of one type of green packaging versus another. Ultimately, starting with a few small things can really get a team moving, though. Start with the closet full of cleaners. Do a little research and find more environmentally-friendly alternatives. Then, train your staff to use them appropriately. Before you know it, everyone in your company starts to think in the green mindset. Then, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect your employees to start coming forward with their own suggestions. We have absolutely taken advantage of how easily we are able to make changes because of our smaller size. 

GG: Do all the little things—things that businesses can add in stages—add up to dramatic changes?

AW: Absolutely. We did not start out doing all of this at once, and I’m pretty sure we’ll always have more to do. We bought an efficient machine to clean our Central Kitchen floors. It uses significantly less water and cleaning solution than traditional mopping. That may sound like a small thing, but when you think about how we clean that 10,000-square-foot kitchen 365 days a year, that adds up to a lot of savings.

GG: How did you get started making these choices?

AW: Since opening 30 years ago, Elephants Delicatessen has aimed to be a green company. Our business took off the same time as the major green movement in our area. It was a perfect match, just making sense that our business follows the regional green motto. We have made it a point to include thinking green into our decisions as business has grown. When we need a new appliance, we choose Energy Star. When we need new packaging, we research recyclable or compostable materials. As delivery business grew, we sought out alternative fuels and ways to reduce vehicle emissions on the road. Our next step is to deliver by bike. It seems there is always a way to improve. 

GG: How do you recommend other small business owners get started down a path to sustainability?

AW: Start taking action immediately. Small, simple steps will lead to bigger ones. Open the closet and check out the chemicals used in your business. Put out recycle tubs. Take away the paper cups near the water cooler and coffee pot and ask employees to use their own, reusable cups and mugs.  Companies must invest in bringing their employees on board. Think of it as a group effort. Training and spreading the word through the company has a trickle-down effect. Eventually everyone from your vendors to your clients will see your efforts. 

GG: Why is it so important for America’s small business owners to get on the sustainable side of the green line? What is their impact on the greater whole?

AW: Being green is the new business standard. Small businesses have the advantage of being close to their customers, and customers are more and more savvy about what it means to be a green business. We have to make sure our community knows we care about sustainability, and once customers are able to see a business’ efforts, we believe they’ll respond with return business. Small businesses making sustainable efforts puts pressure on larger businesses to take action. It proves that it doesn’t have to take deep pockets, just a genuine effort.

Anne Weaver is a speaker the GoGreen ‘09 Conference, October 7th, 2009 in Portland, Oregon. To hear more from Weaver and our other 40+ eco-visionary speakers on embedding your business with a sustainable commitment , register today at www.gogreenpdx.com/registration to get our early bird rate of $150 per person or $125 for groups of two or more (rates good through September 1, 2009.

For more information about Anne Weaver and Elephants Delicatessen, please visit: http://www.elephantsdeli.com

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