{"id":269105,"date":"2026-05-13T07:29:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/269105\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T07:29:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:29:26","slug":"sustainability-isnt-seasonal-orlando-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/269105\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainability isn\u2019t seasonal \u2013 Orlando Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

People are planting trees, businesses are making pledges, and communities around the world are looking for ways to reduce their environmental footprint. But as April turns into May, we know that \u201csustainability\u201d itself isn\u2019t a seasonal idea \u2014 and it\u2019s only when businesses move past the short-term mindset that they can start making effective changes.<\/p>\n

Our family has been farming in Florida for a century, and the success of the family business is rooted in environmental stewardship and sustainability. Experience has shown us that lasting progress is rarely driven by a single bold move. More often, it comes from practical innovations and incremental improvements that scale across an organization over time. True sustainability has to be sustainable: balanced and effective, using the minimum amount of resources \u2014 water, cooling, energy, and packaging \u2014 to achieve the maximum benefit.<\/p>\n

The use of plastic in packaging is a good example. Plastic is an immensely useful and versatile material, and it\u2019s not easy to find a substitute for it. But businesses can do more to use plastic efficiently and minimally. It may require tackling the problem on a system-wide level \u2014 such as redesigning packaging to use less plastic, replacing recycled material when possible and labeling individual packages to let the customer know how to correctly recycle it.<\/p>\n

\"SammySammy Duda<\/p>\n

Making those kinds of changes takes consistent effort and careful thought. There\u2019s no one-size-fits-all answer. We\u2019ve experienced that at Duda, where we manage land with different agricultural and water conservation needs across several states, including Florida, California and Arizona. By using a bottom-up approach, it allows businesses to look closely at their operations and find ways to do better.<\/p>\n

Growing food requires responsible stewardship \u2013 growing only what we intend to sell, practicing crop rotation to maintain soil health, and cover-cropping to prevent erosion. Likewise, in building communities, there must be a priority on preserving green spaces, creating walkable neighborhoods to reduce traffic and car emissions, intentionally designating areas for wildlife habitats, and prioritizing quality of life through parks, trails, and conservation areas.<\/p>\n

Sustainability isn\u2019t the work of one day or one month; it\u2019s the work of generations. It\u2019s rooted in the principle of taking care of what\u2019s provided to us \u2014 and using it thoughtfully to make people\u2019s lives better.<\/p>\n

\"AmyAmy Duda Kinder<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to remember that sustainability isn\u2019t just the responsibility of a few; it is the responsibility of many. From individuals and families to small businesses and large corporations, being good stewards of the Earth is a shared mandate in which we can all find common ground.<\/p>\n

Sammy Duda, president and CEO, and Amy Duda Kinder, vice president of safety and operational effectiveness, are leaders of the family-owned and operated DUDA enterprise, which is celebrating 100 years in agriculture and real estate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People are planting trees, businesses are making pledges, and communities around the world are looking for ways to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[483,482,139,141,140,109,76410],"class_list":["post-269105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-commentary","tag-opinion","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}