GREEN
EUGENE
CAN WE CREATE TRULY SUSTAINABLE
JOBS FOR OUR KIDS?
By Alan Pittman
ugene and Lane County have great
potential for sustainable development —
creating jobs while at the same time pro-
tecting the environment for our children, UO
researchers found in a study last month.
“There already is a decent-sized and growing sustainabili-
ty sector in town,” says Bob Doppelt, who led the study as
director of the UO Program for Watershed and Community Health.
“There’s clearly a great potential for expanding.”
Few disagree with the idea of sustainable development. “Yeah, that sounds great,” says Jack
Roberts, director of the local Metro Partnership business growth group.
But the devil may be in the details. How exactly to define sustainable development, how much reg-
ulatory teeth to give it and how much priority to give it compared to traditional development efforts
remains unsettled.
E
E
LOCAL POTENTIAL
The local area already has a strong green
business sector to build on. The UO study,
with work by seven graduate students, com-
piled information from 43 companies
employing up to 2,200 people with a net
payroll of $57 million.
Eugene’s pro-environment reputation,
high quality of life, and strong customer
base for green products has helped attract
the businesses. The sustainable companies
have withstood the recent economic down-
turn and even expanded. Unlike other
industries, they have long, deep roots in the
community and are unlikely to leave for
cheaper labor or tax breaks, according to
the UO study.
The local natural foods industry is the
largest chunk of the area’s sustainability
industry. The UO study gathered informa-
tion on 15 natural food companies employ-
ing 334 people with a payroll of $8.4 mil-
lion. Among the larger local companies are
Royal Blueberries, Emerald Valley
Kitchen, Surata Soyfoods, Golden Temple,
and the Springfield Creamery. The study
also identified 30 local organic farms on
1,529 acres of certified organic farm land in
the county.
“We have a good cluster of that” natural
foods industry, says Roberts. “We want to
try to encourage that.”
To expand the industry, the UO study
offered a variety of recommendations
including establishing a local trade associa-
tion, educating consumers to buy local
organics, encouraging national grocery
12 NOVEMBER 13, 2003
chains to stock local sustainable products,
funding a new farmers market and low
interest loans.
One idea was helping to market local
organic food nationally by branding it as,
for example, “Produced in Lane County,
Northwest Leader of Natural Foods.”
Natural foods appear to be a strong growth
industry. While sales of traditional foods
are flat nationally, natural food sales are
expanding at more than 20 percent a year.
The UO study also examined potential
growth in the local green building industry
and in eco-industrial development. An edu-
cation campaign for builders, public agen-
cies and consumers on the benefits of build-
ing green, local governments leading by
example with green buildings as well as
strong, clear local regulations could help
promote the eco-building industry. Eco-
Industrial development could be expanded
by promoting bio-based foods and lubri-
cants and recruiting hydrogen fuel busi-
nesses and solar energy manufacturers,
according to the UO study.
VAGUE
While many agree on the value of sus-
tainable development, fewer people agree
on its exact definition.
In a May speech at a Portland sustain-
able development conference, Gov. Ted
Kulongoski said, “sustainable development
resonates with people of both parties, and
across all regions of the state and nation. It
is a vision that most everyone can — and
does — agree on.”
The governor told the gathering, “my
commitment to sustainability is unshak-
able.” But then Kulongoski went on to
describe the state’s grass seed and comput-
er chip industries as examples of sustain-
able development.
“Grass seed is hardly sustainable,”
Doppelt says of the pesticide intensive
industry. “It’s very harmful to water quality.”
The current chip industry also can be a
“very damaging” industry to the environ-
ment with its huge use of toxic chemicals,
water, power and lack of recycling of old
computers, according to Doppelt.
Although Kulongoski has called on state
government agencies to take sustainability
principles to heart in their operations, he
himself has taken to touring the state in a
huge, fuel-guzzling motor home donated by
the state’s leading anti-environmental lob-
bing group, Associated Oregon Industries.
“I don’t think he personally is all that
focused or knowledgeable” about sustain-
ability, Doppelt says. But Doppelt says sus-
tainability leaders aren’t muddled about the
definition of sustainable development.
“They’re very clear about what they’re
doing.”
Doppelt says in time, the definition of
sustainability will be settled. In Europe, it
already is. With the movement newer in
America, Doppelt says, “We’re still stuck
in the, ‘oh gee, what is it’ issue.”
The term sustainable development has
been around since at least 1987, when a
United Nations commission defined it as
“development that meets the needs of the
present generation without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs.” The accepted definition
focuses on reducing or eliminating pollu-
tion and re-using or recycling natural
resources.
But there’s still a clear resistance among
some to strictly defining sustainable devel-
opment in terms of attaching labels to spe-
cific companies. Asked whether local chip-
maker Hynix is a sustainable industry,
Roberts of the Metro Partnership respond-
ed, “Part of what we have to be careful of is
that there’s a great dividing line, and that
some are sustainable and some are not.”
GREENWASH
With the definition still vague for many,
the biggest hurdle for the sustainable busi-
ness movement may be corporate green-
wash.
Hundreds of environmentally question-
able corporations — including Exxon, Dow
Chemical, Shell Oil, Weyerhaeuser and
McDonald’s — have laid claim to the label
of sustainability in slick advertising and
reports.
The public interest group CorpWatch
handed out greenwash “Academy Awards”
to corporations at the World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg,
South Africa last year. “‘Sustainable
Development’ is now officially meaning-
less,” the group complained.
“There’s going to be a lot of greenwash
that goes on in this transition period [to sus-
tainable development], the transition may