Living Green

'Green' initiatives helping businesses survive

WEST PALM BEACH, Fl. -- Go green, and make green.

For more and more companies, it's a mantra that's working — even in today's down economy.

Entrepreneurs, bolstered by President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, are finding ways to create profitable niches in sustainability — including green technologies, products and buildings — even if it means reinventing their business plan.

Take Arch Aluminum & Glass Co. Since 1995, the Tamarac-based building products manufacturer with more than $300 million in annual revenues has been making bathroom vanity mirrors at its Fort Pierce plant.

As that business slowed with the housing market, the company looked for ways to keep the factory going and preserve jobs. Now it's producing highly specialized solar-collecting, bowl-shaped mirrors known as concentrators for use in generating solar energy, said Leon Silverstein, chief executive and president.

"We saw what was happening," Silverstein said. "We took our expertise in mirrors and ... began experimenting and developing reflective mirror, and solar coatings while at the same time reinventing the manufacturing process.

"Our goal was to see what was out there," he said, "in order to create employment and survive as a company."

In November, Arch Aluminum & Glass shipped the first 25,000 of about 60,000 pieces ordered by GreenVolts in San Francisco, said Tony Lawson, director of solar operations at the company's 75,000-square-foot Fort Pierce plant.

Counting on stimulus package

While Arch undertook the project without any outside funding — spending more than $500,000 in initial development costs — Silverstein said he's hopeful that the Obama administration's stimulus package will ramp up a once-dim solar industry, which has been slammed by the credit crunch.

That figures to be one of the primary topics discussed by dozens of local businesses and government officials today through Wednesday at the South Florida Green, Energy & Climate Conference/Expo being held at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.

With the Palm Beach County Commission declaring this week "Green Week," Palms West Chamber of Commerce CEO Jaene Miranda said business and government leaders from Palm Beach, Martin and Broward counties will speak at the conference.

Although planning for the green gathering began about eight months ago, she said the timing couldn't be better.

"The question is: How do we create this green economy using the influence of the whole South Florida area?" Miranda said. "We are all looking for that next pot of gold for ... another economic boom. When you go through times like these, you realize you can't have all your eggs in one basket."

Kelly Smallridge, president of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, agreed.

She said the board has added alternative energy as one of its key clusters, with an emphasis on biofuels.

Indeed, she pointed to several factors making Palm Beach County a natural for alternative, or renewable, energy growth, including: a huge agricultural industry; an emerging bioscience industry; Florida Atlantic University's ocean energy research; and the fact national renewable energy leader FPL Group Inc. is based in Juno Beach. The board's 17-member alternative energy cluster group held its first meeting recently.

"It's an area we are venturing into because we see great opportunity," Smallridge said. "There are three outside companies right now looking at Palm Beach County for a site in biofuel production and research."

And while building construction is down, it's not out, Smallridge said. The state's energy bill passed last year, and other mandates require all new government buildings to be green. That demand also has begun spilling over to the private sector.

Kyle Abney, president of Abney + Abney Green Solutions in Palm City, served as a consultant to Suffolk Construction Co. when it purchased and then gutted a West Palm Beach building at One Harvard Circle to turn it into a green building as part of a $6 million renovation last year.

The 45,000-square-foot, two-story building expects to receive the nationally known Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification as early as this spring, said Matt Kiziah, a Suffolk Construction project manager.

He said the building's features include low-flow water fixtures, lights with motion sensors that automatically turn on when people enter a room and shut off when they leave, and Low-E, or energy-efficient hurricane-proof windows.

There's also a movable interior wall system, with floor-to-ceiling glass walls that allow lots of natural light. Also, outside, there's preferred parking for hybrid cars.

"Everybody is asking about it these days," Kiziah said. "A year ago, we had one green project. Now we probably have 10 jobs looking to go that way."

'There is money there'

Green buildings may be on the rise in South Florida, but a climate change consulting firm in Boca Raton said the recession is still making it difficult to get companies to buy into reducing greenhouse gases and becoming involved in managing carbon and renewable energy credits.

Nick Loeb, managing partner at Boca-based Carbon Solutions America, said most of the company's clients are out of state. Florida companies are developing green committees in their organizations, but want a return on investment within a year.

"For most of the things we do in terms of how companies reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and water wastes and generate credits, it is a three-to-five year return on investment," Loeb said.

There's also a learning curve for clients as the company seeks to help them understand the carbon markets, how they can develop carbon credits from their reduction projects and how to go about it.

"We have advised several counties over the last six months, but have yet to see them come out with a request for proposals to do that," Loeb said. "We find that shocking at a time when counties are struggling to meet budgetary needs. There is money there."

Two years ago, 65 million carbon credits were traded, and that reached 100 million in 2008, he said.

"It is a small market that is growing rapidly," Loeb said, "but it is still difficult, especially in this economy."

Daniel Betts, principal engineer at West Palm Beach-based EnerFuel, which is developing fuel cells, agrees that the economic downturn has taken a toll on the green industry's ability to fund itself.

But the potential is great, with demand from both the user side and the political side growing, he said.

"People are becoming very aware of the risks we face as a country and the world if we continue to use energy inefficiently and squander our resources," Betts said.

"Politicians are moving in that direction," he added. "We need to attract this industry. There is a risk inherent ... but the size of the markets is large."

Susan Salisbury writes for the Palm Beach Post.