Colorado’s ELP Celebrates Companies Creating a More Sustainable Workplace
February 22, 2022 – Eagle, CO — Encore Electric Mountain Business Unit renewed its Gold Leader status in the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment’s Environmental Leadership Program. This marks the Mountain Business Unit’s fourth year as Gold Status Leaders in the program. Colorado’s ELP Gold Status represents companies that go above and beyond toward creating a more sustainable workplace. Encore Electric was the first construction industry representative on the list of Gold Leaders when the recognition was first received.
Liz Bankert, project accountant in the Eagle office, has led the sustainability efforts to maintain the Mountain Business Unit’s Gold Status in the program. Acceptance in the Environmental Leadership Program as a Gold Leader is a rigorous process that reviews past environmental achievements and sustainability goals, development of an environmental management system (EMS), and a three-year compliance record with these criteria reviewed by a third-party audit.
For Bankert, renewing the Mountain Business Unit’s status in the program involved maintaining the EMS to track and record environmental efforts and metrics made by the team, in addition to regularly meeting with other Encore Electric teammates to set and review sustainability goals.
Other accomplishments the team made include diverting 63% of office waste from landfills by recycling or composting and reducing overall paper usage by using DocuSign.
“Something as simple as electronic documentation has been an incredible way to cut down on paper use,” said Nick Signorelli, Encore Electric project manager. “Even though we recycle any paper that is used for documentation, we have been able to go one step further and cut back on using paper at all.
Nick has worked closely with Liz over the past few years to help maintain the Gold Leader status. Renewing their status as a Gold Leader was no easy task for the team, but Bankert feels the challenges helped to bring the team together. Bankert believes the ELP puts Encore Electric in the position to serve as both an example as well as a resource to other companies looking for ways to incorporate sustainable actions.
“Getting everyone on board was important and has unified our group a bit more,” she said. “We’re working for a common goal that everyone has bought in to, it has brought a positive shift in our team’s mindset.”
“We will continue to strive to be conscious about how we operate. For me, if you can operate in a sustainable way without any extra cost, it is almost a no-brainer to make that choice,” said Signorelli.
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