In December, the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce adopted by resolution the Natural Step Program.

Under this program, the chamber pledges to guide its members to act now according to principles for sustainability.

The four principles are: 1) eliminate our use of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust, such as heavy metals and fossil fuels; 2) eliminate our contribution to the buildup of chemicals and compounds produced by society, such as dioxins, PCBs, BPAs, and pesticides; 3) eliminate our contribution to the physical degradation and destruction of nature and natural processes, such as paving over critical wildlife and shoreline habitat and over-harvesting forests; and 4) eliminate our contribution to conditions that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs, such as maintaining unsafe working conditions and not paying people enough to live on.

Adopting this resolution and, more importantly acting upon it, is a bold step for our local chamber.

We applaud the action, and look forward to working with them to manifest the principles of the Natural Step.

Bainbridge residents: Jaco ten Hove, Bill Luria, Molly McCabe,

Jon Quitslund, Connie Waddington, Kate Ruffing, Maradel Gale, Barry Peters, Donna Mohr, Chuck Estin, Frank Stowell