 Giving Back on Earth Day
The natural world sustains our economy, our society, and our very existence so consider some Earth Day activities that encourage your employees to step outside and give back. Some ideas to discuss with your green team include:
1) Organize a clean up event either for your business property or offsite. If you're located in Baltimore County, you can report your results to the Clean Green Litter Challenge.
2) Check with Project Clean Stream, VolunteerMatch and Meet Up to learn about organizations with nearby Earth Day events that you can join.
3) Plant a native tree and make it count! Register your tree planting towards Maryland's 5 Million Tree Initiative and be sure to check for programs with free or discounted trees like Tree Montgomery, Marylanders Plant Trees, Bowie's Plant One Tree on Us. These programs and others will help ensure that you're planting the right tree in the right place and also offer support for tree care.
4) Challenge your employees to identify the watershed and subwatershed where your business is located, and the species of plants and trees and animals found there. Adding the PictureThis plant ID app and the eBird app to your phones makes identification easy and in the case of eBird shares your group's sightings with the world birding community.
5) Have a great event planned and want to invite others? Share it on the Maryland Green Registry LinkedIn page.
May you all enjoy the Spring weather and getting to know and connect with your place on this planet for Earth Day.
Laura Armstrong, Maryland Green Registry
“For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
2024 Sustainability Leadership Awards
As one of the first spring flowers to bloom, daffodils are symbols of creativity, energy, and resilience so if the daffodils are in bloom, it can only mean one thing: it's time to recognize those same qualities in the members of the Maryland Green Registry!
The Sustainability Leadership Awards application will be available April 1, 2024 and applications will be due by April 26, 2024.
Because your member profile is part of the award application, this is a good time to make sure it's updated. Learn here how to update your profile or email green.registry@maryland.gov
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Electrifying News!
While the Maryland Green Registry member profiles include checkboxes for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the new Building Electrification checkbox will encourage members to share their energy efficient electric building technologies including air source and geothermal heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, microgrids, battery storage, and electric charging for forklifts and other on-site vehicles. Information on electrification of fleet vehicles will remain in the profile's Transportation section. Check below for financial incentives.
To update your member profile with your electrifying ⚡ news, view these instructions or email your updates to green.registry@maryland.gov
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Member Spotlight
The IKEA Customer Fulfillment Center has taken a number of steps to improve the efficiency of their Perryville facility including a 4.9-megawatt solar energy system, a 98% landfill waste diversion rate accomplished through waste reduction, recycling and aerobic digestion, a 30% increase in the efficiency of charging their forklifts, and the creation of a native meadow that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with reduced landscaping.
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