Featured Image
Eastern Market serves fresh Michigan produce year round. Photo by Jason Vaughn.

Green Guide to Detroit

It seemed to have started with urban gardens. And now the city of Detroit has created an Office of Sustainability.

Big steps are being made by local organizations, businesses and convention centers to make Detroit a greener place. Join Detroit’s green movement, or make your meeting more sustainable with some of our resources.

Green Guide to Detroit

Huntington Place

Huntington Place is now a Green Meetings Industry Council ASTM/APEX Standard Certified facility. With Huntington Place's recent redesign, enough natural light comes through during daytime hours to minimize main hallway daytime lighting throughout Huntington Place. Also, the exhibit hall lighting uses 40% less electricity. Everyone loves recycling, and Huntington Place has placed recycling bins in all high-traffic areas of the building. And on the food side, My Green Michigan provides composting services to Huntington Place. And Huntington Place's food and beverage contractor collects unserved, prepared food for pickup by Forgotten Harvest, a local company that delivers food to pantries, soup kitchens and shelters around southeast Michigan. But that's not all. Learn about all of Huntington Place's green initiatives.

Green Spaces in Detroit

The Green Garage is a former Model T showroom that is now a co-working space and business incubator. The building was designed to be as green as possible, using solar thermal heating and material repurposing. Green Garage uses about a tenth of the energy, water and waste that a traditional office building uses.

The Green Garage Building, photo courtesy of Green Garage.

Green Garage's rooftop garden, which supplies vegetables to Motor City Brewing Works. Photo courtesy of Green Garage.

The Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MUFI) uses urban agriculture to promote education and sustainability to empower the Detroit community and solve its social problems. They also hope to develop a broader model for redeveloping urban communities. MUFI's main focus is redeveloping Detroit's North End to demonstrate some of the best practices for sustainable urban agriculture, strategies to increase food security, models for blight deconstruction and innovation in blue and green infrastructure. MUFI grows produce to support 2,000 households. Be sure to check out more of our urban gardens.

Eastern Market has been in Detroit for over 100 years. Aside from offering a weekly Saturday market filled with fresh Michigan produce and Detroit-themed products, the market is passionate about food access, running a food assistance and farm stand program to give the metro Detroit community access to fresh food. And their wholesale program, GROW Eastern Market, creates relationships with local chefs, restaurants, grocery stores and schools with small and emerging local farmers. Learn all about Eastern Market.

Eastern Market on a lively Saturday. Photo by Bill Bowen.

The Detroit Zoo was recognized in 2016 as one of Michigan's and the nation's Best and Brightest Sustainable Companies by the National Association for Business Resources. Some of the Zoo's recent sustainability efforts include discontinuing bottled water sales, building the first zoo-based anaerobic digester in the country, and using 100 percent renewable energy from wind farms.

By transforming vacant lots in the inner city, native Detroiters, Tim Paule and Nicole Lindsey of Detroit Hives, are cleaning up local neighborhoods and adding immense value to our community. They plant gardens at their bee farms to feed the colonies and in turn, they pollinate our plants, increasing fresh vegetable harvests for them to provide to the local residents. Creating a synergistic way for bees and our residents to thrive in Detroit, while supporting the sustainability of our communities.

They also educate locals and visitors to Detroit alike through farm tours and school visits to show the public that bees aren’t to be feared, while aiming to spread awareness and build support for the conservation of honeybees.

Photo Courtesy of: Timothy Paule of Detroit Hives

Green Meetings in Detroit

In 2017, Detroit hosted the Sustainable Brands conference at Huntington Place. Sustainable Brands is the largest community of global business leaders dedicated to brand value creation through sustainability-led innovation. The group decided that Detroit was the perfect location to launch their global initiative, Redefining the Good Life, which is a push for businesses to position themselves for success while addressing changing societal needs. With all of Detroit's businesses focused on sustainability and helping the community, it's no question why they launched this initiative in The D.

Contact a member of our sales team today to learn how you can make your conference or meeting in Detroit more sustainable.

Transportation

Detroit offers these public transportation options to get you around town instead of driving your car.

Detroit People Mover

The Detroit People Mover, an elevated and automated light-rail system, can help you get around downtown quickly, easily and safely. The 2.9-mile looped system has 13 stations, with automatic stops at key downtown locations.

The QLine

A 3.3-mile circulating streetcar running along Woodward Avenue between Congress Street and West Grand Boulevard in downtown Detroit. The streetcar route has 20 stations serving 12 locations.

MoGo Bike Share

Detroit’s bike share system has 430 bikes and 43 stations in 10 Detroit neighborhoods. Designed for quick trips around town.

Use MoGo bikes to make your way around Detroit. Photo courtesy of Bill Bowen.

Scooter Rentals

If you're staying within downtown Detroit, there are three scooter rental options for you to get around on your own time. Pick up a Bird, Lime or Spin scooter, use their respective apps to activate the scooter, and ride to your hearts desire. These scooters are mainly found in downtown, Corktown, Greektown and Midtown.

DDOT & SMART Bus Systems

DDOT operates within the city of Detroit. You can catch DDOT at the Rosa Parks Transit Center. Regional passes available to allow riders to use both DDOT and SMART buses, which connect Detroit to the suburbs.

SMART has also launched the FAST bus service to get you from downtown Detroit to Detroit Metro Airport. The service runs every 15-30 minutes, and the stop is conveniently located close to Huntington Place - near the corner of Fort St. and Washington.

Detroit Sustainable Donation Network

Below is a list of organizations that accept donations in the city of Detroit.

Reusable Personal & Home Items

Goodwill Industries of Detroit

3111 Grand River Avenue, Detroit, MI

313-964-3900

Heart to Hart Detroit

31420 Northwestern Highway, Farmington Hills, MI

248-884-4434

John W. Dingell VA Medical Center

Vietnam Veterans of America

4646 John R. Street, Detroit MI

313-576-3332.

Salvation Army

1627 Fort Street, Detroit, MI 48216

313-965-7760

St. Vincent De Paul

3000 Gratiot, Detroit, MI

313-567-0154

Reusable Materials, Signage & Paper

Arts and Scraps

16135 Harper Avenue, Detroit, MI 48224

313-640-4411

Reusable Office Supplies, Books & Activity Items

Detroit Public Schools

3011 W Grand Blvd., Detroit, MI 48202

313-873-3348

John W. Dingell VA Medical Center

Vietnam Veterans of America

4646 John R Street, Detroit MI

313-576-3332.

Food Surplus Donations

Forgotten Harvest

21800 Greenfield Rd, Oak Park, MI

248-967-1500

Heart to Hart Detroit

31420 Northwestern Highway, Farmington Hills, MI

248-884-4434

Recycle Electronic Devices

Great Lakes Electronic Corporation

6635 Sterling Drive South, Sterling Heights, MI

888-392-7831

Recycle Metal Scraps

City Recycling Inc.

1943 Mack Avenue, Detroit, MI 48227

313-831-3696

Additional Resources

Learn more about the green efforts of Detroit:

  • The Greening of Detroit Infrastructure
  • Detroit's green side, including the top 10 green spaces and events in Detroit
  • The Chicago Tribune's take on Detroit's urban gardening
  • The many vegan and vegetarian restaurants in Detroit

You May Also Like