Business Leaders Join to Attract Clean Technology

By Lucy Bodilly

Seattle –Local business and government officials met in late March to announce the formation of the Washington Clean Technology Alliance, a group dedicated to bringing sustainable, environmentally sound businesses to Washington.

WCTA is attracting members from throughout the state in a range of industries and public entities.

“We have no lack of environmentalism here,” says Bob Drewel, executive director of the Puget Sound Regional Council of Governments. “What we lacked was a group advocating economic and environmental growth.”

WCTA is an outgrowth of the Prosperity Partnership, a similar grouping of business leaders, which plans to bring 100,000 new jobs to Washington by 2010.

Initial backers of the WCTA include McKinstry Co., the region’s biggest mechanical contractor, and Mithun, a 200-person architectural firm largely dedicated to sustainable design. Both are located in Seattle.

As the group gains members, the A/E/C industry will play a key role, either through the design and construction of new facilities or as members who advocate for environmentally responsible growth.

Dean Allen, McKinstry president, says his firm is a member “because we want to help our customers, help our employees and help the environment. We want to radically reduce the environmental impact our customers have.”

Bert Gregory, president and CEO of Mithun, promotes sustainability for similar reasons. He recently spent two days in Washington, D.C., helping local leaders plan how that city can become the model of sustainability in the United States.

“The same discussion is happening in cities throughout the U.S.,” Gregory adds. “There has been a paradigm shift. We are in a race and I want to win.”

An example of what could be a typical project for the group is the Kitsap Seed project planned for a 72-acre site near the Bremerton, Wash., airport. Plans call for it to be developed in modular “pods” using sustainable design criteria.  Eventually 1,000 people could work at the site.

The purpose of the project is to attract jobs that have a low impact on the environment to the Kitsap Peninsula. Pod 1, with a final build-out price tag of $32 million, will include advanced business incubation, laboratory, manufacturing and marketing facilities. Mithun is the project architect.