Earth Day 2013- Adams Morgan Edition

For Growing Numbers of Adams Morgan Businesses, Every Day is Earth Day

Forty-four businesses and nonprofit community stakeholders in the Adams Morgan neighborhood in Washington, D.C. are committed to environmental sustainability, a number that has doubled each year since 2011. This Earth Day, April 22, you’ll see green balloons floating outside these businesses, but their dedication to going green lasts all year.

Small and medium-sized businesses typically shy away from “greening” their operations because these moves can be costly and difficult to implement. Sifting through environmentally friendly solutions takes time, and many of these options are thought to have much higher price tags. Through New Green Industries (NGI) Community Pricing Group, Adams Morgan businesses and non-profits have been able to vet the suppliers and products, negotiate pricing to fit their budgets and even generate savings. “How does a community go green? Make it easy and affordable,” says NGI’s Joella Mosley.

Adams Morgan businesses have taken great green strides: Since Earth Day 2011, over 14 million kilowatt hours (kWhs) have been converted to clean, renewable wind power. This has saved the Adams Morgan community nearly $210,000, an average of over $6,700 per business, and generated over $1,200,000 in business revenue. 14% of Adams Morgan businesses and nonprofit community stakeholders have switched to renewable energy rather than continuing to support coal and nuclear power.

These changes and the savings they’ve brought have inspired Adams Morgan to focus on integrating eco-friendly restaurant supplies and more efficient waste management strategies. “If given the choice to use green energy it's a no brainer. It's cheaper, better for the environment, and it creates jobs,” says The Reef’s Brian Harrison. "Idle Time Books is proud to display our green energy certificate, along with our core business of giving books as many lives as possible," adds owner Val Morgan.

In 2012, participating Adams Morgan businesses became Green Power Partners by joining the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership, a national voluntary program that supports and challenges communities across the country to increase their use of renewable energy. The Washington D.C. Green Power Community is the nation’s largest, with more than 75 businesses, government agencies, institutions and non-profits together using more than 1 billion kWh of green, renewable energy each year.

“These organizations are providing an incredible demonstration of the (clean) power of working together to expand our clean energy economy and protect our environment,” said Blaine Collison, Director of the EPA’s Green Power Partnership. He continued, “Each business, each non-profit that switches to green power is a leader. We welcome them to the Partnership and we hope that each of these examples will help inspire another business, another customer to make the same green power choice.”

"Green business is good business--we've never had a customer who wasn't happy to hear about what we've done to operate more sustainably," says Amsterdam Falafel Shop founder, Arianne Bennett.