Our principals and staff serve on boards for housing providers, service providers, community service organizations, and cultural groups. We contribute to civic life in many diverse ways. We are a family of dynamic individuals whose purpose is: "To forge innovative solutions that elevate the quality and spirit of life."

Architecture
We design buildings that have a lasting value and purpose, buildings that provide everyone who enters them with a positive experience. Our work spans the gamut of design for the human experience, including housing, hospitality, retail, office, transit-oriented development and mixed use town centers and town squares, designed at the human scale.

Interior Design
We create spaces that people want to inhabit, spaces that enhance every activity that occurs within. We achieve this by truly getting to know the client before design work begins. This collaborative process of discovery allows us to tailor our designs to our clients' functional, financial and aesthetic requirements, while creating spaces that are comfortable, useful and appealing.

Landscape Architecture
We seek comprehensive design solutions that enhance and support the project as a whole, and respect the natural and cultural qualities of the site. We are planners and designers of civic centers, streetscapes and trails, and urban environments and parks, collaborating with artists and aligned disciplines to create stimulating and inspiring places for people.

Planning and Urban Design
GGLO recognizes that the diminishing supply of attractive and well positioned land, the high cost and increased risk of development, and changing public attitudes, lead private developers and communities to demand the highest and best use of land resources. We believe a careful understanding of human interaction with a place can inspire design and that the resulting design can inspire stewardship.

Recycling plays a key role in our efforts. We use paper with recycled content in our copiers and printers and in our printed materials. We also make use of products containing recycled materials – such as carpet tiles and workstation walls – in our offices and branches.

In 2006, we became the first bank to join the Seattle Climate Partnership, a group of Seattle-area employers committed to reducing carbon output individually as well as working together as a business community toward this goal. In 2007, we partnered with Seattle Climate Partnership and Cascadia Consulting to do a baseline study of our carbon footprint.

We support a variety of community organizations that have a positive impact on the environment – including Cascade Land Conservancy, Mountains to Sound Greenway and Capitol Land Trust.

These are just a few examples of how HomeStreet is engaged in helping to preserve the environmental health of our planet for future generations. As a longstanding member of the business community, we understand that every action we take – no matter how large or small – can add up to make a big impact.

We excel because we respect, and listen to you, our customer, then deliver precisely what you and your company need. We put a human touch on technology and make it work for you. We offer customized solutions to reduce costs and streamline the purchasing process. We are a reliable single source supplies and furniture vendor that partners with you to lower overall operating expenses and make your day run smoothly.

As a small business, we make choices each and every day that have impact on the people and places around us. We pay special attention to these choices and we try our best to reduce our environmental footprint and add value to the lives we touch with consideration of future generations. As a company that distributes products that are largely consumable, we recognize that our largest impact on the earth is through helping our customers reduce waste, secure appropriate business tools and by directing our customers to tools that have a long utility cycle while being reusable, repairable or recyclable. Ironically, the best way for our company to reduce our impact footprint is to consume less and encourage our customer’s to creatively purchase less.

Having this long term view is not only ethically correct it just makes good business sense as well; consume less and you spend less. Repair in place of buying new to get a longer return on your asset investment. Cut consumption and you cut costs.

Our commitment to sustainability recognizes that all business activities are derived from or take place in the natural environment. With both a long term perspective and a realization that we are in a closed system it is easy to see that what is good for the environment is also good for our customers. Being interconnected, what is good for the environment and customers is also good for our employees and good for our own business as well. By paying attention to detail and by being a consciously engaged participant we help our customers reduce the negative impacts of normal business activities and enjoy the resulting efficiencies.

As a company and as a vendor to other companies, we strive to set the Green Standard as well as the Gold standard for service, sustainability and value.

Design
We aspire to create built environments that question, rethink, and improve on the status quo.  Each design seeks a critical integration of the fundamental form givers—program, site and spatial experience—informed by craftsmanship, materiality and sustainability.  We believe design is pervasive, encompassing all aspects of our work and involving all project participants.  Our approach entails collaborative exploration with our consultant team, clients and users, seeking progressive discoveries, innovative design solutions and compelling architectural expression rooted in the unique substance of each project.

Environmental Responsibility
We utilize an integrated design approach involving all project participants from the start of design, providing the best opportunity to achieve green design goals. We strive for demonstrable, quantifiable results using the latest tools such as Building Information Modeling, daylight and energy modeling, and life cycle cost analysis. Our current commitment to LEED as a sustainability metric is a transitional step. We believe that there are greater sustainable design sensitivities and expertise on the horizon to be sought out, embraced by our profession, and diligently mastered. All of us at LMN possess this personal aspiration: to accept nothing less than truly sustainable and restorative design. In addition, we are implementing a plan directing LMN’s office operations towards carbon neutrality, a reduced environmental footprint, and a heightened awareness of environmental and social responsibility. Through proactive assessment and action, we continually educate ourselves, our colleagues, and our clients on methods for improving performance while lessening our impact on the environment.

The Parsons Public Relations team, through the firm’s community service program, GoodWorks, contributes more than 650 volunteer hours annually to a variety of organizations and causes. Nowhere is our commitment to the local and global community more evident than through this program. Our GoodWorks Social Hour is a quarterly event where we invite people to our offices to learn about a non-profit organization that is doing great work. Examples of organizations we have hosted include: Water 1st, Village Volunteers, Futurewise, EcoTeach Foundation, Women’s Funding Alliance, Dress for Success and PAWS. Our work under this program also includes providing pro bono services to environmental organizations such as Northwest Eco Building Guild, Cascadia Green Building Council, and Sustainable Seattle, among others.

Most recently, we worked with the Seattle Climate Partnership to establish the architecture community climate challenge, a climate action challenge of the Seattle/Puget Sound area architecture community to reduce its carbon footprint. We presented our idea for the challenge to AIA Seattle and the Seattle Climate Partnership, which has among its participants several of Seattle’s leading architecture firms. This challenge seeks to promote the Seattle/Puget Sound region and its architecture community as leaders in climate action, to educate the public and the business community what these firms are doing with regard to climate change, demonstrate the effectiveness of an industry-wide approach and encourage other industries to take similar actions. The climate challenge is in the final planning stages and will be launched sometime in 2010

Operating under the premise that it is the best interest of its company, its communities and future generations to protect the environment and conserve natural resources, Unico is proud to be a real estate industry leader in green and sustainable practices.  Unico currently builds and operates all new developments to LEED® specifications and plan to have 78 percent of the existing portfolio LEED certified by the end of 2010.  In addition, Unico promotes ENERGY STAR® by committing to benchmark all of its assets, helping to conserve resources and reduce carbon emissions.  The company has been recognized for innovative programs in its office properties including composting programs, extensive recycling initiatives, alternative transportation options, sustainable energy and water use, and tenant education throughout the portfolio.  In 2009, Unico was awarded the Kilowatt Cup by its peers for achieving the greatest energy reduction in the Puget Sound region.

With optimism and energy, Unico looks forward to creating a more sustainable future with its partners in the Seattle Climate Partnership!