Q&A with OKC Beautiful: using the Green Business Guide to implement sustainability into your business practices

84 Hospitality staff members participate in a park cleanup. Photo Credit: OKC Beautiful

You may know of OKC Beautiful from their annual Litter Blitz clean-up, Yoga in the Park sessions, or from volunteering for one of their Adopt-A-Park groups, but did you know they’ve created a Green Business Guide to support Oklahoma City’s businesses in maintaining best practices in sustainability? 

The free resource provides detailed information on how to implement eco-friendly practices into your business and workplace. Unlike other guides you may find, this one focuses specifically on Oklahoma City and offers valuable insight into how you can make the most of our community’s existing programs and efforts.   

In order to gain background surrounding the creation of the guide, we sat down with OKC Beautiful’s Program & Marketing Director, Natalie Evans.  

VeloCityOKC: Why did OKC Beautiful decide to create this guide?  

Natalie Evans: OKC Beautiful has been an advocate for environmental stewardship and sustainability in Oklahoma City for more than 50 years. Our programs engage residents, organizations, and students through education initiatives and volunteer programming. While we have expanded our education efforts over the last 30 years, we have not focused as much effort on sustainability for businesses or organizations, and much of our outreach has focused on individual habits for conservation and sustainability.  

As we work with many businesses and organizations through volunteer efforts, we thought something like a “Green Business Guide” would be a good resource for them as the return to their workplaces and aim to continue their journey of environmental stewardship in Oklahoma City. We hope that this guide will serve as an introduction for businesses about easily implementable habits for sustainability. These habits benefit our community as a whole, individual consumers and employees, as well as businesses.  

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE GREEN BUSINESS GUIDE 

Who all participated in putting it together and how long did it take?  

We put together this document with input from the City of Oklahoma City Office of Sustainability, staff members at the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments, and feedback from a few businesses in Oklahoma City that have exemplified efforts for environmental stewardship. We also received input from staff at the City of Edmond, as they are implementing a sustainability certification program for businesses in Edmond. 

Are there specific OKC businesses that do an exemplary job of being “green”?  

This guide covers four primary focus areas for sustainability: energy productivity, water conservation, clean air, and waste reduction. For water conservation, the City of Oklahoma City has a recognition program called H2Outstanding Restaurants for restaurants that have practiced water-wise habits. 

You can view this list here: https://www.okc.gov/departments/utilities/squeeze-every-drop/restaurants.  

For waste reduction, shops like Plenty Mercantile and Local Lather encourage reuse habits through soap refill and bulk shopping options. Similarly, shops like Elemental Coffee and Eote Coffee encourage bringing your own beverage container and discounts for refill options. Simple changes make an impact, such as 84 Hospitality making a commitment to no longer use styrofoam at their restaurant concepts like Empire Pizza and Burger Punk. Each of these sustainability practices can start off small and contribute to larger positive change.  

Do you have suggestions for business owners on how to approach the conversation of sustainability within their organization?  

Sustainability habits aren’t just beneficial for the environment. They are beneficial for businesses as well. These habits in businesses result in long-term cost savings, improved image, employee benefits, customer attraction, and a benefit to the environment through reduced footprints. A good way of thinking of this guide is as a roadmap for businesses to how they can become more environmentally friendly. Some of the recommendations may not be feasible for all businesses, and that is absolutely okay! Limiting your footprint isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s not waiting to get started until you feel like you can implement all sustainable habits at once. It’s about incremental changes that add up to big results. If you want to get started, consider implement two or three recommendations and once comfortable with those changes, add more.  

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE GREEN BUSINESS GUIDE 

Is there anything else you think is important to share?  

When businesses incorporate more sustainability habits, it helps us all. It reduces strain on water and energy resources, decreases our waste production as a city, affords more options for consumers, and promotes a healthier and more sustainable city. We hope that businesses will explore these recommendations and work towards more sustainable habits in their organizational practices.  

OKC Beautiful will continue developing the guide to ensure best practices are up-to-date, if you have a recommendation to add to the guide, contact their team at [email protected].