I was asked to present a talk on Sustainability in Landscaping to a group of Landscape Ontario members at a recent Chapter meeting. The next few columns will cover that talk. There are two reasons for this. One is to show you that they are us and we are they. The second is to share a slightly different perspective on sustainability. Sometimes, Gentle Reader, folks get the wrong ideas that us gardeners and landscapers have very different sensitivities about this good earth. They have the idea that landscapers are only in it for the money, concerned only about the bottom line. This is only partly true but lets not lose sight of the fact that they are business people and profit is not a bad thing. Bottom line, their cares and concerns are the same as ours. (Mind you not only am I on both sides of the fence on this one, I have even built the fence.) So let's remember that we're all in this together.

Part One, Sustainability in Landscaping
There are two aspects of our industry we should chat briefly about before getting into the topic proper. We know we’re in a new business environment.

This environment is now shaped by politicians and our customers as never before. It used to be trade organisations, the ministry of transport, the ministry of labour and even, sit tight you independent people, unions. Organisations that are concerned about safety, pay, and technical standards- real meaty stuff that helped us run our businesses.

They did not tell us what our businesses were about, nor how to go about deciding our services to customers.

The recent cosmetic pesticides legislation here in Ontario is the seminal event. Doesn’t matter right or wrong, what has happened is that our business environment has been changed dramatically leaving us to deal with the aftermath. Some of that includes educating our customers, unfortunately, after the fact.

Clearly, governments are more willing to become involved in our businesses.

That’s one part. Here’s another.

Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, has most of North America involved in saving the planet, the rain forest, the ozone layer. Heaven help the poor tuna fisherman who nets a dolphin these days. We have had years of recycling; now some cities are distributing green waste bins. Compost bins and water reclamation systems (formerly called a rain barrel) are big sellers, native plant outlets are springing up, eco-lawns are the rage until mowing time, gadgets and new ideas abound.

This means our customers have been exposed to all of these things. And they want them. At the end of this chat, I’ll leave you with a piece by Veronica Sliva in which she talks to her readers-our customers- about sustainable landscaping. Some of those clients are confused, some have done a bit of research, and one or two have read stuff on the internet. (Protect us from them, please) What this means is that many will be looking for us to provide environmentally friendly, eco-sound, organic, non-threatening landscapes, gardens and services. It is a minefield. It is a headache. It is a philosophy. It is an opportunity.

By the way, it is also right.

The idea of “sustainable” uses this definition, from the American President’s Council of 1992: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present generation without comprising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Take out development and insert horticulture, or agriculture, or landscaping. Our challenge is to embrace this philosophy and make money. So this is where the term “philosophy” comes in. It is your personal philosophy, your personal belief systems that will determine how you exercise Sustainable Landscaping and how you go about it.

This is not pie-in-the-sky feel good mumbo-jumbo. It goes to the core values of how you run your business. And again that’s all up to you. My job here tonight is to show you a few of the practices involved in sustainable landscaping, some of the ideas that you can incorporate into your business, and how to present this to your customers as a selling point. Make no mistake, the purpose of our businesses is to be profitable and we should never lose sight of that; however, there’s lots of opportunity to adjust our margins in many ways.