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By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
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GRAND RAPIDS — Ever since pioneering the Community Sustainability Partnership model in 2005, the city of Grand Rapids has charged forward in expanding new partnerships with businesses and organizations around West Michigan.

After a recent leadership reorganization of the CSP, the city and its partners say they’re taking the organization to the next level of engagement around “applied sustainability.”

“Ever since it was created in 2005, the focus of the organization was expanding partnership and membership in the CSP and looking at ways to engage organizations in sustainability,” Haris Alibasic, director of the city’s office of energy and sustainability, told MiBiz. “With new realities, (we asked) how can we move to the next phase of the CSP at the community and regional level. This really signals that we want to focus on issues that can create long-term sustainability for us in the community, but also engage a wider group of stakeholders and bring sustainability to the next level. It’s applied sustainability.”

Alibasic said the renewed focus places a greater emphasis on bringing the business community on board with the CSP. He said businesses can help drive many of the sustainability initiatives, citing that for the first time, the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce has joined the initiative as well.

The new CSP leadership team includes: Mayor George Heartwell and Alibasic, city of Grand Rapids; President Steven Ender and Moss Ingram, Grand Rapids Community College; President Thomas Haas and Norman Christopher, Grand Valley State University; Eddie Tadlock, SMG and DeVos Place; Jessica Eimer, Aquinas College; Christina Keller, Cascade Engineering; Andy Johnston, Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce; Keith Winn, Catalyst Partners; Gail Heffner, Calvin College; Jennifer Jansma, Kuaka New Zealand; and Gayle DeBruyn, West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum.

One of the charges for the group will be to continue to gain wider exposure for the city’s sustainability efforts. While much has been made locally of the city’s work on the triple bottom line, that word hasn’t always spread past the region.

“If no one knows about it, what good does it do? We need to educate the public, and this needs to be a part of everyday conversation,” Eddie Tadlock, a new member of the CSP leadership team and assistant general manager of SMG, the company that runs operations at DeVos Place and DeVos Performance Hall, told MiBiz. “We want to showcase what’s really happening on the ground.

“There’s an opportunity for us (at SMG) to help educate the public about the benefits of sustainability and those practices. With close to 1 million people coming through our venues each year, that’s a huge reach.”

The Grand Rapids Chamber’s Johnston said his group had similar reasons for jumping on board. While the chamber has its own carbon calculator and other sustainability initiatives — the organization and its members nominated Grand Rapids for the U.S. Chamber’s Sustainable Mid-Sized City award, which it won last year — joining together with the CSP can help broaden the impact of sustainability initiatives already in place, he said.

“Fundamentally, we got involved from an economic competiveness standpoint. If we’re more economically sustainable, we’ll get ahead,” Johnston told MiBiz. “There are a lot of things our members are doing that need to be shared to the community as a whole. We want to share those success stories in the community and nationally.”

As the organization looks to broaden its reach, it’s also looking to partner with other local communities for the most impact. Norman Christopher, executive director of the Sustainable Community Development Initiative at GVSU, said the CSP and its regional partnership with similar organizations in Muskegon, Holland-Zeeland, Spring Lake-Grand Haven and Kalamazoo-Portage-Battle Creek will focus on energy efficiency and conservation across the region, one outcome of the 2010 GreenTown Grand Rapids event. The regional push, led by Bob Mihos of the Holland Board of Public Works and Alibasic from Grand Rapids, will focus on what the communities, neighborhoods, residents and business owners can do to become more energy efficient.

“Since the CSP endorsing partner membership now approaches 200 organizations, there is the opportunity to communicate broadly across the public, private, academic and service sectors regarding sustainable development,” Christopher told MiBiz.

Alibasic said collaboration will be a first step in demonstrating how communities around West Michigan can work together to share best practices that will lead to environment and social improvement, as well as economic saving opportunities.

Alibasic said, “By sharing (best practices) from Grand Rapids and Holland, we can be driving this regional energy efficiency work. If we can leverage the resources, everyone will benefit from it. That’s why the CSP is important. If I have one major impact statement about the CSP it would be leveraging resources in the community.”