Go Green
We at Catchlight are firmly committed to minimizing our carbon footprint, through an exacting, rigorous attention to all the ways in which we engage our business with our environment. As a talking point, “global warming” may well have been consigned to the dustbin of recent history in favor of its more buoyant counterpoise, “going green”; for our purposes, however, the struggle to combat and reduce global warming carries a sure, applicable valence—we aim to think AND act globally. From our first meeting with a customer to the final application of a finish coat onsite, we endeavor to run the entirety of our day to day operations responsibly and sustainably:
On our way to your home:Whether we’re dispatching an estimate in the company Prius or a day’s work in one of our vanpools, we recognize that our vehicles and, just as importantly, our driving habits are crucial sites for effecting positive impact upon our environment. To that end, we regularly promote green driving practices, within scheduled company meetings and less formally, via site visits throughout the work week: foremen and painters are asked to vanpool to jobsites whenever possible, to refrain from idling at jobsites when arriving early, to resist the temptation to “warm up” or remote start their vehicles on cold winter mornings (overkill for the engine and CO2 murder on the atmosphere), and to practice smooth, steady driving to and from the job. In addition, several of our employees make use of Boston’s easily navigable train and bus system, as well as the city’s high bikeability quotient, in order to bypass autos entirely on their daily commute!
Onsite:
Happily, the quality and durability of more environmentally-friendly, low VOC
(Volatile Organic Compound) paints and coverings have seen marked improvement
since their first era inception. We are proud to solely use VOC compliant paints
onsite—our jobsites are your homes, after all!; more still, we look with
eagerness towards ever greener, healthier products from manufacturers who have
been LEED-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council: Sherwin Williams,
Glidden, and Benjamin Moore, among others, produce a consistently high quality
of products designed to winnow VOCs to a trickle while maintaining superior
performance. And just as one might opt for local produce in lieu of cheaper,
far-flung vegetables trekked cross-country at considerable costs in fuel, so too
do we factor geography into our equation when choosing or recommending products
for your home: VOC compliant paints and coverings of a more local extraction are
almost always favored over their more remote counterparts.
Partners:
We are pleased to partner with a roster of general contractors, architects,
designers, and builders who share our commitment to the environment. Our
partners in trade subscribe to sustainable, renewable models of development and
design which provide for big-picture focus on craft, community, and purpose
through the bigger-picture lens of globally sound best practices.
Home at Home:
Finally, though it may read as somewhat prosaic in the wake of green driving
procedures, low VOCs, LEED-certified building and the like, we strive towards
paperlessness daily--within our front and back offices. Both as an
organizational and environmental touchstone, paperlessness (and its messy kid
brother, recyclability) allows for a clarity of purpose, surroundings, and desk
space. Our most crucial paperless component is in fact a perfect mirror of our
commitment to that ideal and to our customers: a robust, all-encompassing
customer and operational database. No more scheduling whiteboards, no more
endless paper trails, no more correspondence folders piled high like law office
nightmares!