10th Annual Triple Bottom Line Bash

South East Market has been named the 2022 West Michigan Sustainable Business of the Year by members of the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum. The Market was recognized during the ninth annual Triple Bottom Line Bash on Wednesday, October 5 at the Peter Martin Wege Theatre.

The West Michigan Sustainable Business of the Year is selected annually by a vote of the Forum membership, honoring the local organization that best represents the region’s commitment to the triple-bottom line and its efforts to advance climate leadership, social justice and the creation of a circular economy. South East Market was chosen from six honorees that were also recognized at the Triple Bottom Line Bash.

“South East Market is honored to be given this recognition by the Forum,” said South East Market Co-founder Khara DeWit. “We birthed this vision with sustainability and equity as core to our mission. We are just one small player in a collective vision for a sovereign and resilient local food system for West Michigan.”  

The Market has been community powered from the start. They prioritize their ongoing social responsibility, empowerment and food justice work infused in its operations. It’s a movement the Market hopes to continue to lead. 

DeWit said that this award is only possible with the collaboration of their community partners and conscious customers showing up to vote with their dollar.

“So much is possible if we reinvest appropriately and center our local communities in our decisions around profitability,” said DeWit. “We hope this award ignites further startups and shows them the value of a community working in tandem to lean into the risk and push forward with their values for a sustainable future rooted in equity for generations beyond us to enjoy the bounty of Earth and the people around us.”

Blandford Nature Center was named the 2021 West Michigan Sustainable Business of the Year by the members of West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum last week at an outdoor award ceremony at LMCU Ballpark. 

The West Michigan Sustainable Business of the Year is selected annually by a vote of the forum membership, honoring the local company or institution that best represents the values of the triple-bottom line.  Blandford Nature Center was chosen from six leadership award honorees that were also recognized at the Eighth Annual Triple Bottom Line Bash on Thursday, October 15.  Earlier in the night, it had accepted the West Michigan Clean Water Leadership Award, which honors an organization for demonstrating a commitment to the proliferation of green stormwater infrastructure and other water quality stewardship practices on its property or among its stakeholders.  

“Blandford Nature Center is honored to be recognized by our peers in this way. Sustainability is the key to our collective future and we take that seriously,” said Jason Meyer, Blandford Nature Center President and CEO. “Nature Centers aren’t always seen as innovative, but that is one of our core values at Blandford. We’ve been striving for sustainability in a number of ways, including our recent decision to pursue the LIving Building Challenge at our future facility at The Highlands.” 

The LBC decision was first announced at the event, which hosted 230 local sustainability professionals and stakeholders.  For the past several years, Blandford Nature Center has been taking steps to bolster its sustainability outcomes, especially its use of green stormwater infrastructure.  Most notably, the center recently acquired and restored former golf course The Highlands, a partnership with the Land Conservancy of West Michigan.  

“We are proud to receive this award, but we must also recognize that Blandford Nature Center’s efforts to become more sustainable has been a collaborative effort between our organization, our large number of partners, our donors, and our visitors,” said Meyer.  “We’re all in this together.”

John Ball Zoo inspires people to be active participants in the conservation of wildlife and the natural environment. At John Ball Zoo, their team houses 1,500 animals and serves a diverse audience of over 500,000 visitors annually. It is one of four Michigan zoos accredited by the Association of Zoo and Aquariums (AZA). As an accredited Zoo, John Ball Zoo is measured against the established standards and best practices in animal husbandry, conservation, sustainability, education, business, and more.

As an AZA member, the Zoo participates in over 34 cooperative breeding programs and Species Survival Plans (SSP) throughout the Zoo community. These programs are managed globally by the AZA to reinforce animal populations in zoos and in the wild in hopes of keeping bloodline pure for future reintroduction. John Ball Zoo offers financial support to conservation projects both locally and around the world through monies earned through their animal adoption program and supports field projects by providing animal specialist time and knowledge.

The Zoo is building a plan aimed to both educate and challenge itself and its community partners about waste management, in hopes of achieving zero-waste in the years to come. Since launching a water conservation plan in 2002, it saved 615-million gallons of water and cut usage by over two-thirds. Green roofs have been added on four buildings, several ‘live’ walls have been installed, and over 150 new trees have been planted in the last 8 years. At John Ball Zoo, the team is Actively Conserving and Always Celebrating.

The Gluten-Free Bar evolved from a company set on “doing the right thing” to a Certified B Corporation, dedicated to the Triple Bottom Line. The company uses only authentic ingredients with plant-based proteins, and manufactures all of their bars on-site.

The GFB is committed to food safety, community, providing living wages and zero-waste initiatives. Accomplishments include achieving a 90% diversion rate, donating over 20,000 bars to hunger-relief organizations and paying employees at least 20% more than the area’s average living wage.

Catalyst Partners is a multi-dimensional consortium of knowledge leaders committed to high performance restorative protocols for buildings, interiors and products. The consortium is comprised of professionals with licensures in engineering, architecture, and interiors. Its clients seek assistance in building and product performance optimization and certification, and their team acts as the “catalyst” that helps clients establish their measurements and goals. Its experienced, environmentally focused network of design, engineering, scientific, business and marketing professionals serves a client roster that includes architects, building contractors, developers, interior designers, owners, and product manufacturers in companies large and small. Its work is local, regional, national and international in scope. It specializes in High Performance, Restorative Design, Construction, Operations and Education services and are experts in the LEED® certification process.

Their team of credentialed professionals includes Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and Architectural and Interior Designers who keep current on the constantly evolving standards through participation on U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) committees and under contract with USGBC and the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) for LEED standard development and certification projects. Since 2002, Catalyst Partners has grown steadily by assembling a consortium of professionals who share a commitment. From our core of LEED project administration, Catalyst has grown to be a national and global presence to help owners optimize building and product execution. To document this impact for buildings, we provide certification assistance for projects under these certification systems: LEED, WELL, Living Building Challenge, Enterprise Green Communities, and BREEAM.

Why are we passionate about buildings? We believe the status quo of building design needs continual improvement and we know that we can help owners get buildings designed to optimize energy, water, and materials. The result is cost savings over the life of the building and the satisfaction that comes with producing a project that can contribute to the health of the planet. For our Grand Rapids headquarters building, we are committed to achieving net-positive energy use well before 2030.

Barfly Ventures is a Grand Rapids-based hospitality group and the parent company of Hopcat, Stella’s Lounge, Grand Rapids Brewing Co. and the Waldron Public House. The company’s commitment to sustainability is evident throughout its operation; Barfly Ventures recycles or composts up to 90% of the waste it generates, and composts all of its food waste, spent grain, take-out containers, straws disposable cups and paper waste as new soil for local farmers, supports clean water initiatives, and is a founding member of both the Great Lakes Business Network and the US Green Building Council’s Grand Rapids 2030 District.

In addition to its environmental responsibility, Barfly Ventures is a socially responsible company. All full-time employees receive health insurance, there are GROW (green and wellness) teams at each location, and the company donates funds, soil and food products to over 221 nonprofits and charities in surrounding communities, totaling $84,000. BarFly earned the 2017 Sustainable Business of the Year Award for their outstanding efforts in waste elimination and partnerships with sustainability nonprofits in each of their markets.

Since Peter Wege launched the first West Michigan College Presidents’ meeting on Economicology in 1999, Aquinas College has been a leader in the integration of sustainability into campus life and academic coursework. Sustainable practices are a part of all of our operations and programming, offering a Sustainable Business undergraduate degree since 2003. This program has placed dozens of dynamic change agents in leading companies across the region.

As a signatory of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, Aquinas is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2040. In 2014, Aquinas launched a green revolving fund to provide funding for campus energy efficiency. Aquinas has been top of the leaderboard in the nationwide Recyclemania competition, and its recent student-led Zero-waste initiative has resulted in an over 70% diversion rate from landfills and incinerators. Several new projects are nearing completion such as the campus Sustainable Food Purchasing Policy and nature app for campus visitors. By collaborating with other institutions and groups such as the Wege Foundation, Community Sustainability Partnership, Michigan Interfaith Power & Light, and WMSBF, Aquinas maximizes its impact.

In the past years, Aquinas has offered free programing on sustainability through its High School Economicology Day. Explicitly organized to better educate campus and community members, its Economicology Forum has reached over 900 attendees. Engaged service is a hallmark of our Catholic and Dominican traditions, and hundreds of Aquinas staff, faculty, and students volunteer for programs such as Habitat for Humanity, the WMEAC Mayors’ River Cleanup, and its own campus “We All Live Here” service day. Students at Aquinas are introduced to sustainability on their first day, and that education continues through innovative programming for the duration of their time at the College.

Brewery Vivant is a neighborhood brewery and restaurant founded on being a small, but influential, sustainable business. It measures and reports on 15 sustainability goals annually in its “Beer the change…” report. Highlights from 2014 include sending less than 1% of waste to the incinerator, donating 11% of profits and 233 volunteer hours to local charitable organizations, and reducing energy intensity by 17%, mostly due to purchasing 100% renewably generated electricity. The Brewery is Grand Rapids’ fourth Certified B Corporation, a Certified Bicycle Friendly Business, and located in a LEED Certified the building, the first brewery to do so in the nation.

Brewery Vivant recently helped initiate the creation of a sustainability committee through the Michigan Brewers Guild, with a goal of elevating the level of sustainable business and brewing practices throughout the state’s many craft breweries by providing online resources and opportunities to share best practices.

Since 2011, Organicycle has provided organic waste recycling services to West Michigan businesses and residents. Their curbside composting service simplifies zero waste for consumers – offering a weekly, single-stream collection that accepts 100% of food, yard, paper and pet waste for an affordable rate and diverts collected waste from landfills to be recycled into nutrient-rich compost for fields of local farmers.   Commercial customers can also benefit from Organicycle’s convenient zero-waste business services that include weekly cart tips, educational / training materials and on-site seminars, free subscription to our app to help identify acceptable materials, and guided tours at their compost facility.  

“A Simple Step for a Sustainable Future!” has always been our tagline, says Bridget Tietema.  Bridget, who serves as 100 percent owner, while her husband, Dan manages the operation, has formed one of the most recognizable companies in the organic waste industry throughout the West Michigan area and beyond. By educating residents and businesses about where their waste is going, they have been able to divert millions of pounds of organic waste from area landfills to be transformed into rich, nutritious soil for local farms. 

Organicycle was named WMSBF’s first “Sustainable Business of the Year” in 2014 in recognition of their outstanding work in transforming the way the Grand Rapids community handles waste.