Green Buckeye

The December 15 "Get Green" business conference revealed that Central Ohio has dozens of green projects in-flight or planned!

For example, before this event, I hadn't heard of the Northstar Cafe. Northstar is a local restaurant that is striving to create a tasteful and sustainable dining experience. The owners are using organic ingredients. It was fun to learn that, in order to have a supply of organic produce this summer, they're working with regional farmers who are ordering seeds this month!

Were you aware that the downtown Lazarus building is being sustainably redeveloped? In fact, it's one of the largest historical rehab projects in the US right now. I hope they'll offer tours to the public when things are further along.
One exciting commercial project featured at the conference is the planned eco-industrial park. An eco-industrial park is built on the eco-effectiveness principle that "waste equals food." In this concept, waste from one industrial process is "food" (raw material or input) for another industrial process. In an eco-industrial park, independent companies are co-located to support the "waste equals food" cycle.

It was great to see the turnout at the event. As judged by a show of hands, the majority of attendees were from government agencies and NGO's. But there were also folks from the worlds of business, industry, and academe. Spotted among the throng: Aparna Dial of OSU, Tad Dritz of Shepherd Advisors, Dan Weisenbach of Weisenbach Specialty Printing, and of course, Mayor Mike Coleman.

Labels: events