Since becoming an accredited member of Green America in 2008, Canvas Dreams has worked hard to educate our customers and business associates about the importance of adopting sustainable business practices.
Over the past several months, Canvas Dreams has been working on a plan
to dovetail sustainability education into our web hosting service lines.
It seems a natural fit that with right instruction, a small business
could learn how to effectively utilize technology to operate more
efficiently and environmentally responsible and ultimately improve their
bottom line. We have been working closely with Ken Hiatt at
Peraska.com,
who provides sustainability for business large and small, to figure out
ways our companies can work together to support not only our
customers' needs, but also the local business community as a whole.
On Wednesday of this week I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting
Desiree Wolford, the Business Membership Coordinator for Green America. Along with Ken Hiatt and Shelly Buschel (Canvas Dreams' Sales
Manager), the four of us sat down over a few lattés at the
cafe below our data facility in downtown Portland, Oregon, and had a
three-hour chat.
Desiree had flown out from Washington D.C. for business and stopped through Portland for a few days.
We discussed many things, such as the role technology can play in helping a
company become more sustainable. Ken shared his experiences of educating
companies in very simple ways to improve their efficiency. Even
companies resistant to change for whatever reason can adopt a
sustainability program and put it into action with very little
difficulty. The key to helping businesses, especially small companies in
the present economy is by empowering them with real working knowledge
on how to streamline their procedures, operate with fewer resources to
accomplish more, shave off overhead through technology, such as VoIP
telephony or even distributed networks with remote workers. We talked through several scenarios, and came to understand the real need for sustainability education in the current market, and companies such as Peraska and Canvas Dreams that are willing to provide the knowledge and take the time to educate people willing to learn.
The single most important thing I gained during our conversation was
putting a real-life, human face on the name "Green America". It is an
organization that is there for a reason and is working for some very
important goals in this world. On behalf of Canvas Dreams, I would like to personally thank Desiree for taking the time out of her schedule to
meet with us. It was a real pleasure, and I hope our feedback will improve Green America to better serve all its members.
