Corroon Launches Business Program to Cut Carbon Footprint

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Feb. 5–MIDVALE — Saving the environment began in the basement for restaurant owner Andrea Dulle. All it took was getting rid of the light switches.

Dulle, owner of Midvale’s Epic Casual Dining, has replaced manual light switches in her restaurant’s 4,000-square-foot basement with motion sensors — a $60 investment that she says cut her power bill $500 during the past two months.

“These are all changes that everybody’s going to need to make at some point,” said Dulle, who also owns the nearby Tiburon restaurant. “So why not be the first one to do it?”

Dulle isn’t alone in her efforts to “green up” her business, but she is among the pioneers in Salt Lake County’s newly launched green-business program, which helps the valley’s commercial sector save water, reduce energy, cut pollution and slow their trash flow.

As for Dulle, she was interested in going green. But the entrepreneur saw opportunity in saving some “green,” too.

That’s partly why she instructed employees to douse the lights in the eatery’s bathrooms and offices after closing and why she has turned down the thermostat 10 degrees overnight.

The county initiative — spearheaded by the Salt Lake Valley Health Department — will coach businesses on how to make their operations more environmentally friendly and provide them a back-patting by posting their names on the county’s Web site, allowing them to use the county’s green logo

and giving them discounted ad rates in some publications.

By Jeremiah Stettler