"We're a mining company at our heart and we're impacting the roads we travel on with traffic and everything else," said Scott Parson, president and CEO for Staker Parson Companies. "Businesses that are impacting the environment, it's especially important for those types of businesses to be sustainable."
With wind energy from Rocky Mountain Power Staker Parson Companies offsets about 75,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per month, he said.
"The cost of energy as a percentage of our total operating costs has increased substantially during the last five to six years," Parson said in a telephone interview. "As that has increased, our attention in that area has also increased."
For more than a year, electricity used at a plant producing ready-mix concrete at 4122 Atkinson Road has been offset with wind power, he said. "We purchase energy that is generated in their wind farms," Parson said.
By buying the alternative form of energy, Staker Parson Companies will help eliminate the equivalent of more than 160,000 automobile miles, the company's energy specialist, Justin Lowery said.
"We have a corporate responsibility to promote a clean environment and these investments provide an opportunity to meet this responsibility," Lowery said. Parson added, "I think there is a heightened awareness about sustainability and greenness, that it's becoming more and more important to people, and it's becoming more and more important to us as well."
According to Rocky Mountain Power, more than 67,000 homes and businesses voluntarily buy wind energy through the Blue Sky program.
To read the full article published in the Park Record, click here.