WMEAC honors three firms with Triple Top Line Awards

The West Michigan Environmental Action Council honored three organizations as winners of its First Annual Triple Top Line Awards as part of its 40th Anniversary celebration at the Grand Rapids Art Museum.

The TTL Awards honor projects, programs and concepts emerging from the West Michigan community that have or will soon contribute to the region’s rich tapestry of sustainable progress. Selected from a pool of seven finalists, the three honorees most clearly demonstrated a significant, positive impact on West Michigan’s Triple Top Line — Environment, Economy and Social Equity — commonly known as the Triple Bottom Line.

This year’s winners are:

1. Metro Health Hospital for its LEED-certified campus, commitment to stormwater management through Low Impact Development Strategies and efforts to reduce waste and eliminate products with harmful toxics in health care.

2. Inner City Christian Federation for its rehabilitation and re-use of the former Blodgett Hospital in a previously blighted building, as well as efforts to increase homeownership through center city housing rehabilitation efforts that provide healthy homes for families who are emerging out of poverty.

3. Green Grand Rapids for its green infrastructure planning for the City of Grand Rapids that will ultimately result in the protection and enhancement of key environmental assets, improved quality of life for residents and economic development generated through an attractive, affordable and green community.

“Growing up and in college, WMEAC was one of the organizations that to me represented an awareness that I think a sustainable community needs,” says John Ebers, Metro Health sustainable business officer. “It think that says a lot about the awareness that our company is coming to: We provide health to people, and if you don’t have healthy people than you can’t have an healthy community. But you have to not do things that negate the health of the environment around you in the process.”

Added Jonathan Bradford, ICCF executive director, “This recognition, which WMEAC calls the Triple Top Line, shows the value that we have worked for. We’ve worked a long time to build a corporate identify that understands the inseparable relationship between justice and equity for people, and that also means being environmentally responsible and a good steward of our planet.”