While meeting with the staff of the Alpine Bank at Snowmass Village three years ago, a long-time employee asked Dave Scruby a question he couldn’t answer: “Why aren’t we environmentally minded?”
“As I drove back from Snowmass I began to feel, quite frankly, embarrassed,” said Scruby, vice chairman of the Glenwood Springs-based chain of 33 banks.
“We live in these beautiful communities, and we take a lot, but don’t give a lot back.” Scruby then initiated a dialogue with employees that, despite some floundering, ultimately has produced changes mostly reducing energy use that are not only good for the environment, but for Alpine and all the communities Alpine Banks do business in, from Frisco to Telluride to Fruita.
Like Alpine Banks, many Colorado businesses have been re-embracing the environment during the last several years. High-end real estate developers have begun to consider LEED certification, an environmental rating for their operations, as simply an assumed cost of doing business. Many Fortune 500 companies have already reaped benefits of energy conservation, and now are looking for higher forms of turning their companies “green.”
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