Quiet Cut (owned by Franklin Brothers Landscape, LLC) is owned by two brothers, high school and college students, who grew from mowing a few of their neighbors' lawns into much more. They strive to provide the best lawn services possible to the northern Indianapolis community. In 2020, they realized the impact that lawn care equipment has on the environment so they decided to switch to all-electric mowers, blowers, and weed-eaters.
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Who are you, and what’s your background?
"My name is Eli Franklin. I am going to be a Senior at Brebeuf Jesuit in Indianapolis, I am an Eagle Scout, and my brother and I started an all electric lawn care business.
Nature has always been a part of my life. From going to The Orchard School and spending school days in the woods, to spending my summers in the woods of Brown County, to sleeping in a tent every month as a Boy Scout, I have always felt at home in nature. As important as the natural environment is to me, I feel called to protect it. As I moved into high school, I grew more and more involved in conservation activities such as planting trees with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, measuring school waste, and recently pushing the administration to shift away from single use plastics. I helped to start the movement, WHAT’S SUP (What Is Single Use Plastic). WHAT’S SUP has worked to eliminate single use plastic from Brebeuf, and where plastic water bottles and single use styrofoam plates used to be, there are now reusable materials.
Outside of school, my brother, Ethan, and I have run a lawn care company for years, maintaining lawns around the Meridian Kessler neighborhood. In 2020, I realized the extreme impact that traditional lawn care equipment has on the environment, and we decided that shifting to electric mowers was an important switch."
What did you learn about leadership from becoming an Eagle Scout?
"Becoming an Eagle Scout taught me that leadership is primarily about setting a good example for others, and not telling others what to do. Lead by example, and if they think that what I’m doing is good, they will follow as well."
What is Quiet Cut?
"Quiet Cut is our electric lawn care service. Ethan and I own and operate Franklin Brothers Landscape, LLC, and Quiet Cut is our name for the electric lawn care service that we offer. By switching to electric mowers, the noise presence associated with us mowing a lawn is less than half that compared to gas mowers. Furthermore, when we switched just one of our mowers to a fully electric mower, it is comparable to removing 140 cars off the road each year. By offering both a quiet and environmentally friendly service, we are providing the best lawn care service in Indianapolis."
Why did you decide to make Quiet Cut (owned by Franklin Brothers Landscape, LLC) carbon neutral?
"Ethan and I decided to make our business carbon neutral because it is our responsibility to take care of the environment. The escalating climate crisis is going to affect my brother and me, and by neutralizing our carbon footprint, we are taking responsibility for our actions.
Although we have lots of electric equipment, the trucks that we use produce carbon emissions, and the simple operations of a business have a carbon footprint - such as purchasing office materials. Going carbon neutral allows us to tie several loose ends together, that otherwise would not be possible."
How did you feel before becoming carbon neutral, and how do you feel after?
"Before going carbon neutral, I felt that I had done all that I could to be eco-friendly as a business, but there were still negative environmental impacts that I simply could not do anything about while running a landscaping business, such as emissions from our vehicles.
Now that Quiet Cut and Franklin Brothers Landscape, LLC is carbon neutral, I feel that I am truly doing my part in the world by working to eliminate carbon emissions from the lawn care and landscaping industry."
Why should the person reading this make their household and business carbon neutral?
"Time is running out before the damage that we do to the environment is permanent. Although carbon offsets are only a piece of the solution to the climate crisis, Carbon Neutral Indiana does all of the hard work. All you have to do is take responsibility for your environmental impact in the form of a small bill each month. Please do not think that you are just one household or business with a small environmental impact and that you going carbon neutral does not matter - because it does. If you go carbon neutral, then you could start a whole chain reaction of others making the switch as well."
Anything else?
"I am super grateful that Carbon Neutral Indiana was created and that they are growing so quickly. Why? Typically Hoosiers are viewed as prioritizing the economy over the environment. While people across the world too often focus on short term gains over long term environmental effects, Indiana is lacking even further behind other places in the world in terms of environmental responsibility."
-Eli Franklin, Co-Owner of Quiet Cut
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