Doing Our Part
Aspen Environmental Group is more than a place to work – it’s also a place to grow. Aspen strives to foster an atmosphere of teamwork and personal development, while imparting values of environmental sustainability, charitable giving, continuing education, and economic progress. We think it’s important to feel good about what we do and how we do it.
Sustainability
Aspen strives to maximize the degree to which we operate in a sustainable manner, with the understanding that sustainable business practices include all actions and decisions which serve to effectively reduce Aspen’s ecological footprint and contribute to environmental and social sustainability.
Aspen’s Sustainability Policy focuses on making clear, direct, and conscious efforts which improve our contribution towards sustainability through internal coordination and education, as well as collaboration with like-minded companies and organizations.
Integral to Aspen’s corporate vision of being the premier integrated and interdisciplinary provider of environmental compliance, planning, and engineering services for energy, natural resource, and infrastructure projects in the western United States, is this clear and public declaration of our commitment to sustainability.
To help our employees build stronger, more sustainable communities and to reduce individual ecological footprints, Aspen financially contributes to those steps employees take to reduce energy consumption at home or for transportation.
Philanthropy
By nature, a company that cares about the environment is a company that cares about community. Aspen and its employees prioritize contributions to an array of organizations and ensure that we find ways to give back to the community. To encourage such acts of kindness, Aspen provides each staff member a paid day off each year to perform volunteer work.
Aspen staff take advantage of this policy and volunteer for several local organizations. Some of these volunteer efforts include running a nature fair at an elementary school, helping collect food for a local food bank, teaching a workshop on microscopes and botany to young people, cleaning up trash and debris at the Littlerock Reservoir, preparing care packages for troops overseas, and volunteering to assist the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District and other agencies to survey for native fish on the upper San Gabriel River.
Our president has made voluntary presentations on global environmental challenges at several community meetings in southern California, and at higher education centers in the People’s Republic of China.
In addition to volunteering their time, Aspen staff regularly contribute to a number of organizations which have a significant role in developing human capacities or protecting natural resources, including focus on organizations which are involved in education and health of children and women in low income areas. Although directly impacted by the Woolsey fire, Aspen is thankful that our staff and office were all safe; however many of our neighbors and others in California were not so fortunate. As a result of these devastating wild fires, Aspen has also donated to the Los Angeles County Fire Department Foundation, as well as to the Butte County Schools Fire Relief Fund. For a full list of organizations for which Aspen or our staff have contributed their time and money, click here.
LEED Certified Building
In 2011, Aspen’s headquarters office moved to a newly constructed LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building in Agoura Hills, California. The building was designed and built using strategies aimed at achieving high performance in areas of human and environmental health, sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. To learn more about LEED building certifications and the U.S. Green Building Council, click here.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
In 2020, Aspen took on the initiative to create a Diversity & Inclusion Committee who has worked hard to gather recommendations from all staff on how to create an environment with programs that foster inclusion, celebrate diversity, and provide growth opportunities for all current and future staff across our lines of work.
The company is putting these words into action as we have added Juneteenth as a company holiday to not only celebrate our existing progress, but also for staff to find meaningful ways to take part in creating greater justice and equality in our society.
Aspen Environmental Group and our Diversity & Inclusion Committee is proud to announce that we have revised our company’s mission statement to reflect these new policies and staff recommendations to achieve higher diversity and provide opportunities to those who might be underrepresented.
As part of this effort to provide new opportunities, Aspen has started offering annual scholarships to students who are actively engaged in the pursuit of a career in a field with an environmental emphasis. The 2022 scholarship is intended to support college students interested in environmentally related topics, with a focus on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) recipients. To learn more about this scholarship opportunity, click here.