Lilja Communications is deeply committed to sustainability.
We have helped develop and support sustainability communications for our clients, and we embrace sustainable practices ourselves. We are proud to be part of “We Are Still In,” composed of more than 2,500 leaders, including CEOs, mayors, governors, college presidents and others committed to climate action and the principles of the Paris Agreement.
Each year, the Lilja team commemorates Earth Day by picking up trash around our office, including tending a little pond across the street. This year’s event was delayed due to the late snow cover, so we waited a few weeks.
We began with a meatless lunch, feasting on veggie burgers cooked on the grill and delicious vegetable salads before setting out to pick up trash.
The pond is wedged between our street and a busy highway that ferries commuter cars and family vans south toward the river towns of Shakopee and Chaska. Historic aerial maps from the 1940s reveal that though it was once larger, this pond is a natural water feature – not one created by the highway department.
It’s not a particularly noteworthy pond to the thousands of commuters who drive by it each day. Some may not even notice it, since the pond is tucked away below the highway. But for us, it is a natural oasis that is home to ducks, geese, muskrats, turtles and red-winged blackbirds.
Although you might not think people throw things out their car windows anymore, it turns out they do. A lot of things.
This year, we picked up countless plastic bottles and bags, paper products and cigarette butts – enough to fill six trash bags!
There is something inherently satisfying in tending our little corner of Eden Prairie. Now, when we see the light sparkle on the pond’s glassy surface, it makes us smile, knowing we made a difference, no matter how small, to its wild inhabitants.
