The Greening of the Dog

Judy Wicks shows restaurateurs how environmental consciousness is done.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Feb 21, 2007

The first thing to know about Judy Wicks — Philadelphia's first lady of green — is that she's always walked the walk that is her talk. The woman behind White Dog Café (since 1983) and its neighboring Black Cat Gift Shop never lets up in her quest for an aggressively environmentally sound planet, country, state, city and — most particularly — block.

"It's about survival, this quest for living in harmony with the earth," says Wicks in regard to the struggle to get people on point when it comes to making Americans responsible. "I've just never really bragged about our green principle at White Dog." That's not her bag, braggadocio, "but we do need to start talking to get other people talking."

What she's talking about is having a well-designed restaurant, business and lifestyle that's as 100 percent green as can be. And she doesn't stop talking. Rather than relax during this week's time spent in the Poconos, the White Dog's owner is finishing a book to be published by Chelsea Green (damn, even her publisher is green!), a business memoir about her leadership in the local living-economy movement. Tentatively titled Good Morning, Beautiful Business, Wicks' book is about the dawning of a work model based on relationships rather than money.

"It's about strengthening and investing in local communities and economies," says Wicks, adding that there's no either/or when it comes to business success versus succeeding within one's home environment. "Everyone can do what we do at the White Dog. Everyone can buy from local farmers. Or buy from energy providers that use wind. It's the old do-unto-others principle."

Remember: The White Dog complex is four brownstone row homes at 34th and Sansom streets that Wicks has lived atop for 35 years. "I don't adhere to that business school adage 'leave your personal values at home,'" she laughs.

White Dog and the at-home Wicks use 100 percent post-consumer recycled and bleach-free paper products — from napkins and coffee filters to stationery. Their glass, plastic and metal is recycled (not by the city, but through the Collaborative Recycling Center at Penn) and their waste fryer oil is recycled into bio-diesel fuel by Glenn Brendel (an area farmer who supplies White Dog with produce), who in turn uses the fuel to run his business.

Wicks and White Dog also now receive 100 percent of their electricity from wind power, making her supposedly the first business owner in Pennsylvania to go completely pollution-free wind-powered.

"I use the Energy Cooperative and began buying 40 percent of our electricity from wind power in 1999, and went 100 percent in 2002," says Wicks of the company whose turbines reside in the Somerset area. "It's about commitment."

So committed was she, that her neighbor, the University of Pennsylvania — likely inspired by her actions — began getting 10 percent of its electrical power from Energy Cooperative. Also on her block, in collaboration with her neighboring businesses and Penn, is the city's first restaurant composting program. She put in $5,000 to get a communal recycling center where the restaurant's food waste and organic materials will be composted on-site and used to fertilize garden beds across the campus. Private haulers take it from behind the White Dog and use the compost for commercial fertilizer.

Wicks isn't finished, either. She's in the preliminary stages of investing in a solar-paneled roof for her four adjacent properties' rooftops. For her house, having solar-heated water will be easy. But she loathes having to use so much hot water when washing White Dog dishes.

"We'll preheat the water and then take it up a notch when we have to do dishes," says Wicks. It's expensive to start. But it's an investment that'll save money on electric bills in the future as well as making an investment toward a safer, saving environment. "It's starting to show a faster payback, having solar panels."

Then there's the issue of those damned eco-friendly lightbulbs. Yes, she uses fluorescent lightbulbs in her home as well as the White Dog's kitchen. "But," she adds, "we really need to find some for the dining room that don't give off such a weird glow."

People on dates just don't want to eat with an eerie white luminescence around them that makes them look like they're in a Vincent Price movie. Apparently some sacrifices are too great, even if it means saving the future.

"We'll find the warmer ones. I can't imagine they aren't out there," she says. "We want to be a good model for homes and for businesses. Using environmentally sustainable, energy-efficient products is totally linked to financial sustainability."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

 

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