Eye on Business
Businesses for the Bay Helps the Turfgrass Industry Shine By: Corinne Stephens, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay Business Partnerships Manager
The
Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (Alliance) created the new Businesses for the Bay Membership Association (B4B) to foster collaboration and encourage businesses to take voluntary, innovative and measurable actions that improve water quality and the health of the environment, as well as raise public understanding of the valuable role its members play in environmental restoration. B4B is an opportunity for businesses to network, share ideas, make their voices heard and work together for a cleaner and healthier Chesapeake watershed. The program can be tailored to meet the goals of each business by helping to promote environmental efforts that are important to them, their associates, their customers and their communities. Working together benefits everyone, and B4B is based on the idea that diverse voices at the table lead to diverse ideas and solutions. Engaging and helping to inform the business community is at the heart B4B, which is made up of approximately 50 business members of all sizes and from various sectors. B4B
also promotes important partnerships and discussions; we have formed a strong network of over 50 diverse governmental and nonprofit networking partners that participate in the group’s events, network with businesses and share information. One of our most robust partners is the Virginia Turfgrass Council, which joined B4B in 2016. This partnership allows us to enrich the dialogue about watershed-wide topics and initiatives within the turfgrass industry. We regularly discuss the importance of properly maintained lawns, and appropriately selecting and applying pesticides and fertilizers so that none of them enter sensitive ecosystems. We encourage homeowners to hire landscape companies that are properly certified pesticide and fertilizer applicators. I have participated in many VTC conferences; each has brought new and exciting “green” enterprises into B4B. “The Chesapeake Bay’s rich history and its economic and environmental importance are not lost on persons who care for lawns and landscapes,” said VTC Executive Director Tom Tracy. “Encouraging industries to join B4B enables the VTC
20 | Virginia Turfgrass Journal September/October 2018 www.vaturf.org