11 August 2010

Over the past year, the Town of Parker, CO has been working to find ways to make Parker a leader in green practices among neighboring communities. Understanding that change starts from within, the Town has created a Green Team to focus on what employees can do to create a more sustainable work environment. This past year they have implemented a number of changes including, but not limited to:

• Removed paper and plastic kitchenware and began providing silverware for Council meetings and tumblers to all employees

• Replaced bottled water with permanent glasses and pitchers

• Adopted of a Sustainability Framework to guide the Town

• Received an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) to replace specific street lamps and five-globe lights with more energy efficient LED lighting

• Began utilizing a single paper vendor to minimize cost and waste of mishandled copy and print jobs

• Participated in a county-wide electronics recycling and personal document shredding event

With many successful projects completed or in progress, the Green Team is continuing to find new ways to go green. A few items the team is working on:

• Community Clean Up event

• Living Green page on the Town Web site

• Best Practices guidelines for employees

• Addition of recycling bins around our parks and facilities for use by the community and employees

• Implementation of motion/automatic sensing offices lights

For more information on the Town's Green Team or Parker, CO efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, call 303.841.0353 or email greenteam@parkeronline.org.