Environmental Landscape Footprint (ELF) Reports

One of Turf’s first reports on The American Green Zone Alliance (AGZA) was back in 2014 when Jamie Banks, Executive Director of Quiet Communities Inc., wrote about meeting Dan Mabe, AGZA President and Founder, in April 2013 and deciding to collaborate. Banks wrote, “I thought then we could be on the verge of an electric revolution in landscape maintenance.” Later in the article, she added, “The era of electric landscape maintenance is in its infancy. It has a long way to go before it becomes mainstream.” At the time, Banks predicted slow adoption of the technology, starting with schools, hospitals, luxury properties, parks, and municipalities. Seven years later, she hasn’t been wrong. Mabe describes AGZA as “a group of people whose mission is to ‘prudently’ help facilitate low impact, cleaner, and quieter technologies and operations for the grounds maintenance industry.” Despite the inertia of change in any industry, the movement is steadily growing as electric and battery technology improves, product costs come down, and environmental awareness increases among clients and providers. Today, AGZA represents an alliance of communities, advocacy groups, service providers, manufacturers, and more who are leading the landscaping industry toward what they see as the inevitable future.   Interestingly, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, AGZA experienced a surge of community interest as kids and parents were schooling and working from their homes. “We were overwhelmed with inquiries because people now started to realize the elevated noise levels from gas powered service on their own properties, which ...