Jayne Whitman, a lighting consultant from Croton-on-Hudson, has heard the green talk and seen the green branding on company web sites. Yet in her sales work for Clean Light Green Light, a Michigan-based manufacturer of energy-saving solid-state lighting, or light-emitting diodes that replace fluorescent lighting in commercial and industrial buildings, she has had a hard time reaching the corporate sustainability managers who “walk the walk,” she said.
Whitman was in the crowd of some 200 persons networking last week at the first Yonkers Green Business Summit, hosted by the city and Ecoventions, a New York City-based producer of green industry conferences. Green business could be at the forefront of a new economy, though it”™s not there yet, according to several speakers and business owners at the summit. The recession, coupled with the typically higher costs of green practices and products for companies and consumers and insufficient or reduced business tax credits and incentives for green technologies and building design, has slowed the green wave”™s advance.
In her business contacts in the public and private sectors, Whitman said she has found municipalities “are much more open to seriously having a discussion about lowering their energy costs” than are companies, including ones that color themselves green on their web sites. “That”™s because they (municipalities) are utilizing taxpayer dollars. In talking to larger companies, I”™m having difficulty getting through to find a sustainability director.” An exception, she said, is Marcal Paper Products L.L.C. in northern New Jersey.
As a small-business owner too ”“ she and her husband, commercial actor David Donovan, own Endeavor Studios, an advertising casting studio service in midtown Manhattan ”“ Whitman knows the financial constraints that can keep a company from going green. To install LED lighting, “A smaller business may not be able to do it unless they know they may be around for another 10 years” to reap significant returns on their investment, she said.
In her studio business, “Right now it”™s all about cash flow ”“ and the marketing industry has been hit very hard with the deep recession.” Going green “is not applicable to us at this time. A year ago we might have really thought about it.”
Kenneth Dearden, a principal at MetroPartners L.L.C. in Yonkers, said his company spent $500,000 to $600,000 to install a geothermal heating and cooling system at 66 Main, the 170-unit luxury apartment building that opened last year near the city waterfront. The partners received a $175,000 rebate from the New York State Energy Research Development Authority for the system. Tenants get the payback in substantially reduced electric bills that average $100 monthly for apartments that include washers and dryers, he said.
Yet MetroPartners chose not to seek the U.S. Green Building Council”™s Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) certification for 66 Main. The building”™s tall-windowed, sleekly industrial glass-and-brick design likely would not meet LEED standards, Dearden said.
“I applaud the idea” of green-building certification, “but there”™s little or no incentive to do that right now” for developers. LEED certification “is an additional cost” that should be tied to significant tax breaks, he said.
“LEED”™s not the end-all, be-all answer to everything. ”¦It costs money to build LEED. I think people have to get through their mindset that as you get more environmentally conscious, there”™s a cost line that you can”™t cross,” said Dearden.
At Synergis Zero Waste Group, a recycling and waste reduction consulting and management company based in South Salem, founding owner Neil Cutler”™s client list includes Toyota, General Motors Corp., CB Richard Ellis, Vassar College, Marriott Hotel and the Katonah-Lewisboro School District. Most large companies now have a sustainability director or manager on staff, he said.
“I think some of the bigger companies caught on to this earlier,” Cutler said. “I think all companies are starting to catch on that there are a lot of benefits here.
“Do I see businesses yet willing to spend money on green things? I think it”™s slow right now.”
The Business Council of Westchester and Westchester County have contacted with Cutler at Synergis to develop an online program, Green Business Challenge, for the county”™s business sector. Cutler said the program, one result of the county”™s Action Plan for Climate Change and Sustainable Development, will include a “tool kit” for businesses looking to go green.
The web site also will feature local business success stories that serve as case studies in going green and will list green businesses in Westchester for consumers. The program also could be used by companies to attract employees, he said.
Cutler said he hopes to launch the program by fall.
Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone recalled studying green energy developments such as photovoltaics and power generation from garbage as an engineer at the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Thirty years later, “They”™re still not completely there economically but they”™re a lot closer than they ever were before,” he told the summit audience. Green business “could be the front end of a new wave. And if it is, we want to be in on the ground floor because it”™s good for all of us.”
