Green San Joaquin

Getting down to earth with Blaine Bibb

by JAMIE MENAKER

With global warming and disappearing natural resources, just as the economy is tightening its little leather belt, sometimes it feels like we have to choose between being “green” and saving “green.” Not so, says Blain Bibb, Chairman of Green Team San Joaquin. In fact, greening San Joaquin’s businesses has just the opposite effect, saving money due to more efficient use of resources, and bringing in additional business from those that feel good about supporting environmentally-friendly companies.

As an offshoot of the Stockton Chamber of Commerce, there’s no doubt that Green Team San Joaquin has the best interest of businesses at heart, and as it turns out, going green is what’s best for businesses of San Joaquin’s future. The Green Team works with business and community leaders through programs like the annual San Joaquin REXPO (recycling expo), and the Green Team’s REACON (Recycling Energy Air Conservation) mission, which helps San Joaquin businesses evaluate how green they are and how green they can become. Buy Local-Buy Green, and Green.edu teach San Joaquin about new green ideas.

“Simply put, assisting businesses in ‘going green’ will not only reduce their costs of doing business, but it will also help the environment and move the San Joaquin County economy forward,” says the Green Team. “There’s also a return,” adds Bibb. “People want to do business with companies that they can feel good about.”

Bibb can attest to the ‘green effect’ first-hand as an owner of a green business himself, Stockton’s ServiceMaster residential and commercial cleaning services. Since Bibb took over the business in 2007, he’s put almost $200,000 into greening the entire business—training, new vehicles, changing out cleaning products—but has seen sales soar since. “The payoff has been that we took a fledgling business and quadrupled our client base,” says Bibb. “Not all our clients have hired us because we’re green, but when they find out we’re providing a green service, they’re even more on board.” With hundreds of cleaning companies in the Central Valley and surrounding areas, this is a change that sets his company apart, and one that he can ultimately feel good about.

It’s Bibb’s green efforts that originally brought him to the Green Team—his first Chamber of Commerce meeting also happened to be the first meeting of Green Team San Joaquin. With Bibb’s own green cleaning efforts right in line with those of the Green Team, he stepped up to serve the community and collaborate with San Joaquin’s similarly green-minded. Bibb also makes visits to San Joaquin businesses through the Green Team’s REACON effort, to green San Joaquin businesses, one at a time.

“We go out into San Joaquin and offer a no-cost green assessment. If they qualify we give them a sustainable business certification,” says Bibb. “Greening your business makes you take a look at all your practices—simple things like a sign that reminds people to turn the lights off when they aren’t in the room. Energy-efficient lamps can reduce your bill by almost 35 percent, not to mention green rebates for switching. You get charged for how much is in your waste bin, but not the size of your recycling can—recycle more and you’ll get charged less. It’s simple things like that.”

Another simple principle? Green business also equals green homes.
“The green message we’re sharing with our clients and our employees, it’s transferring into their homes. If they create those habits at work, of course it’s going to transfer.”

For more information: www.greenteamsanjoaquin.com