More Alaska businesses going green: from using energy-efficient bulbs, to recycling, to developing wind farms, companies see cost savings and benefit in 'green'.

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Increasingly, more Alaska businesses are going green--not just for the sake of the environment but to benefit their bottom line.

Companies historically have adopted environmental conservation measures as simply a good thing to do. Now, more businesses

Consequently, more companies in Alaska and elsewhere are turning green in a good way. They're making an effort to use less energy and fuel, recycle more and encourage more employees to bike, bus or walk to work. Alternative, renewable fuel sources also are gaining more support.

GOING GREEN GOOD FOR BUSINESS

Going green makes perfect business sense, says Randy Virgin, executive director of the Alaska Center for the Environment, a nonprofit citizen's group that works for the sensible stewardship of Alaska's natural environment. "Efficiency equals a win-win," he explains. "If you can cut down your costs, that's good, but then you can also get good will from your customers."

Arctic Wire Rope and Supply is a prime example of an energy-saving company motivated by its bottom line. After 24 years in business, the manufacturer of lifting and rigging products is implementing ways to cut energy and fuel costs. Granted, owner Eric McCallum likes the idea of saving carbon emissions, but saving money is his main goal. "The two major changes we're going to make are to address lighting and (natural) gas consumption," he explains. "Gas will be the one area that will increase dramatically."

The company will spend about $15,000 installing energy-efficient lighting in its 22,000-square-foot industrial warehouse. Most of the building consists of an open shop with high bays; about 6,000 square feet of lower-ceiling office space makes up the rest. The old lighting will be upgraded with high-output T5 florescent light bulbs. "By going to this new T5, we're going to go from 34,000 down to about 17,000 kilowatts in the warehouse," he says. "That's going to effectively halve our lighting costs. In the office, we will see comparable drops, going from 28,000 down to 14,000 kilowatts."

Lighting accounts for about half of Arctic Wire's electric bill, and the new lights will save the company $4,800 per year on lighting costs, according to McCallum. But the cost savings is only part of the benefit. "We're dramatically improving the quality of our lighting," he says. "It will not only be brighter, but it will be closer to natural light."

In terms of natural gas savings, Arctic Wire will be installing a special air curtain to reduce loss of heat through its bay door. Having the 16-foot-tall, 16-foot-wide bay door--used for shipping and receiving--loses the company about $8,000 a year, McCallum says. Installing the air curtain above the bay door will separate the outside air from the inside air and conserve heat. This will effectively reduce the company's loss from using the bay door down to $2,500 annually. The air curtain, which should be in place by the end of August, will cost $12,000 to install.

In addition to installing new T5 lighting and the air curtain, the company also will replace the space heaters in its office areas with more energy-efficient mat heaters to go beneath employees' desk.

McCallum feels more businesses would be willing to undertake conservative measures if they could see how doing the right thing could benefit them financially. "My motivation is to intrigue other businesses to do the same," he says. "We feel like we have so very little control with the greater world. This (the air curtain) is a pretty interesting thing you can do."

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND IMAGE ALSO IMPORTANT

There are real economic gains to be made by going green, but environmentally conservative businesses make an important contribution to the global community, says Maryellen Oman, program assistant of the Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club. "None of us should be wasting resources," she adds. "I think it is very important for people to live a sustainable life.... I'm hoping we can continue raising the awareness with businesses."

Awareness is being raised significantly, based on the way Alaska companies are responding to energy-efficiency education being offered by Green Star. "Our energy-efficiency training for building managers sold out quickly," says Green Star Executive Director Sean Skaling. "We got 70 people in a week or two, and we had to close registration. I'd never seen anything like that."

Participation in the Green Star program also is steadily increasing. Currently, there are 300 Green Star enrollees, of which about half have earned their green star. "Our fiscal year ends June 30, and we have more enrollees, more awardees, more green events and more site assessments than we've ever had before," Skaling says. "The reason is because of our outreach efforts, and there is a growing environmental interest."

The Green Star Award is given to businesses, organizations, schools, and agencies that demonstrate a strong environmental and business ethic by implementing the eight Green Star Standards. These standards encourage waste reduction within several media, as well as education and outreach. Examples of Standards topics include recycling, waste prevention, improved purchasing, outreach to other organizations, education of employees, reduction of toxic materials, water conservation and energy efficiency.

Recently, the Snow City Cafe earned a Green Star for its conservative practices. The downtown restaurant switched to energy-efficient lighting during a recent remodel. The restaurant, located at Fourth Avenue and L Street in Anchorage, increased its space by a third to 5,000 square feet, yet was able to reduce its electrical costs. "Our electrical bill has decreased $545 in the last year," Fairbairn says. "The lights we have in the dining room now are T5; before, we had T12."

To further conserve electricity, the lights are kept on (manual) dimmers, Fairbairn says. The restaurant is also considering other cost-saving measures like installing automatic lights in the back room and motion sensors in the walk-in refrigerator.

In addition to reducing waste, the Snow City Cafe recycles a variety of things, including newspapers, cardboard, glass, cans and even cooking grease. The cafe also converts its used, single-sided paper into notepads for the servers. Some customers even bring back their java jackets for reuse in exchange for a free drink, according to managing partner Laile Fairbairn. "Snow City has always been ahead of the curve on trying to be environmentally responsible," Fairbairn says.

SUPPORT FOR RECYCLING, REDUCING EMISSIONS AND RENEWABLE ENERGY

Recycling is a common initiative for environmentally conscious businesses, Skaling says. However, storing bulky cardboard and other recycling materials can be a challenge that may require extra dumpsters.

That's the case with the Snow City Cafe. "I pay extra to have the cardboard and papers recycled," Fairbairn explains. "We get our cardboard picked up twice a week."

But it's worth the extra expense and effort, Fairbairn says. "It's more of a global issue ... we have a greater responsibility," she says.

Skaling also has seen a strong interest among businesses to recycle computers and other electronics. In fact, growing requests from business led the Green Star program to hold annual electronics recycling event from 2003 to 2006. "During the last event, we collected about 660,000 pounds of electronics," Skaling says. "That represents 1,700 households, 240 businesses and 129 nonprofit organizations."

Green Star's annual electronics recycling program has since been absorbed by Total Reclaim Inc. The Seattle-based company collects and accepts delivery of used computers in any condition year-round.

Businesses can also use Green Star's Alaska Materials Exchange, which was created by Green Star, to get rid of computers and other unwanted items. The online, business-to-business information clearinghouse is designed to help Alaska organizations reuse materials and find alternatives to discarding valuable materials in Alaska's landfills. Postings are free and can be made for any materials businesses have available or want to find. "There have been a lot of successful trades," Skaling says. "It's a great way to get rid of materials that you have that aren't valuable to you, but may be valuable to someone else. We now have a sign-up list where you can get weekly updates to see what the new postings are."

In addition to recycling, Alaska businesses are also encouraging their employees to carpool, bike, walk or take public transportation to work to minimize carbon emissions. Skinny Raven Sports, for instance, has a program to pay employees every time they get to work without using their private vehicles. The program is valuable, Skaling says, because it has air quality benefits, minimizes congestion, saves on parking and helps to strengthen the public transportation program. Green Star also will be implementing a program to give employees a cash award for not driving their vehicles to work, Skaling adds.

Environmentally minded Alaska businesses also are taking a stronger interest in supporting renewable energy. Some of them are purchasing Denali Green tags, which are renewable energy certificates sold to replace traditional polluting sources of electricity with clean alternative sources of energy that come from solar and wind power from across North America. Green Tags, which are designed to reduce carbon emissions, help to "green" a variety of energy-consuming activities, including electricity, natural gas, and auto and air travel.

In the future, Alaskans can anticipate using green energy produced on Fire Island by Wind Energy Alaska LLC, a joint project of CIRI and enXco. CIRI is one of the most successful of the 12 Alaska-based regional corporations and enXco is one of the country's largest wind energy developers. They are working together to build a wind farm on the virtually undeveloped island and potentially in other parts of Alaska.

The Fire Island wind farm will be Alaska's first large-scale wind project. Wind energy is a viable alternative because it's clean, provides electric energy diversification and has a base fuel cost of zero, says Jim Jager, a spokesperson for CIRI. "We could have wind turbines generating power as soon as 2010," he says. "But it may take longer."

In the meantime, Alaska businesses can focus on protecting the resources already available to them. Saving energy, fuel and other valuable resources doesn't have to be a costly or complicated process, says Skaling of Green Star. Businesses can take simple steps to incorporate energy-saving measures, he says. They should start by examining their processes. This can help them prevent waste at the time of purchasing and planning, instead of dealing with it later. For example, businesses can conserve paper by printing less, printing double-sided documents, turning single-sided documents into scratch paper and buying recycled paper to begin with.

Companies also can purchase more efficient florescent lighting for general use and low-energy LED (light emitting diode) lights to power exit signs. Significant energy can also be saved by simply switching computers, copiers and other equipment to a power-saving mode when they're not in use. "There's always room for improvement--and often in surprising ways," Skaling says.