Sustainable Commercial Landscaping: How Level Green Leads by Example

When you’re trying to be smart, responsible, and look out for the earth, it helps if the people around you are on your side.

If you want to help keep the Chesapeake Bay clean and safe, you need a commercial landscaping company with specialized training in how to do that. 

If you want to keep harmful winter ice melt products out of the environment, you want a snow removal company that works hard to minimize their damage. 

Here at Level Green Landscaping, our livelihood depends on a healthy environment and our team members are nature lovers who care for the earth. 

We’re sustainable commercial landscapers who lead by example in the ways we do our work on your property and in our offices. 

What do environmentally responsible landscaping companies do on the job every day? Seek out professional training in sound environmental practices. Use electric powered equipment to reduce emissions and noise. Promote native plants, permeable pavers and other earth-friendly choices. Recycle. Use job mapping to avoid waste. 

Keep reading to learn more about how eco-friendly landscaping companies lead by example, including:

Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional  Certification

Promoting Earth-friendly Materials

Using More Electric Equipment

Driving Efficient Hybrid Vehicles

Recycling

Job Mapping 

Using Less Salt for De-Icing

1. Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional Certification

Several Level Green managers are certified in this professional landscape training designed to protect the beautiful Chesapeake Bay, and our goal is to have all managers certified.

The landscaping certification is administered by the Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council, a non-profit dedicated to conservation landscaping to protect the Chesapeake Bay. The training teaches landscaping professionals how to avoid landscaping practices that are harmful to the environment.

The training includes both classroom instruction and field training. Participants visit retention and detention ponds and rain gardens, all designed to filter pollution from urban and suburban stormwater to keep pollutants from making their way into the Chesapeake Bay.

More and more HOAs and local governments are asking about the certification and in some cases requiring it of the eco-friendly landscaping companies they hire. 

2. Promoting Earth-friendly Materials

The Level Green team installs native plants, low-maintenance perennials, permeable pavers, rain gardens and uses other earth-friendly materials and strategies whenever possible, and our account managers help our customers make sustainable choices, too:

• Native plants and sturdy perennials need less water, fertilizer and pesticides than many other plants.
• Permeable pavers allow rainwater to seep through, rather than pool and flood your property. That keeps pollutants that build up on solid surfaces like concrete and asphalt from washing off in the rain and entering the stormwater system and the environment. Several Level Green Landscaping team members are certified by the Interlocking Concrete Pavers Institute, specifically trained in installing these permeable pavers that redirect stormwater.
• Rain gardens are shallow depressions planted with deep-rooted native plants and grasses. They encourage stormwater to soak slowly into the ground  — not rush into the nearest storm drain. Level Green account managers can help you add a rain garden to your commercial property. Bonus: many municipalities offer tax credits for installing these beneficial landscaping features. 

3. Using More Electric Equipment

Level Green has long been a leader in switching from gas-powered landscaping equipment to battery-powered mowers, blowers, weed-eaters and shears that are better for the environment. 

Our goal as sustainable commercial landscapers is to be using all electric hand-held equipment in the next five years. A move to electric mowers is in the works, too. 

Electric tools, especially battery-powered ones, produce zero emissions, contributing to cleaner air and a healthier environment. They’re also much quieter than gas-powered tools, reducing annoying noise pollution. 

Our lawn mowers are equipped with electronic ignitions, too, which means fewer polluting emissions enter the atmosphere.

4. Driving Efficient Hybrid Vehicles

All Level Green managers drive hybrid vehicles, with a total of 30-40 in our fleet.

Hybrids produce lower carbon dioxide emissions than traditional cars, contributing to better air quality, especially in urban areas. The electric motor allows for some driving on electric power alone, further reducing emissions during shorter trips or in stop-and-go traffic.

5. Recycling 

Environmentally responsible landscaping companies should take the lead in recycling the tons of green waste produced by their work. 

Here at Level Green, we recycle all of our green waste. Shrub clippings, limbs pruned from trees, and perennial cuttings are all hauled away, where a company turns the green material into compost. We buy the compost back, and use it to enrich planting beds.

At our offices, all plastic, cans and paper are deposited in a large bin in the parking lots, and the trash vendor sorts it.

In addition, Level Green saves the thousands of plastic plant pots crews use and returns them to the nurseries that sold them the plants. Most pots can be used three or four times. They reuse them, and they give us a credit for returning them.

6. Job Mapping 

Level Green uses job mapping to determine the most efficient way to maintain a property, from the time it takes crews to accomplish each task to how many crew members are needed to exactly how they flow through the property to get the job done right.

This smart strategy helps optimize the use of materials, equipment, and people, reducing waste of equipment use, which reduces pollution. 

7. Limiting Salt Use 

Eco-friendly landscaping companies are on the forefront of reducing the use of salt in their snow and ice management.

Rock salt has long been the standard solution for melting ice, but there are newer formulations today that do a better job with less harm to the environment.

At Level Green, we limit our use of straight rock salt by using other methods, too, including an engineered ice melt mixture that’s less corrosive than straight salt and friendlier to the environment.

Level Green also uses brine as part of its de-icing strategy — a precisely-measured liquid mixture of water and salt that’s sprayed on roads, parking lots and walkways to prevent snow and ice from sticking.

Brine uses one quarter of the amount of salt as traditional rock salt, which means it’s better for the environment.

Salt, whether in solid form or in brine, makes its way into area lakes and steams, creating a hostile environment for the crabs, fish and other creatures who live there. The environmental impact of too much salt is a big concern.

Partner with Sustainable Commercial Landscapers: Trust Level Green 

Here at Level Green Landscaping, we’ve long been advocates for the environment, from our careful use of ice melt products to our move to electric-powered landscaping equipment to recycling all of our green waste.

We know our customers appreciate our earth-friendly stance as we balance it with their desire for excellent landscaping.

Our expertise in constructing and maintaining conservation landscaping practices can help you ensure your property is doing its part to protect the surrounding waterways. 

If you’re not already a Level Green Landscaping client, we’d love to add you to our growing list of happy customers.

Our focus is on commercial properties like offices, mixed-use sites, HOAs, municipalities and institutions in Maryland, Washington DC and parts of Virginia.

Contact us at 202-544-0968. You can also request a free consultation online to meet with us one-on-one.

We’d love to hear from you.