A subcommittee of the group Students in Free Enterprise is running a local initiative to push businesses to go green.
The Clean Innovative Transformation Initiative (CITI) aims to bring Binghamton University students into the city for an annual spring cleaning sweep, as well as to talk to store and restaurant owners about cleaning up their store fronts.
This year’s Project Clean Up and Green Up will take place Saturday at 12:30 p.m. Participants can meet with SIFE members at the Metro Center Commons.
Last year, Mayor Matthew Ryan and other city officials came out to the spring clean up event to answer questions and support the initiative.
The committee went to local businesses last semester and gave out compact fluorescent light bulbs donated by Sam’s Club, along with fact sheets about what owners can do to run a greener business.
“The town is really on our side,” said Christine Warkenthien, vice president of environment and ethics for SIFE. “The whole idea of CITI is if the city looks better and goes toward a cleaner way of business, more people will come here and get the city up and running.”
Last week the committee conducted a series of phone surveys asking managers questions regarding how much trash they produce in a week, whether they recycle and whether they unplug their appliances when they are not in use.
Businesses such as Escape State Street, Nirchi’s Pizza, Scoreboard, On the Roxx, Mad Moose Saloon, South Side Yanni’s and Sake Tumi responded to the phone survey.
Through these surveys, Warkenthien learned that a majority of these businesses have started using energy-efficient light bulbs and recycling, but could use help to switch over to Energy Star appliances.
“What we came to the conclusion of is that many businesses that we talked to are in fact environmentally aware,” Warkenthien said. “However, especially for those who did not seem to be as green as others, there is a lot of room for improvement.”
According to Warkenthien, the committee’s plan is to talk to businesses during the Clean Up and Green Up, and see if they are interested in working together in the future.
“From there we can base improvements off of what we found in the surveys,” she said.
SIFE was created six years ago as a student entrepreneurship organization. The group’s annual events include the High School Teaching Project, where club members go to local high schools to teach about entrepreneurship.
“We do a variety of consulting projects for local businesses, helping them with marketing techniques to get their names out there,” said Craig Broccoli, president of SIFE.
The club also runs an international mentoring program through Web chat conferences in which the participants speak to high school students around the world about starting a business. They are currently working with students from Rwanda.
The organization has 60 active members who participate in the annual entrepreneurial projects.