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A Match Made in Environmental Heaven

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Sometimes two companies working together just makes sense.  They think alike and have the same value set.  So it is with Audi and LAcarGUY.  And one result is your new LEED-rated Pacific Audi dealership…coming in November!

Thinking environmentally, or sustainably, can direct your energies to a number of important issues:  from water conservation to recycling, from energy conservation to where a product goes at the end of its life.  One of the best life-changing, and easy-to-read books for someone interested in learning more about the “lifecycle” of products is Cradle to Cradle; it focuses especially on how to change the entire concept of waste (of water, of energy, etc.), not at the END of a process, but in the initial design stages.  It’s an eye-opening read.

This leads us also to our topic today.  The new “Audi Terminal” design is the basis for our new dealership, and it was created by a team of architects and engineers in Germany (where Audi is based) to be an “ecologically intelligent, advanced construction method”.

The three pillars of sustainability are:  ecology, economy and social responsibility.  Audi loves to focus on the environment, especially through minimum ecological footprint and maximum efficiency…not a bad way to go!  Their employees also behind these ideas, often doing things on their own time to walk the walk.  Some examples:

  • On Audi’s most important transportation route, they use green electricity in the transport of freight—not only saving CO2, but creating a demand for renewable energy within their country. They’ve even won an award for this!
  • As part of their process chain, “packaging software” actually calculates optimal loading density for components, avoiding unnecessary transport due to waste of space (wouldn’t this have been helpful to us all when we had our friends help us move with multiple car trips?).
  • Some of Audi’s employees also raise bees, clean lakes, protect birds, clean and restore plots of derelict pieces of land back to nature for enjoyment, and so forth.  See the pages marked Passion in Audi’s current issue of their environment magazine called “Encounter”.

So, of course, this fits so well with LAcarGUY, which is always focused—with owner Mike Sullivan leading the way—on community and environmental causes. LAcarGUY has programs like:

  • Battery Recycling:  Interstate Battery handles the disposal of lead-acid batteries, which is strictly regulated by federal and state legislation, in an environmentally friendly way.  They return spent batteries to EPA-approved smelters where the lead and plastic are recycled to make new batteries and products.
  • Tire Recycling:  Lakin Tire reuses tire materials in exciting new ways that benefit society, such as rubberized asphalt for roads and safe playground surfaces for children.
  • Used Oil Recycling:  Once Asbury Environmental Services picks up the oil, it’s taken to a refinery where the oil is removed by going through clarifying columns.  Oil is treated for re-use as oil for ships (marine diesel fuel) and asphalt flux (blended into paving grade asphalt)!
  • The “Driving Green” incentive program that donates to Heal the Bay, EMA, and Global Green.
  • Explaining on their site really easily and clearly all the green car technologies!

You can keep up with our ongoing green initiatives HERE.

So when the chance came to team up with Audi on their new Terminal design…we were right there!  Having our own local team of architects, GC and many others…we’ve been working toward meshing their design with the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED building system, and we’re pretty excited to be just about there.

We’ve even, just recently, gotten solar energy approved to add to our building!

So this is what we mean when we say “a match made in environmental heaven”.  The manufacturer (Audi) already is thinking—from design stages to delivery—how to make their system more environmentally conscious (especially because they are a car company).  And then they team with a distributor like LAcarGUY who thinks like we do, and how everything we do affects the community they we part of.


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