A Toast to Sustainability

For years, the environmentally-minded businesses and organizations of Grand Rapids have shared projects, events, and a vision. The latest collaboration is Green Drinks, a monthly mixer that draws these peers together to socialize. Now, this network of colleagues is forming a culture, rather than simply an industry, of environmental progress within the city – all over a glass of beer.

It began with the desire to share a friendly drink.

"I realized that members of our sustainable business committee get together often for meetings and there are people who have relationships beyond work throughout that whole network,” said Rachel Hood, executive director of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council and one of co-founders of Grand Rapids Green Drinks. “But for the most part, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for people in any of these interactions to just kick it and have a good time together.”

Hood first heard about Green Drinks International, an organization with representation in more than 300 cities across the globe, several years ago. But, at that time, she was unable to dedicate the time to organize a Grand Rapids chapter. Then Hood was appointed executive director at WMEAC, the local environmental advocacy group that has close ties with the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum.

So when Dave Nicholson of JF New, an ecological consulting firm with a local office in Grand Haven, brought the idea forward to Hood once again, she was in a position to act. Hood and Nicholson recruited friend and colleague Rob McCarty from The Image Shoppe and put Grand Rapids Green Drinks into action that winter.

“We would get together for beers periodically because of some projects we were doing and it just helped to strengthen our working relationship," Hood says about Nicholson and McCarty. "We decided we should stop hogging ourselves and do this in a bigger way. So it was just a logical time to get Green Drinks started. It didn't take a lot of energy. It meant setting up a couple of websites and getting mailing lists all on one page."

Gatherings are held on the third Thursday of each month. And, so far, community response has been tremendous.

"We had our first one in December 2007 and we didn’t think that anyone would show up because it was the Thursday before the holidays, but it was packed! Nobody could move," Hood says.

Participation has not waned and interest in Green Drinks seems to amplify weekly. Attendance ranges between 15 and 100 people every month, with each new event bringing new faces.

Now, as this “drinking community" develops and grows, the shared passion of its members begins to spread more quickly, bringing the environmental conversation to those less directly involved.

"Many who have attended once, come back month-to-month, bringing someone new with them," Nicholson says. "This is the way it is supposed to work and grow. It does not matter what your background is. You just have to think 'green'."

Grand Rapids Green Drinks regularly rotates the venue around the central city, staying true to the shared goal of supporting local businesses.

"Our money stays in West Michigan," Nicholson says, “Plus, you learn about the different culture of each business or different entertainment that is offered – keeps you wanting more; keeps your support local."

For Grand Rapids, a city recognized more and more nationally for its commitment to advancing the practice of sustainability, a group such as Green Drinks is especially significant. Rachel Hood believes that it is the existing interconnectedness of the local community that is the foundation for the city’s environmental progress.

"I think that's the reason Grand Rapids is on the map," she says. "It's based on the strength of our social networks – those strong connections and the fact that it’s kind of a small town, even though it’s a big town. There’s that one and a half degrees of separation dynamic that we have here in Grand Rapids. I think it’s amazing. I’m endlessly fascinated at all of the connections between people."

So Green Drinks simply organizes the pre-existing associations in the community. But, in doing so, the mixers elevate many of the relationships from a somewhat superficial business status to perhaps a more meaningful social status as well. As a result, Green Drinks participants form a coalition of sorts, and stand even more united in their goals of environmental progress…and a cold pint.

"I think Grand Rapids Green Drinks really just strengthens an existing asset," Hood says. "I don’t think it’s going to do anything but fuel those kinds of connections."

Green Drinks is an international organization with local chapters in more than 350 cities, including New York, Melbourne, and Bangkok. So Grand Rapids Green Drinks is more than a representation of the steady current of environmental progress the city is making. It’s yet another way the city connects to the global sustainability movement, which is organized around the idea of balancing economic progress, environmental stewardship, and social justice.

"That might be the greatest aspect," Hood says. "There are all these places in the world that are working on these issues and Grand Rapids is among them and in charge, in some cases."

The idea is spreading around the West Michigan region, too. The City of Walker recently established its own chapter. And eventually some say the two groups may be able to merge.

"I thoroughly enjoy our early success of Green Drinks in the downtown GR area," Dave Nicholson says. "But I could envision the two groups one day combining and collaborating together. That could make a real powerhouse and attention-getter for sustainable concepts and projects."

For now, however, the group continues to thrive, bringing together business associates and colleagues to grow a green community.

“Who knows what’s going to come from it," Rachel Hood says. "It might happen a year from now, or two years from now. But something some day could be traced back to Green Drinks.”