Net Impact Salt Lake City

Join Us
Net Impact’s mission is to improve the world by growing and strengthening a network of new leaders who are using the power of business to make a positive net social, environmental, and economic impact. Please join our Salt Lake chapter as we work to support endeavors to make our communities sustainable and enjoyable for all who live in them. We need you!

Join Us

Net Impact’s mission is to improve the world by growing and strengthening a network of new leaders who are using the power of business to make a positive net social, environmental, and economic impact.

Please join our Salt Lake chapter as we work to support endeavors to make our communities sustainable and enjoyable for all who live in them. We need you!

Welcome to Net Impact SLC!

Homerun for Westminster Backcountry.com Mentoring Project

July 29, 2010

A recently completed project demonstrates the potential for Net Impact to directly impact sustainability-focused businesses in our community. The project was a winner for the company involved, a local university, course instructor and students, and the Net Impact Salt Lake City Professional Chapter. Four of our chapter's most seasoned members each supported a two or three person student team in a Westminster MBA short course on sustainability. The purpose of the mentoring was to aid students in their class project involving a real-world challenge for Backcountry.com, a leading online retailer of outdoor gear headquartered in Park City with a primary warehouse distribution center in West Valley City. Our chapter President, Steve Klass, has been cultivating a relationship with the Backcountry.com Green Team for two years, exploring opportunities for collaboration.

The project developed rapidly on the heels of a February tour of the Backcountry.com distribution center set up by our Pro chapter and attended by about 20 students from the University of Utah and Westminster College. Soon after this event, it was learned that one of our chapter's newest members, Mike Lewis, was teaching a sustainability course for the Westminster MBA program and was seeking a company challenge suitable as a class project. Backcountry.com prides itself on concern for the triple bottom line and contributing to the community where it operates. It was an honor to work with this type of organization in experimenting with our chapter's first service project for a business. Following is a brief description of the project and its value provided by Ken Myers, Planning Analyst and Co-Chair of Backcountry.com's Green Team.

Net Impact Salt Lake City Professional Chapter New Member Welcome Event

Invite your colleagues to meet chapter members and enjoy half-price appetizers.

Tuesday, September 28
4:30-5:30 p.m.Officers Meeting (all are welcome!)
5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Happy Hour (visiting, drinks and snacks)

MacCool's Public House 1400 Foothill Dr #166 (in Foothill Village Shopping Center) (801) 582-3111

PLEASE RSVP with Luisa Vallejo at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Backcountry.com Tour a Great Success

Fifteen undergraduate and graduate students from Westminster College and the University of Utah and several Pro chapter members attended a tour of Backcountry.com's Distribution Center on February 24.

Students met with Center and Green Team managers and had a candid exchange about recycling, efficiency and energy use challenges at the facility. A Google group is being set up for participants in the tour who want to continue to collaborate on sustainability project ideas. It is hoped that several opportunities for student and Pro Chapter involvement, including internships and class group projects will develop as a result of this tour.

Backcountry staff were very pleased with our chapter's role in making this tour happen and expressed hope for further strengthening of ties to the broader business sustainability community through our chapter in the coming years. This is the first time that three Net Impact chapters in Utah have co-sponsored an event.

A tour of the dump, why e-waste is bad and where does it all go anyway.

Written by Andrew Stone, Net Impact member:

As a member of my area’s local chapter of Net Impact I had an opportunity to tour the Salt Lake County landfill and recycling facilities. It was very interesting to say the least. Probably the most impactful thing I learned that evening was that all of our recycled plastics (we are blessed with a facility that takes virtually everything. #’s 1-7) are loaded into shipping containers, placed on the backs of trains, transported to California, loaded on a ship and sent to china for recycling. When I heard that I had to pick my chin up off the floor! What?!? Why don’t we recycle it here? “Because”, I was told, “we don’t make the products here”.

Read Andrew's complete blog post on the landfill and recycling tour here.

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