Clean air. Potable water. Protected wetlands. Resilient coastlines. These dwindling resources are in need of a helping hand. Earth Day may be officially celebrated on April 22nd, but at Fuss & O’Neill, every project we work on is an opportunity to be this helping hand.

With the focus this year on reducing plastic pollution, we will be posting the Earth Day Network’s “Plastic Pollution Primer and Action Toolkit” on our intranet. Included as part of this Toolkit, there is a survey to calculate individual plastic consumption. We will be asking our employees to complete this survey anonymously. From the data collected, we will develop a program to reduce our company’s plastic pollution footprint by 30% in the coming year.

The first step in our footprint reduction is giving each of our employees an eco-friendly reusable shopping bag. This small gesture will take the place of 350 plastic shopping bags multiplied by an incalculable number of shopping trips. These small steps add up to large changes.

While we work to lessen our impact internally, we are actively working toward global solutions. For every project we initiate, we ask ourselves if there is a green opportunity. This may include the use of bioretention systems, swales, porous pavement, native plantings, green gutters, solar structures, runnel systems, rain gardens, vegetated filter strips, weirs, and other best management practices.

We utilize green infrastructure and low impact design principals to craft innovative and cost-saving solutions, but, more importantly, to leave our precious resources in better condition than in which we found them.