The company’s goal, which Clackamas Town Center’s REI store assistant manager Tim Runge calls “ambitious,” is to be climate-neutral by 2020. At Clackamas, that ambition is on display on the roof, where solar panels were recently installed.
Runge defined climate-neutral as “not having any sort of negative impact on the environment,” and said company officials are overhauling operations in three areas, greenhouse gas emissions, waste and energy use.
The company is looking to its REI Adventures operation, which promotes adventure trips all over the world, for ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“The biggest thing is to offset carbon emissions caused by these trips,” which primarily involve airline travel, Runge said.
The company purchases “green tags” from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, based in Portland, which in turn invests the money in “systems and technology that don’t emit greenhouse gases, like wind energy, solar power and biomass,” Runge said.
In order to combat waste, all REI stores, along with headquarters and warehouses, are careful about recycling, he noted.
“We recycle our paper, cardboard and plastic; we even recycle bike tubes, which a company in Seattle turns into messenger bags. And we sell the messenger bags,” he said. “The bike shop parts-cleaner uses ultrasonic sound waves — it doesn’t use a lot of electricity and not many chemicals.”
And to help conserve energy, the Clackamas store is being fitted with solar panels.
“The panels convert sunlight into electricity and reduce the electricity the store is pulling from the grid. When the store is closed, the electricity is fed back into the power grid,” Runge said.
“Our store is one of the smaller grids, so the solar panels will provide on average only 7 percent of the electricity, but in the long run there will be a return. And that is only one part of reducing the use of energy,” he said.
Company wide, most new stores are being built to include solar hot water heaters or retrofitted to include them. Many REI stores, especially in Colorado, are also buying wind energy. The company encourages employees to seek alternative methods of transportation to work, and REI reimburses half the cost of Tri-Met fees, Runge said.
He rides his bicycle to work two to three times per week, making use of the showers and lockers for employees.
A green mission
One big reason REI officials are concerned with environmental matters is because the store’s mission is to “inspire, educate and outfit” its members for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship, Runge said.
“We want to ensure that nature continues to exist and the environment is protected — that is core to our mission. We want to do our part to make sure there is no negative impact on the environment.”
This mission is “all part of what REI is as a co-op, and as a long-term co-op. We are looking to be around for 100 years, and we’ll need to be stewards of the environment to make sure it does stay around,” Runge noted.
Throughout the company there are people who are “passionate” about the environment, and each store has an outreach specialist.
This person works with the PEAK program, which stands for Promoting Environmental Awareness in Kids, and the purpose of the program “teaches kids about leaving no trace anywhere in the environment,” and how to treat nature in a responsible way with no negative impact.
“We reach thousands of kids every year, through classrooms, clinics, and groups that work on trail cleanups and trail building,” Runge noted.
The Clackamas store has a community room which the company makes available to environmental groups at no charge, he added.
What he likes best about the Clackamas REI, Runge said, was that the location, at Clackamas Town Center, “allows a lot of people to access” the store.
He added, “We have a lot of members in Vancouver, Clackamas and Gresham — a broad range of people. It is fun to introduce people to REI and to the outdoors.”
