SUSTAINABLE ENDEAVORS
Stories & Solutions
FOR THE PLANET
Stories: alternative transportation
the beez kneez
"At Beez Kneez we never heat our honey hotter than the bees keep their hive, which is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. We do not add anything to our honey. It is pure and the flavor is determined by whatever flower the bees are feeding on. We extract any honey we produce from our hives by bicycle and all of it is delivered by bicycle when weather permits."
peace coffee
"Peace Coffee and bikes go way back together. We actually started bike delivering our coffee before we could afford our own roasting machine, but two roasters and a few delivery vans later, bikes remain central to what we do. We ride to work, we ride for work, & sometimes we ride for fun after work—in short, we collectively spend a lot of time in the saddle.
One of the most sought-after jobs in the company is bike delivery—lots of people want to pedal beans for us, and we’ve gotten all sorts of applications, highlighting the super powers and strong legs required to do the job. We have two full- and one part-time bike delivery rider each hauling an average of 1800-2500+ pounds and clock around 70 miles per week. A small fleet of custom-made trailers from Bikes At Work (out of Ames, Iowa) helps us tow the load—one advantage to such a wide load is that cars will often give you a little extra room!
The weight limit for each trailer is 400 lbs. (about as much as a piano, for reference.) As for the weather, there seems to be no obstacle too great to prevent our bikers from getting coffee to our accounts: un-plowed streets, snow banks, ice, and extreme heat– no problem! If anything, the harsh winter days often mean our delivery bikes get the trails all to themselves."
brake bread
"We bake bread and deliver it by bike. But not just bread! We also make fresh traditional pastries and partner with a number of other folks to bring you pantry staples, locally roasted coffee, tea, jam, honey, and even bike accessories like tubes, lights, bells, and horns!
As a subscription-based bakery, we bake fresh bread and pastries every day and load them up on bikes to deliver throughout St. Paul. Our bread is naturally leavened for health and flavor and we use organic grains (mostly grown in MN) in everything we bake.
We deliver by bike year-round. Our bikes now use e-assist and pull big ol' Bikes At Work trailers. If it's not safe to be on a bike we've got a sag wag.
Our delivery method and community focus got us Metro Transit's Commuters Choice Organization of the Year award as well as St. Paul's Business Award for Good Neighbor."
WELLINGTON MANAGEMENT
For Wellington, environmental mindfulness is a foundational element of good property management, development and planning. A couple examples to illustrate:
Each year, 12 Wellington-owned and managed buildings within St. Paul participate in the Center for Energy and Environment’s Building Efficiency Advisor Program (BEAP) to help benchmark and improve energy usage. In 2020, we focused on Court West along University Avenue and light rail. The office building is part of phased development plan Westgate Station, a highly successful transit-oriented project that also includes retail and residential uses. A high-level goal behind these sorts of coordinated, mixed-use plans is to meet people’s daily needs within a short distance and/or connect them to public transit so they can do so without need for a personal vehicle. This, of course, has environmental and social benefits that are difficult to measure — it would be interesting to try!