The Ninth Annual Triple Bottom Line Bash

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 streamlined 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 waste from landfills to create soil. Commercial customers can also benefit from Organicycle’s convenient zero waste business services, including secure document shredding and recycling; The Zero Waste Academy, which provides on-site organic waste recycling training for your business’ zero waste efforts; recyclable transport services, offering low-cost collection services for large amount of post-consumer and recyclable materials; and dual-stream event services that provide recycling and compost services for public events.

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. Justin Swan, Vice President of Development for Organicycle reflected on the award, “I think our peers recognize the tremendous uphill climb we have been faced with — not just in starting a small business in today’s economy, but having to carve out a new industry that requires behavior change before buy-in.”