Sustainability at Work Gold Certification Achieved

Kasey Krifka, The Climate Trust
September 23, 2016

As an environmental nonprofit, The Climate Trust takes the sustainability of its office and operations seriously. Earlier this year, The Trust began the application process for sustainable workplace certification from the City of Portland, and was notified in September that we had achieved certification at the Gold level—the highest level attainable.

Sustainability at Work offers three levels of certification to recognize a business’s positive impact on our environment and our community. Qualified organizations are accessed in six different areas: Reduce, reuse, recycle; Employee engagement; Transportation; Energy; Water; and Community Engagement. A minimum of forty five sustainability actions must be verified in order to achieve Gold level certification.

More than two years ago, The Trust convened an organizational Green Team, whose mission it is to implement policy, systems, and structure to reduce the environmental impact of The Trust’s operations. Since that time, the group has empowered staff to reduce their impact at the office, at home, and everywhere in between. The Green Team’s efforts played a large role in achieving this sustainability certification from the City.

The Trust believes in giving back to the community, and giving back to its own staff through activities that inspire exploration of the outdoors and all that our beautiful city has to offer. We encourage our staff to volunteer as a group on ‘staff volunteer days,’ and individually through use of paid volunteer hours to make a difference for local organizations. Whether it’s cleaning up bikes for children in need, leading beautification projects, or sitting on a nonprofit board, we strive to make an impact and provide a value to Portland and beyond.

The Trust’s efforts towards a more positive and green organization were also rewarded in 2016 with a space among the Top 100 Green Workplaces in Oregon by Oregon Business Magazine.

Image credit: Flickr/Joel Mann