It is no surprise that the planet is facing some major climate issues. Utah has created a new program to hold businesses accountable for how they can make their practices more sustainable. We spoke with Morgan Mingle and Mary Closser about the way businesses in Utah are working to better the planet.
At the moment, the program is only active in Summit County. They are having business make goals in relation to sustainability and add a new one every year in order to keep them forward thinking about the environment. It can involve anything from energy, water, transportation, chemical use. Etc. Recycle Utah is based out of Park City and they are completely revamping the program. Closser states, “We are trying to enhance the impact of the program and get businesses more publicity who want to do the right thing.” The current program has 110 businesses actively involved and the new program only has 8 at the moment but are continuing to grow. Morgan Mingle, from the Park City Chamber, talks about the sustainable tourism plan for all of Summit County. The community and the business worked together to look at what they wanted to be in the future and how they can create goals aligning with their environmental values. The new program has five areas, energy, transportation, water, materials, and social and community equity. The businesses involved have to pick a goal within each of these categories. Mingle states, “The goal of the program is to make it as easy as possible to do good work.” The program has many resources they can use to make their goals accessible. They would like for the state to adopt their program and use Summit County as a model for the rest of the state.
For more information visit recycleutah.org or visitparkcity.com