DC Velocity - March 2012

AAt this point, we are simply encouraging our members to begin to report, by facility, their water, propane, and electrical usage. At the same time, we are also making it clear that this isn’t just about being green; it’s about true sustainability, which includes factors like social responsibility, and that sustainability that will lead to lower costs and improved profitability for our members.

QThat raises the question of how you go about measur- ing something like social responsibility or corporate citizenship. That’s not as easily quantified as, say, water or electricity use.

AExactly. We’re still tweaking our process based on input from our member base, and I think there will be some future adjustments, particularly with the social responsibility metric. But as a way of getting started, we basically figured that social responsibility is taking care of your employees to a certain extent and ensuring their safety. All of our members are under OSHA reporting responsibility, so for that metric, we decided to ask, you know, ‘What was your OSHA score?’ I am assuming that represents your employees’ safety.

It has also been difficult to find a way to quantify corporate good citizenship. Here, we’re looking for things like community service and charitable donations—a lot of people donate time or services or a number of things. But simply asking, “What are you doing for your community in dollars?” isn’t a valid measure given that one member might be operating 3 million square feet of space in a community, while another has just 50,000 square feet—our membership is that diverse. For that reason, we’ve been considering a kind of dollars-per-square-foot approach.

QWhat’s next for the initiative?

ANext, we’ll start developing the framework for certifi- cation, which we eventually hope to make available to other associations for their members’ use. I know, for instance, the National Industrial Transportation League has already expressed an interest.

QAs you wrap up your tenure as member chair this month, what advice would you offer your successor? AGet your running shoes on and prepare for a fast ride. I really enjoyed it, so much so that it almost seemed to go by too fast. It certainly has been an honor, particularly as a woman in this industry.

I started out 22 years ago with my own company. I feel fortunate that I have been accepted in the industry and that I have seen change. I have been able to witness what it was like 22 years ago and what it is like today. I feel fortunate to have been part of that change. I think our work has helped bring about a lot of that change in the industry. ;