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The Green Bandwagon posted on November 20, 2007

Question: Running an “environmentally friendly” business is all the rage these days. But there’s a lot that goes along with making the big push to “go green.” What is your company doing to go green? What are the costs of going green in your industry? Is it worth it?

Ian Fuller Associate director of facilities management and engineering Pfizer | La Jolla
At Pfizer La Jolla, we take a long-range view of our commitment to environmentally friendly practices. The cost to go green can be higher in the short term, but many of our programs eventually help us lower costs, while also protecting the environment. Installing energy- efficient windows, for example, has an initial cost upfront, although the benefit in lower heating and cooling costs is realized over time.

Many of Pfizer La Jolla’s laboratory buildings are LEED certified, and the campus as a whole saves enough electricity to power over 1,000 homes each year. Our buildings are designed to perform 27 to 30% better than required under California’s energy efficiency standards. We have implemented a variety of methods to reduce our energy consumption, including heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system optimizations, solar power installation and others. Programs that support our “think green and act green” philosophy include green chemistry, green buildings, waste minimization, recycling, water conservation and an energy efficiency team.

When we are able to implement new green programs, the response from Pfizer colleagues is always very strong—often even stronger than we anticipate. We see the pride people have in the progress our site has made, and this in turn helps justify our efforts to go even greener.

Ian Fuller is associate director of facilities management and engineering at Pfizer, the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company. In 2006 Pfizer committed $7 billion to R&D—more than any other pharmaceutical company and internet applications developer.

Ken Wells Creative Director Alchemy Design Group | San Marcos
“Going Green” within the marketing/advertising industry is perhaps the most difficult. Everything we do must be approved prior to going to press, which often entails several reams of wasted paper and several tanks of gas to get to and from a client’s office for signed approvals.

However, our studio has taken some steps in the right direction. Recently we’ve greatly reduced the amount of paper being used by going completely digital in the initial stages of approval. Digital services have advanced tremendously in the last few years and now allow us to send high-resolution comps to our clients digitally over the internet. There is an added perk to this, too—quicker time to market for our clients.

Most of our clients appreciate this service. It makes more sense, due to their busy schedules. They can now review their newly proposed Web site/marketing materials from their laptop while en route to their next meeting. What used to cost us a tree’s worth of paper, a tank of gas and an entire afternoon in meetings can now be handled within minutes. The measurable savings in material and gas is in the hundreds of dollars, and the added bonus of quicker time to market for our clients is in the thousands. And the impact on the environment and our conscience? Priceless!

Ken Wells first honed his design skills in south Florida. Ken later moved to Southern California where he built a strong client base by working at numerous design firms. Eventually, Wells accumulated enough clientele to launch Alchemy Design Group, now in its 15th year as a premier graphic design and internet applications developer.

Sue Reynolds CEO Community HousingWorks | Escondido
We discovered that building affordable multifamily housing can be environmentally responsible and cost effective. It requires a multidimensional understanding of how the affordable housing and green markets work, where and how to find financing and how to choreograph the ballet of lenders, financiers, tax-credit agencies and the construction industry.

The result is SOLARA. Built in Poway, it is the first apartment community in California fully powered by the sun. SOLARA’s 56 apartment homes are restricted to those earning $20,000 to $41,000 for a family of four today. SOLARA’s carbon footprint is 95% lower than a conventionally powered community, which is like planting 5,446 trees per year or taking 300 cars off the road annually. The cost of going green in SOLARA was only 1% to 2% higher and pays off since Community HousingWorks is a long-term owner.

Building your business green requires no sleight of hand, no risky funding schemes and no untested technology. It does require a different mindset and maybe a new business model. And definitely a stubborn streak when people tell you it can’t be done.

Sue Reynolds has led Community HousingWorks as president and CEO since 1997. Under her leadership, the corporation has become a productive multifamily developer, a homeownership lender and an innovator in community-based programs that strengthen communities and families’ financial independence. The Urban Land Institute (San Diego/Tijuana chapter) honored SOLARA with the Smartest of 2007 award in June.

Hunter Bennett Chief Technology Officer Ensynch | Del Mar
We currently run more than 100 customer environments. That means we support business customers with hosting, systems monitoring, software applications, data backup and disaster recovery, among other things. Our customers depend on us for peace of mind. With that, running a data center entirely green is a tough thing given the energy needs and uptime reliability expectations. Yet small improvements in energy efficiency, at any level, can save millions of dollars per year in data centers. Our 6,000-square-foot data center’s power consumption is at lower levels than some larger data centers across the United States. However, we still see opportunity to reduce power consumption. Every bit counts.

At the moment we’re conserving energy in our data center by making better use of existing gear, and that means utilizing new software and technology. Recently, a new method known as “virtualization” has allowed us to take a significant stride in the green direction. Through the use of this tool, we can now reliably run multiple software applications on a single server, which yields much greater use of our servers. And that means less hardware, which means fewer machines needing electricity to run on. That’s compelling, both for the bottom line and for the environment.

As CTO of Ensynch, Hunter Bennett serves as lead strategist and evangelist for the development of IT services that drive greater operational efficiency for businesses. Since joining Ensynch in 2000, Bennett has built policies and procedures to support the company’s goal to align mid-size companies with their IT business needs.