Integrated Forestry & Wood Products Holistic Values, Goals and Criteria

Looking holistically at Greenleaf and envisioning what we wanted to become, we listed the following values and goals, which then led us to establish priorities for developing our products & services, workforce, community, and environment.  These are fundamental to the Greenleaf Model.

Greenleaf's Guiding Values:  

• Contribute to sustainable, nature-emulating forestry and land management in our area
• Have an enterprise that has: stability, continuity, financial security, success, a reputation of honesty, quality, prompt services and products, environmental responsibility, recognition in the community, employees and associates who are proud to be part of the enterprise
• Contribute to the community by:  providing employment and by being a reputable employer, making products available, providing education in sustainable forestry and promotion of its use and expansion, improving forests, creating spin-off businesses, developing beneficial alliances

And Specific Goals: Products and Services

• Create a profit for the company, other enterprises and landowners from stewardship of the land by creating viable products and services on the market with adequate diversification
• Prioritize landowners and community satisfaction with forest management operations:
• Forests are left in good condition
• Forests meet landowner expectations
• Operational problems are fixed, and messes cleaned up if they occur
• Operations are done in a timely, efficient manner
• Ensure that customers are happy with wood products, nursery trees and services:
• fairly priced, delivered with quality, integrity, and honesty
• Ensure that customers and community:
• Regard the business as first-rate
• Have played a part in its success
• Would consider it as a good investment
• See it as a company that can solve forest problems, such as beetle, fire buildup, etc., while also producing long-term health in the community

Workforce

• Offer a consistent base of high quality jobs that pay well and provide employee benefits
• Access a quality workforce with appropriate skills and/or motivation to learn
• Promote good interaction, communication, education, and cooperation among staff in a collaborative management approach
• Form effective teams made up of staff and our partners: agencies, schools, clients, local community members, etc.
• Create a transferable working business, which can be run without the current owner if need be, so that employees and partners have a platform for long-term security
• Explore a platform for a profit-sharing system so that everyone has a reason to invest time and resources in the long-term and a sound long-term plan for business growth
• Collaborate with employees, partners, associates, and landowners who share our goals

Community

• Seek excellent and broad-based community support including public perception that company is contributing positively to the environment and community
• Develop good interaction, communication, education, and cooperation with landowners and State Forest Service/U.S. Forest Service personnel, contractors, educators, and employees as part of team understanding and communicating with each other
• Discover an avenue for tracking politics and trends (local, state, national and international) that will influence our business in the short and long run
• Exercise influence over the type of development that takes place in the local region
• Develop a model that other communities could adapt/adopt
• Form a link between community members, for example between newcomers and builders who build with the company's  wood products
• Allow for spin-offs of other small businesses in the community
• Offer ways for others, especially young people, to learn through being involved with us
• Contribute to development of community infrastructure:
• Add the number of to businesses that provide local jobs
• Increase utilization of more regionally grown and manufactured products
• Support high quality services such as education, banking, and health care
• Have people feel connected to and part of a sustainable and prosperous community

Environment

• Use regenerative resources throughout the business so that forests (both private and public) are regenerating, healthy, beautiful and producing both products and recreational values in a steady, sustainable manner; and the “built” (human-changed) environment is based also in regenerative resource use and the character of our community
• Promote healthy forests and sustainable harvesting within in a long term structure
• Contribute to greater understanding – by the company and throughout the community - of natural forest processes and how forest stewardship can improve the environment
• Maintain and revive a functioning healthy ecosystem including effective energy flow, water cycle, mineral cycle and community dynamics (succession)
• Utilize fire hazard mitigation strategies
• Promote high biodiversity and abundant wildlife