Teaching sustainability in the real business world
we've diverted over seven tons of waste from the landfill and we did win an award at the last better business challenge for our composting program it's the ripple effect award so hoping that our composting efforts will sort of ripple out into the community today on charlottesville inside out we'll check out a go-to resource in our community for understanding and implementing environmentally sustainable practices at home and in the office join us as we visit with terry kent founder of better world betty come on better world betty is a local organization that helps people and businesses have the knowledge and the local tools that they need so they can reduce their impact on the environment so fast and friendly fun tips what inspired you to start this organization well i'm i was a stay-at-home mom at the time i have two boys and i just became really alarmed with what was going on with the environment you know article after article after the bleaching ocean the the plastic trash heaps in the pacific and the rising temperatures and i thought you know i really want to do something at the local level and i looked around we'd always been a hiker and being a recycler at home but i really after inconvenient truth especially i just felt like yes i had to up the ante i had to do something i'm a doer so i wanted to do something at the local level and i as i looked around as a mom i thought you know people are busy you know they it is this big overwhelming thing global climate change and what's happening at the local level and how can i tap in uh who's who's taking care of recycling or right cycling is huge right reduce reuse recycle right i thought you know i want some somebody to tell me on in the environment like who in the community is is helping with clean energy or clean water like recycling that kind of thing right everyday stuff and talk about betty so you've got this really helpful friendly person who is this character betty yeah tell us about betty well betty is that 50s woman betty steven betty's recycled people exactly and she's the go-to she's the local guru um that you can go to for any question right so and i think it's it's i think it speaks to people because we all have this inner betty yeah everyone is betty everyone is betty everyone can be betty exactly everyone has that place in their heart in the where they are intimately tied to the planet we rely on it rely on clean air and clean water and so that betty is whoever that person is you know we all know somebody at our church we all know somebody in our business we also nobody knows somebody in our neighborhood that where they take the recycling separately or you know they have that inner betty that wants to do something so so let's talk about some of the things that we do you have this great menu so and and so people can look at betty's menu and decide what it is they want to do and so give us some examples of the starters the appetizers it's really not so intimidating right so we created this menu we wanted to have the a la carte so things like turning off your faucet when you brush your teeth right something simple or putting the putting the top on your we say lower your cook print right put that top on as you're heating up your your water those little things why do you do that to so that you don't have to run the stove as long so that you're saving conserving a little bit of energy that way too right okay and so then so those are starters and then then the menu gets beefier and beefier that's right so then we ask people hey can you take it up a notch and have the main dish maybe a main dish would be get a home energy checkup switch out a toilet something that's a little more time intensive right so when we created the menu we wanted to say hey what could people do in a few minutes and there are many things on the menu that people can do and probably are many people are probably already doing right so it makes you feel good about yourself when you read the menu yeah we want it we want people to feel like they can do something you know it doesn't have to be you're completely off grid which is wonderful right we want every everyday actions to be accessible and i think that the menu is a fun friendly way to do that so they can go to the website and they can ask any question how do i do this how do i do that and before they even ask they can click on and go to a section where people have already asked a million questions and to see if their answers are there first that's right i mean it's a huge resource exactly and it really helps us repurpose as a community and be a really resilient stronger community when you know i have something in my home i don't want to get rid of it who else in the community can utilize that whether it's a backpack or a lawn mower i mean that we really become a stronger community that way and that ties in with an event that you all are part of today talk about the repair cafe so the repair cafe is just a great betty concept everybody has things at home that are that's broken maybe it just needs a little tweak here or some glue there and they don't want to throw it away and so this repair cafe we will have stations that people can come and bring their broken item and this is part of sievel time bank another neat concept of a community working together so that we can reduce reuse recycle so and it's on america recycles day yeah so every year uh every year on november 15th is a big betty day day i love that because you know we all care recycling is one of those things that we can do to be smarter with our resources and it's great because there are several organizations that are participating in the event today so you bring the community together everyone's going to be offering help with different things you're teaching better world betty will be teaching people how to make a shopping bag out of an old t-shirt without using any needles or thread right just just a pair of scissors just a pair of and i get so many compliments when i take mine to the grocery store people say is that an old t-shirt yes it is see that's great now the other thing that better world betty has done in the past and will continue to do in the future is is the the better business challenge you all are a very big part of that yes tell us what that is so the better business challenge is a program for local businesses schools churches we get in there and we really help businesses reduce their impact so we have scorecards in energy water waste transportation purchasing we really hit every aspect of running a business right with a checklist with a scorecard and say here you know we'll help you identify some things that will save your business money help the environment build a stronger community bring customers to you because you and i as consumers we want to go to those businesses that are doing things for the environment that are stepping up that are sustainable minded so it's it's a great program we've helped almost 200 businesses now and it's fun because it is a challenge it's sort of a competition and people win awards right and they really get engaged and invested and really make a difference that's right so for the first challenge we basically converted all of our leases our applications our addenda just dozens and dozens of documents into an electronic system called echo sign so it's all everything is signed digitally it's all email it's super convenient and we got rid of all of our filing cabinets and thousands of sheets of paper it's almost 100 sheets of paper per day not to mention how much toner goes into that as well so that's pretty significant when you start looking at stuff like that that wow we used to we used to waste all that paper and now we don't which is really cool when we did the better business challenge there was a great kind of community forming within the company and everybody was sort of clear that we had a message we had a vision that we were trying to accomplish and the most exciting part was that we actually won the award then we would have regular classes in the kitchen in the rental division in our event operations room just to explain to people where you put certain items so that they don't contaminate the streams of recycling trash or compost that we're producing it's building that muscle that um ecology-minded muscle within the business community and what we've done i feel like with that program and some of our other programs is we really activate that betty that we talked about that's within you know everybody and within the community that we went in and empowered that person that one person in the in the organization given them some tangible tools right given them we do lunch and learns uh workshop series uh it's really it's a really fun program why is it so important to compost wow green waste is a big problem it's heavy um it in the in the landfills it there's chemical processes and it releases methane like if we could get green waste out of the waste stream we would be doing so much better in terms of uh recovering that resource i mean really when you think about it green waste that's like amazing dirt for your garden right like you can create that is a that is an untapped resource right it really is and and it is so doable it is it's so easy oh we had someone that was at mcintyre recycling and she was a betty she was an older betty and she said please tell people to compost their leaves you know she's just was passionate i love how people just get so passionate can you tell the whole community to recycle their leaves because it turns into perfect you know soil so yeah well it's always fun betty's fun betty's not intimidating betty makes you want to come on board right yeah so it's it's volunteer and board run but so if people want to get involved talk about the different ways that they can get involved so one way to get involved of course is to engage in our programs to download the menu we have an anti-styrofoam letter maybe your favorite restaurant you know is still using styrofoam go to our website print out the letter send it hand it to them in person so take action of course would be a great way to engage as a volunteer organization we we are always looking for betties we want that group of folks where we can tap into and and have them be where they're needed yeah you know so um there's lots of ways to become involved we have zero waste warriors so yeah i saw that so what are what are zero waste warriors so these are people that we um meet with and and really educate them about recycling in our community the ins and outs and then they can go and advocate in their neighborhood or their schools about the importance of recycling that's a good way to be involved and of course um donating you know to our organization we're we are wanting to as you said run the better business challenge again yeah so that's a fundraising effort that requires all sorts of participation and sponsorship so yeah what what is next for you all what does betty want to do next so our big vision is to have little pilot um betty communities um all over so yeah because everyone's you don't need we need it we need that go-to person yeah everyone is a betty you're absolutely right that's great thank you terry oh thank you so much you
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