December 27, 2000
858-535-8101
Miramar Wholesale Nurseries Earns Business Ethics Award
SAN DIEGO, CA — Miramar Wholesale Nurseries (MWN) won a San Diego Better Business Bureau 2000 Torch Award this month. The award honors companies that demonstrate a commitment to ethics in the marketplace, including integrity and responsiveness to employees, vendors and customers.
Branch Manager Suzie Wiest accepts the 2000 Torch Award. “Winning this award is a great compliment to our entire staff,” said Suzie Wiest, branch manager of MWN. “It is also a validation of the way we do business. In a world where usually all that counts is the bottom line, it is inspiring to be recognized for things as fundamental as honesty and fairness.”
The Torch Awards are four years old, though this is the first year the nursery participated in the competition. Applicants were judged on seven specific criteria that required supporting documentation. The criteria includes:
- High ethical standards of behavior towards customers, suppliers, shareholders, employees and communities where business is conducted.
- Ethical practices surrounding buyer/seller relationships.
- Longstanding history/reputation of ethical practices in the marketplace.
- Marketing, advertising, communications, and sales practices that reflect a true representation of what is being offered.
- Acknowledgement of ethical marketplace practices by industry peers, news media, and/or in communities where business is transacted.
- Management practices and policies that give long-term value to shareholders, customers, employees and vendors and surrounding communities.
- Training programs that assist employees in carrying out established ethics policies.
Applicants provided references from customers or clients, vendors, and suppliers. All for-profit businesses in San Diego were eligible to submit an application. Finalists and winners were chosen from seven categories based on the number of employees in the business. MWN took home the award in the 100 to 249 employees category. The awards ceremony was held November 14 at the Sheraton Harbor Island Hotel. More than 600 attended. As a local winner, MWN is entered into the national Better Business Bureau competition.
In a statement to the San Diego Business Journal, local Better Business Bureau President and CEO Gerry Wilson said, “each honoree exemplifies that adhering to ethical business practices gives a company a competitive advantage, while helping to uphold a marketplace that is fair for all Americans.”
Wiest concurred. “Miramar Wholesale Nurseries believes that the marketplace encompasses not only external customers, suppliers and vendors, but also those internal relationships between employees,” she said. “As a result, respect and appreciation moves outward from management, to employee, to customer, to vendor and back again.”
Miramar Wholesale Nurseries is Southern California’s leading supplier of landscape plant material and supplies. MWN grows a wide-variety of perennials, shrubs, and trees at each of their three locations for future projects in and around the region. Their fully stocked will-call facilities in San Diego, Irvine/Lake Forest, and San Juan Capistrano serve the immediate needs of commercial properties, institutions, property managers, and commercial landscapers. In an acquisition in early 1999, MWN became a member of the San Diego region of TruGreen-LandCare, a ServiceMaster company.
