Affecting People and Planet Beyond A Company Mission by Heather Kuhne ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

People and places come together in the workplace to function under a mission statement. To perform at their optimum, people need an environment that supports their efforts on the job. Many people spend every working day in an office building with no natural light, inadequate ventilation and poor indoor air quality. These same buildings are also often wasteful of energy and water as well. Without intending it, companies can stifle productivity by overlooking the well-being of their most important asset, their employees. Moreover, organizations can naively project an image that they do not hold the health of building occupants or the environment in high regard. But small changes in office-building construction and the way the buildings are occupied can make huge differences. These positive changes reap rewards throughout the company, transforming a mission statement on a piece of paper to a concrete manifestation of the social consciousness of an organization.

    Organizations with strong and tangible expressions of their social consciences find a number of resulting advantages to providing a healthy workplace. For example, a study by the Rocky Mountain Institute concluded that companies implementing a “green design” (environmentally friendly and sustainable) philosophy improved productivity by as much as 16 percent. Some companies have found that practicing social consciousness has slowed their turnover rate, which leads to increased productivity and reduced training costs. People chose to stay at the positions longer because they felt valued.

    A number of local northeast Ohio businesses and organizations have found ways to extend their values far beyond their mission statement. Three examples are Doty and Miller Architects, the Crown Point Ecology Center and the Cleveland Environmental Center.

    When Bill Doty and Charles Miller of Doty and Miller Architects in Bedford, Ohio designed their offices, they thought it logical to express the firm's environmental and historic preservation philosophies in their building. The resulting office in a rehabilitated historic post office focuses on the health of the firm's employees and the environment. Occupants work in daylit spaces built of recycled, renewable and nontoxic materials. Sensors not only track temperature but also carbon dioxide, humidity, indoor-light levels and outdoor-air quality. Constant adjustments are made by a computer to ensure healthy indoor-air quality. Three percent of the building's power comes from a solar array mounted on the building in a location where it also provides a shady respite from the summer sun. The firm's commitment to the environment is mirrored in its building, and the result is a healthier place to work with self-reportedly happier employees. Each year several hundred people tour the building and see the social consciousness embodied in it.

    The Crown Point Ecology Center in Bath, Ohio is a ministry of the Sisters of Saint Dominic of Akron. As is evident in all of its activities, Crown Point Ecology Center supports the principles of sustainability, community, spirituality and justice. Crown Point operates a Certified Organic produce farm that supports a 70-family Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and provides fresh produce donations to the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank. CSA families receive a weekly portion of the harvest during the growing season. The farm also participates in the Peninsula Countryside Farmers' Market in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Hundreds of people visit Crown Point each year to take part in educational events and programs to learn about organic farming or to tour the grounds. Through Crown Point's efforts, many people in Northeast Ohio have learned the importance and social relevance of sustainable agriculture and sustainable living.

    The Cleveland Environmental Center on Lorain Road is home to many Northeast Ohio nonprofit organizations including the Cleveland Green Building Coalition, Environmental Health Watch, EcoCity Cleveland, Enterprise Foundation, Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland and the Nature Conservancy. Due to the concentration of environmentally-focused organizations, the building is a structural manifestation of the environmental philosophies of its occupants. It features rapidly-renewable and recycled-content materials, a large solar system, a green-planted roof, nontoxic materials, low-flow water fixtures and an energy-efficient, geothermal heating/air conditioning system. The Cleveland Green Building Coalition routinely gives tours of the building and uses it as a showpiece to demonstrate successful green spaces. Meetings are held in the shared conference space in the building's restored lower level, giving more individuals an opportunity to visit the building. Most importantly, the building offers a place where occupants are surrounded by an environment created through the organization's mission statements.

    The values that businesses hold need not be confined to their mission statements. Both the space they occupy and the way they inhabit it should be a manifestation of those values. Occupant recycling, environmental cleaning, energy conservation and thoughtful design can express those values in a meaningful way. In addition to improving the lives of the workers and the quality of the environment, a company can improve its own bottom line through the savings realized on utilities, in addition to increased worker productivity. This is the heart of conscious values in the workplace – a realization that actions truly do speak louder than words.
Heather is with Doty and Miller Architects, a Bedford firm with a special interest in sustainable design and green building (www.dotyandmiller.com). During the spring and summer, Heather spends her evenings and weekends growing natural heirloom produce for a CSA (community supported agriculture) and farmers' markets (www.basketoflifefarm.com).

Doty and Miller and The Cleveland Environmental Center photos by Bob Perkoski - www.Perkoski.com.

The Crown Point Ecology Center photos by Delle Nadler.