Four Oneida County businesses can be counted in the elite group of 70-plus businesses statewide that participate in the state's Travel Green Wisconsin program. Most recently, Holiday Acres Resort in Rhinelander joined the Waters of Minocqua, RiverRun Center for the Arts in McNaughton, and Joe's Pasty Shop, also in Rhinelander.

    The program was started In 2004 by Jim Holperin, who was serving as the Department of Tourism secretary. Holperin assembled a work group called the Sustainable Tourism Ad Hoc Committee. Among the four pilot locations studied by the group in that year was Nicolet College in Rhinelander. The group sought to follow in the footsteps of other international and national programs which had proven that sustainable business practices could be good for business as well as consumers and the environment.

    Information gleaned from the pilot programs helped to shape the current criteria of Travel Green Wisconsin. Applicants must answer questions and receive points (a minimum of 30) relating to communication and education, waste reduction, reuse and recycling, energy efficiency, conservation and management, air quality, wildlife and landscape conservation and management, transportation, purchasing and local community benefits.

    "Our family has always taken pride in this beautiful environment and has worked to keep Holiday Acres as natural as possible," said Kari Zambon, owner of Holiday Acres Resort. "Northern Wisconsin has unique environmental qualities and we must do everything we can to preserve them." Zambon said that Holiday Acres applied to Travel Green Wisconsin after it was launched statewide in January 2007.

    "Green" concepts and marketing are not limited to Wisconsin's Travel Green program. Ray Burgan of Enterprise Wood Products in Rhinelander says that the mantra "reduce, reuse, recycle" represents a niche in his market which is important to some consumers.

    "People think that buying plastic decking material saves trees and is good for the environment," Burgan explained. "The truth is that the energy and materials used to manufacture this product and ship it is far greater than using wood."

    Burgan says that "just using wood" is a "green" concept, but he takes it one step further by "reusing" wood from old buildings. Recently, he bought wood from an orphanage in Milwaukee and an old grain elevator in Superior. The price tag on these used commodities surprises some consumers, he says. "People think that using old wood is cheaper but there is actually more labor involved in preparing it for market again with additional cutting, removing nails and drying, and this drives up the cost."

    Nonetheless, Burgan is committed to providing green building alternatives to his customers, just as the Zambons go to the extra trouble and expense of complying with standards which earned them the Travel Green designation.

    For more information about Travel Green Wisconsin and a list of current members, visit www.travelgreenwisconsin.com.