Protecting Our Planet
In this often high-intensity and demanding society, people feel as if they must choose between being environmentally conscious or have a profitable business. We 100% believe you can do both! Our mission is to prove it’s possible for us protect nature while still being great at our work – we challenge others out there to take up this lifestyle choice themselves.
We Do Our Part
Electric Vehicles
We get it. Driving is a necessary part of real estate. We all have our stories of driving from one end of the county to the other and then back again. And then we’re astonished at how many miles we put on a vehicle each year. This is why we’ve implemented a program to provide Tesla’s to our top agents. These agents commit to purchasing a minimum of 25% of their household energy from green sources. Pssst, our goal is to quickly have all agents on our team driving Teslas. As one friend remarked, “I just saw one of your cars in the wild the other day!”
Fly Responsibly
We often travel for conferences, masterminds and team vacations. Whenever we do, we make sure to purchase carbon offsets for our trip. This is much less expensive than people think! For a round trip flight from WI to California an offset is less than $10. It’s a small amount per person, yet if all airline travelers did it the potential impact is tremendous. Personally, we prefer to donate to the reforestation projects which are slightly more expensive, but still only about $30/person to offset a flight to the west coast.
Eco-Friendly Vacations
Why stay at a resort that doesn’t care about the planet? Just so you know, there are beautiful resorts out there just waiting for us that are environmentally-friendly and we’ve found them often times have greater perks as well. For example–the monkeys sometimes steal fruit from people’s bedsides…but not ours because they know what good people we are. 😉
Organic Foods
We have organic surplus delivered to the office by a local vendor. This fabulous idea takes food which is perfectly edible but my but aren’t “beautiful” and therefore won’t be sent to grocery stores and otherwise would be discarded. We believe in purchasing organic and locally produced items whenever we can to reduce the carbon footprint of our food, support local farmers who maintain their crops while minimizing added chemicals.
IPads
Agents on our team get team iPads after 6 months with us. We encourage the use of iPads to access property information during showings, open house registrations and writing offers. We work to have a paperless office as much as possible.
Renewable Energy
We purchase renewable energy both at home and at the office. Even though we have 5 kids (who never seem to turn the lights off) green energy only adds about $50/month to our typical $350 bill. Your utility provider usually has a simple website signup if you’d like to do the same. We purchase 100% green energy but even if you only purchase 25% it’ll still make a significant impact on our planet.
Reducing Chemicals & Plastics
When we opened our own real estate office we made a commitment to reduce our plastic consumption both at home and at work. We started simple, with just a few items. We quickly found (thanks to Facebook’s all-knowing algorithms) that it was incredibly simple to just keep adding! We’re happy to share what works, and please let us know if you have more ideas!
CleanCult
Our go-to service for hand soap, dish soap and cleaning supplies! Most homes and offices are filled with plastic soap dispensers, plastic dishwasher detergents, plastic dish soap bottles, etc. When it’s used up you toss it in recycling and buy a new one. The ingredients in those bottles are often unhealthy chemicals which are damaging both for people and our environment. CleanCult uses effective but environmentally friendly coconut-based chemicals in their products. The easy subscription service sends reusable glass bottles in your first shipment, then sends refills in cardboard packaging.
Compostable Utensils
Our offices are always stocked with real silverware for daily use. For client events where that’s not an option we purchase 100% compostable utensils. Costco is our go-to place for ordering these – at 5 cents each, it’s always affordable! If you don’t have a Costco membership then Amazon has plenty of options. And of course, you’ll never find plastic or styrofoam cups or plates with us.
Eco-friendly Office
We utilize a “green cleaning service” for our regular office cleaning. They utilize eco-friendly products with no harsh chemicals. We also make a point to not utilize any chemical sprays, air fresheners or other similar products in our offices.
Garbage Bags
We were a bit hesitant about trying compostable garabage bags but we’re very happy with the quality of these bags from Amazon. They fit a standard kitchen garbage and hold up well.
Toilet Paper
Toilet paper is often shipped in plastic wrapping which isn’t needed. At the office we purchase toilet paper from 100% recycled fiber, shipped in a cardboard box and wrapped in paper. Like so many other things, we purchase on Amazon so we’re never needing to drive to the store for it.
Refugee program
Many years ago we sponsored an orphan hosting program financially and also by opening our homes to eastern European children. This program allowed us to connect potential Forever Families with these orphans and our adoption rate turned out to be 100%!
As a natural progression we have turned our attention to helping refugee families settle in to our side of the globe. Our goal is to back them financially, emotionally and get them as many resources and help during this turbulent time. It is our sincere belief that we have a short amount of time in this life and we should make an impact. Please connect with us to find out more on how you can help.
The Starfish Story
One day a man was walking along the beach, when he noticed a boy hurriedly picking up and gently throwing things into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “Young man, what are you doing?” The boy replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” The man laughed to himself and said, “Don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make any difference!”
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said,
“I made a difference to that one.”
After researching the plight of refugees from around the world, Michelle & Marine are now spearheading local efforts to sponsor and assist these families in starting a new life in a new country, but safe from the dangers of their previous homes.
It’s true that this is not a massive scale, gigantic program bringing millions of families to safety, but then they think of the Starfish Story again. Please reach out to us if you are also interested in helping.