In Our Opinion: Go green, sign the pledge

Does your business recycle, purchase locally, abandon the use of single-use plastics, encourage participation in Bike to Work week or use environmentally friendly cleaning supplies?

These are just five of 14 green practices that Transition Prince Rupert suggests businesses can adopt to take part in the Green Business Pledge.

On April 10, The Northern View signed the pledge because why not?

Every week, our distribution supervisor, Terry St. Pierre, diligently goes to each of our offices and takes care of our recycling, and dumps out our garbage, reusing the bag left in the rubbish bin.

READ MORE: What to do for Sustainability Month in Prince Rupert

Signing the pledge makes us more aware of our good intentions here at the office. We’re based on Fraser Street, and have plans to do a clean up in our area during the lunch hour this month.

We do our best to bring our own coffee travel mugs in to work to avoid using single-use to-go cups.

Participating in Earth Hour is easy, as we turn all the lights off after we leave the office.

It takes practice to break or make a habit. If you’re spending 40 hours in your office where co-workers are participating in environmentally-minded practices, then it’s likely you’ll take that home with you.

There are more than 1,000 businesses across the city. By deadline, there were only five businesses in the city that had signed onto the Green Business Pledge. Cleaning up our daily habits to protect the environment needs to be a part of a city-wide conversation.

READ MORE: Rupert students stage city hall sit-in as part of worldwide protest

A month ago, a small group of students joined the global movement to walk out of class and demand climate action from policy makers, forcing the conversation into the light. This is their future.

City council declared April as Sustainability Month. We’re more than halfway there, but it doesn’t have to be April for your business to make the conscious choice to be greener.

Transition Prince Rupert will continue to find ways to help our community build a brighter, cleaner, future.