In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

BANKING SUSTAINABILITY IN THE COASTAL NORTHWEST

In Business, March/April, 2004, Vol. 26, No. 2, p. 22

Finding the link between economic opportunity and ecological integrity should not be the mystery that it seems to be in this country.

John Berdes

LONGTIME readers of In Business have read in these pages before about the groundbreaking efforts of ShoreBank Enterprise Pacific and its affiliate ShoreBank Pacific in the rural communities of coastal Oregon and Washington. Many may not be aware of the progress they are making in demonstrating that business as usual is not the only way to go.
The ShoreBank Pacific companies were founded in 1995 by Chicago-based ShoreBank Corporation (www.sbk.com) and Portland, Oregon-based Ecotrust (www.ecotrust. org). Back then, the most notable news item was that a bank and a conservation organization were working together to build a new tradition in natural capital. Today, the news is that they are not only still at it, but making a difference in remote places like Myrtle Point, Oregon and Ilwaco, Washington that have traditionally depended on natural resources for economic well being.
ShoreBank Pacific has grown its assets to more than $85 million, and last year became profitable. Its innovative EcoDeposits“ program (www.eco-bank.com) has found enthusiastic market acceptance, growing 31 percent in 2003 alone. Its loan portfolio, which grew 45 percent in 2003, consists of small businesses that are changing the way they operate to reflect both ecological and financial considerations in their bottom lines.
ShoreBank Enterprise Pacific (www.sbpac.com), the nonprofit component of this community-based banking strategy, has grown as well. They passed the $16 million mark on total investments earlier this year, and have launched some new investment products in 2004 that reflect their jobs and the environment mission. One of them finances new on-site waste treatment systems in areas adjacent to the oyster beds of Willapa Bay, supporting both water quality and a key economic driver for this sensitive watershed in Southwest Washington State. Another product, made possible with support from the EPA, finances clean-up of petroleum contaminated land in the lower Columbia River estuary, where Lewis and Clark concluded their journey of discovery 200 years ago (before fuel spills threatened both the aquatic and terrestrial landscape). Enterprise's Product Innovation Fund, begun with support from the Kellogg Foundation, makes equity investments in entrepreneurs who are developing value-added strategies for doing more with less of the coast's harvest of salmon, albacore tuna, oysters and crab.
STRATEGIES BASED ON SCARCITY, NOT ABUNDANCE
The work of ShoreBank Enterprise Pacific can be described as “helping natural resource-based communities move from traditions of abundance to strategies based on scarcity.”
Perhaps the most vivid examples of how the ShoreBank Pacific companies work in their rural communities is their headquarters at the port docks in Ilwaco, Washington (pop. 850). We invested $1 million in this economically depressed fishing port to create the coast's premier green building. “The building was our way of explaining our mission to understandably skeptical folks.” We salvaged all the wood from a derelict warehouse in nearby Astoria, Oregon and used the remanufactured old growth timbers throughout, even for toilet paper holders made by local carpenters. We also employed a local architect, builder and trades people to construct it, and install its many sensible environmental features. This building said “jobs and the environment to a lot of families.”
In a place that gets 70 inches of rain a year and where water quality is our Currency, it does not take a lot of convincing to get folks to see the economic and ecological value of naturally treating surface water. At our offices alone, the companies
are impacting over 350,000 gallons of water each year though the use of bio-wales, permeable pavings, use of native plants, and water conservation goals.
Finding the link between economic opportunity and ecological integrity should not be the mystery that it seems to be in this country. These places have created huge wealth for a relative few in the past; we believe sufficient natural capital remains to create economic security for many in the future.

John Berdes is president and managing director of Shorebank Enterprise Pacific based in Ilwaco, Washington. Web site is www.sbpac.com. His e-mail is jberdes@sbpac.com.