Monticello Green: Two local businesses aim for "greener solutions"

January 22, 2009

Monticello Green

By: Meghan Gutzwiller

Two Monticello companies have become among the first local businesses to take serious steps towards environmental conservation, both with a very different product to sell. Cargill Kitchen Solutions in Monticello and Eagle Builders of Big Lake are proving that ‘green’ looks good on any business.

Cargill Kitchen Solutions, one of Monticello’s largest employers, has spent some serious time and energy to ensure they are minimizing their environmental impact.

“We’ve increased our focus on protecting the environment over the last three or four years,” said Kari Heitz, environmental manager at Cargill Kitchen Solutions. “We felt it was becoming more important to the stakeholders, to the community, the customers and important to us.”

Heitz said the company identified four environmental overarching goals and specific ways they can achieve these goals. To help protect the environment, their first goal, Cargill Kitchen Solutions takes part in the local Adopt-A-Highway and water festivals in area elementary schools, where students learn at an early age the importance of this natural resource and how to protect groundwater. Heitz said the company has also reduced its phosphorus loading, with phosphorus products being the most detrimental chemicals to clean water. Their reduced level of phosphorus helps keep the Mississippi River cleaner.

Their second goal is waste reduction, and to do that they have reduced the size of their product casing, increasing emphasis on reducing and reusing, with recycling as the next option.

“We’ve made great, great strides in recycling,” said Dan Roberts, vice president of engineering at Cargill Kitchen Solutions. This is true: the company recycled over double the amount in 2008 than it did just two years prior in 2006, going from 3,018 tons to 6,111 tons of recycled material. Roberts likened this to the equivalent of 155 semi-truck loads of waste diverted from the landfill. Heitz said the company now sends less than 20 percent of its waste to the landfill.

“We really got aggressive about this when we found out there is a lot of things we could send somewhere other than a landfill,” Roberts said. “The wonderful thing about that is it’s not as hard to do as many people think it is.”

Water conservation, their third goal, is achieved by changing the way much of their equipment is cleaned so it doesn’t involve water, and to cook products in a dry heat rather than a steam heat whenever possible.

Lastly, Cargill Kitchen Solutions has been looking to energy conservation for several years now, with a long term goal of decreasing their energy consumption by 20 percent by 2010 from a baseline year in 2001. Each year they reduce their energy consumption by a certain percent to reach that target, despite the fact that their business is growing in that same time period and thus utilizing more energy. To achieve this goal, Cargill completed an in-house energy audit to determine a list of best practices to reduce energy use. Each piece of equipment was analyzed to find how it could become more efficient.

“In the long run, whatever any company does, whether it’s us or anybody else, whatever any company does is going to benefit the community if they go green,” Heitz said. “We’re pretty proud of some of the things we’ve done, and we hope other companies will do the same.”

Eagle Builders, Inc. of Big Lake is another local business to bring an environmental focus out on the front lines. Owner Gene Eckstein said that remodeling, his main business emphasis, is green in and of itself, since it finds a way to continue using an existing structure. He has taken the process even further by using green and energy efficient materials in projects.

“In 100 to 150 years we are going to double the world’s population,” Eckstein said. “That’s a huge growth in the amount of resources we’re going to be using if we don’t start cutting back.”

Eckstein said homeowners who invest in environmentally friendly products will conserve water and make their homes more energy efficient. He recently completed his Minnesota Green Star Certification, which qualifies him to complete a Green Star certified project.

He said Eagle Builders already take several environmentally-friendly steps when completing home remodels, such as using high efficiency furnaces, air exchangers for air quality, high efficiency air conditioners to reduce waste and re-using products when possible. However, Eckstein said he looks forward to incorporating more techniques on his next projects, such as the tankless water heater he has in his own home, which heats water only as needed, and using locally grown building materials. Eckstein stressed that many ‘green’ features will not cost much more than traditional methods if you find a contractor who is knowledgeable about the options and where to obtain materials.

And, at the end of the day, Eckstein said that owners of environmentally friendly homes can expect to see a better return on their investment.

“According to Oregon MLS data, houses that were ‘green’ sold for up to 10.5 percent more for green rather than houses that weren’t certified,” he said. “Green building is the only part of the industry that is really growing right now.”

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