Businesses and utilities gathered together in Beaverton, Oregon at the Nike World Headquarters campus on Thursday, October 16th to hear from experts on renewable energy or ‘green power’, and how it can benefit businesses. The event included a great line-up of speakers, a recognition event during lunch by the US EPA, and fantastic facilities.

Nike graciously hosted the day-long workshop at their Tiger Woods Conference Center, an outstanding facility. Attendees started off the day with an optional tour of the campus, which highlighted Nike’s energy efficiency efforts. Rachel Shimshak, director of Renewable Northwest Project, opened the conference with an overview of renewable energy projects and policies in the Northwest, and how far we’ve come in just the last few years.

Kurt Johnson from the Environmental Protection Agency and Mark Crowdis of Think Energy were next to take the stage, discussing the real world benefits that green power brings to business. Beyond just good PR, businesses buying renewable energy can meet organizational environmental objectives, differentiate themselves from competitors, create brand loyalty, strengthen stakeholder relationships with employees, shareholders and the local community, and in some cases save money. They also pointed out how purchasing green power increases investments in renewable energy services, which serve our national and global interests by diminishing our dependence on fossil fuels, creating new jobs in our region, and diversifying our energy portfolio.

During lunch, Jim Goddard of Nike gave a thoughtful presentation on Nike’s process of identifying greenhouse gas emissions within their company, and how they chose in part to mitigate them through a large green power purchase.

Following Nike, John Iani, Regional Administrator for Region 10 of the US EPA, presented certificates of recognition to local Green Power Partners. The 16 businesses and organizations recognized are all purchasing significant amounts of renewable energy. Among them were: Batdorf and Bronson Coffee Roasters, CH2Mhill, City of Portland, Clark County, Kinko’s, Friends of Trees, Nike, Norm Thompson, Pacific Northwest National Labs, Shuksan Energy Consulting, Stoel Rives, TerraClean and Trout Unlimited.

After lunch, participants heard from Diane Zipper of Renewable Northwest Project on the nuts and bolts of how to make a green power purchase, and Bert Gregory from Mithun Architects. Bert gave a fascinating presentation about how on-site generation and how use renewable energy to help meet the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

In the next session, Kevin Hagen with Shuksan Energy, discussed overcoming potential barriers – both internal and external – to making a green power purchase. Some solutions he suggested were to quantify the impact of environmental issues on the bottom line (electricity is a bottom line issue) and identify priorities; simplify selection of green power products; make the value case; and, get attention as the internal advocate from decision-makers.

The final panel of the day was all about success stories from local green power leaders. Keri Bolding from the Center for Resource Solutions moderated a panel that included representatives from Batdorf and Bronson Coffee Roasters, Clark County, Kinko’s, Nike and Stoel Rives. They each shared information about their organization’s green power purchase, why it was important to them, how they did it, and the benefits they’ve experienced.

The workshop was such a success that conference organizers are considering a similar workshop in Washington some time next spring.

Click here for conference details.

Click here for photos of the conference.