Green Supporter
Green start-ups may be proliferating—but funding these cutting edge ventures is no simple matter. Founded three years ago, Camden’s Blue Sky Power offers a solution, in the form of consulting, development, financing and management assistance for an array of clean energy capital projects. For example, the company recently helped Burlington’s Masonic Home install a 1.2-Megawatt solar array, offsetting much of the organization’s energy needs.
Architectural Innovator
For 20 years, Mount Holly’s RYEBREAD (Regan Young England Butera: Referendums, Engineering, Architecture, Design) has been making sustainability its business by putting green innovations front and center, and retrofitting existing buildings with efficient systems whenever possible. “Successful green projects are based on thoughtful analysis and careful planning, [and] are designed to perform well and optimize limited resources,” says Regan Young. Collaborating with clients, the company has brought geothermal heating and cooling into many Burlington County schools. Their latest project, the library at Pemberton’s Fort Dix Elementary School, features new green innovations, including the use of light shelves—an architectural element that allows daylight to penetrate deep into a building—pitched metal “cool roofing” and daylighting technology.
Corporate Commitment to Sustainability
While environmentalism and capitalism may not seem to go hand in hand, PNC Bank posits that green can be good for business. The bank now has 116 green branches and counting, including Mount Laurel, Sicklerville, and Williamstown. “PNC strives to integrate conservation, including water and energy saving technology, into our building practices,” points out Bill Mills, regional president for Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. “Our commitment to green construction has enabled us to lower costs, increase efficiency and productivity, as well as enhance the communities where people live, work and play. We have more newly built, LEED-certified buildings than any company on Earth.” Green practices, including ventilating and cooling buildings with fresh outside air, and improving natural lighting and heating, have also reduced building operating costs by 35 percent.
Small Steps
Think little differences can’t add up? Gloucester County is set to prove otherwise, with the first solar-powered traffic lights in the region. “We are installing the solar panels through a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help reduce the operating cost of the signals on the municipality and to continue to move forward with green initiatives throughout the county,” explains Freeholder Heather Simmons. There are now two such traffic lights in operation, with 33 more flashers and 10 full signals planned for completion before the end of the year. Savings run from $300 to $600 per year, per location.
Vision Award
Green space is important to Bordentown’s EcoWalls—which is why the company’s mission is to make room for it just about anywhere. “As more green space becomes displaced with concrete and impervious building materials, people often lose the opportunity to connect with the natural environment,” notes founding principal Mike Coraggio. The company produces modular living wall panels using lightweight, inorganic materials to make vertical planting systems. “EcoWalls offers people the chance to experience and interact with nature in unexpected places by replacing the lost green footprint onto a building’s façade or vertical surface,” Coraggio adds.
Healthcare Innovator
With a price tag of about $463 million, the state-of-the-art new Virtua Health Care Voorhees hospital contains dozens of environmentally friendly elements. Here are five worth noting:
1. A glass curtain wall keeps heat in during the winter and out in the summer, maximizing heating and cooling efficiency.
2. Natural lighting is used throughout the hospital to decrease energy costs (not to mention give patients a little Vitamin D), while outdoor lighting is designed to minimize light pollution.
3. Building materials were recycled and renewable whenever possible, and purchased from regional suppliers.
4. Some 40 acres of open space and wetlands were protected on the site; rooftop gardens further increase the green space.
5. Landscaping focused on water efficiency: native plants with rainwater irrigation should require little maintenance.
Bright Ideas
Six years ago, Ed Bailey had a bright idea—a smarter take on the light bulb that would transform the lighting industry into a more efficient business. So, Mount Laurel’s Illumination Machines was born. Now, with seed capital coming in, the company is set to build a new manufacturing facility and ramp up production. Bailey shares his enlightening story.
Why did you create this company? We were doing engineering consulting at the time, helping companies transform their lighting to the new LED technology that was becoming available. We wanted to reinvent the light bulb and make sustainable lighting solutions more appealing. We also wanted to take advantage of market opportunities, with the ban on incandescent bulbs going into effect next year.
How will that change the lighting market? There will be a transformation from an annuities maintenance model where you buy cheap bulbs and replace them every couple months but you don’t look at the electric bill, to something where you pay a lot more up front for a more sustainable light solution in exchange for a much longer life. LED tends to last 15 to 20 years. They are more sustainable and something that can be recycled, and unlike CFL [Compact Fluorescent Lamps], they don’t contain hazardous mercury.
What makes your bulbs so energy efficient? We’ve invented luminescent glass filament technology and a novel optical technology that allows the LED to produce omni-directional distribution that has about eight times the energy efficiency [of an] incandescent. Primarily we’re different than most LED light bulbs in that our bulbs will replicate that clear incandescent sparkle that’s primarily used in decorative fixtures. It also has an energy efficiency that’s going to save you money over the long term.
What else is your company working on? At the end of this year we’re going to introduce lighting solutions that integrate the LED light into the fixture. Because LED light can last so much longer than other lighting technology, we expect that it will create a new opportunity in design elements to really make energy efficient fixtures more artistic. We think that our clear sparkle look will finally make energy efficient light beautiful.
Think little differences can’t add up? Gloucester County is set to prove otherwise, with the first solar-powered traffic lights in the region. “We are installing the solar panels through a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help reduce the operating cost of the signals on the municipality and to continue to move forward with green initiatives throughout the county,” explains Freeholder Heather Simmons. There are now two such traffic lights in operation, with 33 more flashers and 10 full signals planned for completion before the end of the year. Savings run from $300 to $600 per year, per location.
Green space is important to Bordentown’s EcoWalls—which is why the company’s mission is to make room for it just about anywhere. “As more green space becomes displaced with concrete and impervious building materials, people often lose the opportunity to connect with the natural environment,” notes founding principal Mike Coraggio. The company produces modular living wall panels using lightweight, inorganic materials to make vertical planting systems. “EcoWalls offers people the chance to experience and interact with nature in unexpected places by replacing the lost green footprint onto a building’s façade or vertical surface,” Coraggio adds.
Construction
Building green doesn’t mean just installing a few efficient bulbs or using a bit of recycled materials—it’s a holistic process, per James Whitesell. His company, Delran’s Whitesell, builds efficient structures from the outside in, from Low-E tinted windows and sturdy masonry block walls that improve insulation and reduce heating and cooling costs, to updating heating systems to highly efficient models, to utilizing daylight when possible. “When customers can truly benefit from green innovations in the form of lower operating expenses and more comfortable working environments, we’ve then met our pledge towards both environmental stewardship and providing tangible results,” Whitesell says.
Technology Solutions
About half of us are guilty of leaving our computers on at night, according to the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy. Sewell’s Green Shutdown offers a solution: an application that turns off computers to conserve energy and money. South Jersey school districts including Haddonfield and Mount Holly have signed on and corporate clients are jumping aboard.
Development
Environmental consciousness is beginning to permeate the development industry—which is why Brandywine Realty Trust launched Brandywine Environments, a green team focusing on environmentally friendly practices and the use of alternative energies, such as solar, bio-diesel, geothermal and wind. “We seek to determine best practices with the help of our team members, as well as outside experts, so that our tenants, suppliers, employees and contractors are able to work in more environmentally friendly settings, which is a fascinating and infinitely solvable puzzle,” says Brad Molotsky, executive vice president and general counsel for Brandywine Realty Trust.
Agriculture
Seaburst Farms grows culinary herbs—but it’s far from your average Jersey farmstead. Explains owner Susan Saridakis, “we do grow hydroponically, in water, and year round, because we have fantastic greenhouse controls that allow us to use the just right amount of resources in the form of heat and light, so we are very efficient.” Selling under the brand name, Olive Creek Farms, the company also reuses all fertilizer solution in a recirculating system, utilizes organic methods and harvests its electricity from Burlington County landfill-generated methane. Seaburst Farms takes pride in their unusual approach to growing several varieties of basil, including sweet, lemon, lime, purple, Greek and Thai, among others. That’s Jersey Fresh!
Water Stewardship
Keeping waterways safe is a top priority for Mount Laurel’s JSH International, which produces organic, eco-friendly products including plant-care products and cleansers that eliminate grease from the waste streams for food service and hospitality providers. JSHi’s three companies—Greenovative Technologies, Prodex and Nature’s Wonder—rely on a patented peat extraction process to offer an alternative to toxic chemicals. We asked CEO Kevin Mulvihill about his company’s innovative approach.
Tell us about your technology. JSHi has developed a patented stabilization and extraction technology that takes raw peat from highly selective peat sources and extracts powerful substances used to create proprietary organic formulations. Our patented process enables us to extract the active materials from the peat and produce a liquid formulation that is easy to use. These formulations improve the biological efficiency of the environments in which they are applied. By stimulating the existing microbial population, the core product developed through our patented process increases the total population and the activity of each microbe.
What impact are your products having? JSHi’s green products have made a dramatic impact by improving biological efficiency in a variety of environments. They all harness the power of natural materials to promote environmental stewardship, sustainability, operational efficiency and a healthier workplace. Global implications ... include increased renewable energy production, reduced water pollution, improved underground infrastructure, and enhanced food production.
Can you explain how your clients utilize your products? Prodex’s BAE has been successfully helping local municipalities boost renewable energy production and improve the operational efficiency of wastewater treatment plants. By biologically enhancing the anaerobic digestion process, BAE helps operators take full advantage of the energy source at their fingertips. For example, The Landis Sewerage Authority in Landis Township used BAE to achieve a 28 percent increase in methane gas production from their anaerobic digesters, providing a significant savings in electrical and heating costs.
Green Leadership
A hub for green research and industry, The Rutgers EcoComplex is helping to make South Jersey an epicenter for green innovations, giving birth to companies including Terracycle, the Trenton company that has made its name as a recycling innovator. The faculty member in charge of the EcoComplex, professor Mark Gregory Robson, has dedicated himself to applying real-world applications to scientific discoveries.
Tell us about one or two projects that are currently ongoing at the incubator. Methane to Markets, an EPA project headed by David Specca, our assistant director: David and others are looking to see what the potential is for harvesting methane from landfills in Nigeria like we do at the EcoComplex. It’s a translation or exportation of the EcoComplex work on an international scale.
Since starting the program in 2001, how have attitudes toward this work changed? We see a very large move in many sectors on going green. Farmers are now working aggressively on reducing their carbon footprint, and shippers and manufacturers are, too. It is really exciting to see schools, churches, governments and, of course, the private sector going green. I just had a solar energy system installed on my home. It is really exciting to see this move. People want this, and businesses are quick to respond to this market. There are leaders and then followers, but the trend in business is to go green.
Your own research deals with the impact of exposure to pesticides. What have you learned and what questions remain? First, we are doing a good job in moving to reduce pesticide exposure in kids in the home, school and on the playground. We have learned that, like many toxics, pesticide effects are seen even at low levels, and this needs to be addressed as we work to reduce exposure. Second, that we cannot forget there are tradeoffs. We have an epidemic of bed bugs in the country, we still are plagued by cockroaches in urban areas and the impacts they have on asthma other diseases such as West Nile Virus or malaria, that children are always more vulnerable. Third, are the global effects. We are a global economy: we must be mindful of the food we consume that is produced around the world and consumed in the U.S. The global market means our kids are eating food grown somewhere else that may not have the same standards and regulations we have in the U.S.
Greening Services
Cherry Hill’s Hutchinson Mechanical Services has made energy efficiency its business, as a provider of HVAC, lighting, building automation and energy saving solutions. “We’re committed to bringing the latest green and sustainable technologies to the business community to help businesses run more efficiently and to benefit the environment,” says Ed Hutchinson, president. Through programs like Direct Install from New Jersey’s Clean Energy program, he notes, “businesses and local governments can save 60 percent on upgrading to energy-efficient lighting and HVAC equipment.” A commitment to offering customers green services has also benefited the local economy, adding close to 50 new positions relating to green services in the past year alone.
Energy Innovator
When Folsom’s South Jersey Industries switched from charging customers by the amount of gas they purchased to charging a flat rate for each household, the company’s entire focus shifted toward conservation. Now, they help customers save through offerings like the Conservation Incentive Program (CIP), which has reduced natural gas usage by South Jersey Gas customers by 16.4 billion cubic feet. “The CIP program encourages customers to conserve gas, which, in return, lowers the customer’s gas bill,” says Joanne Brigandi, a South Jersey Industries spokeswoman.
Nonprofit
Teaching the younger generation to be responsible community members is a focus at Mount Holly’s Family Service. So the organization installed solar panels on its Mount Holly and Lumberton centers, trained the young people it serves in environmental issues, worked with Trenton’s Terracycle to turn waste into cash and committed to using fabric shopping bags exclusively. Family Service president and CEO Bob Pekar notes, "When it comes to going green, no one can do everything, but everyone can do something.”
Newcomer
Solar energy is a growth industry—and NFI Industries has decided to enter the field. The company launched its NFI Solar division in 2009, helping clients to add solar power generation and claim the associated tax incentives. NFI Solar’s first project was a three-Megawatt solar roof for their headquarters. They also equipped the Vineland Municipal Electric Utility with a three-Megawatt solar panel system.
Consulting
The notion of green building is appealing—but how do you actually go about it? When that question arises, developers turn to Moorestown’s MaGrann Associates. “Our industry is groundbreaking because it is setting new standards for new residential and light commercial construction,” says CEO Mark MaGrann. MaGrann recently consulted on the 100K House in Philadelphia, the first project for developer Postgreen; the project won LEED Platinum certification and the “Project of the Year 2010” award from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Manufacturing
Seabox, the Riverton provider of shipping containers, took a holistic approach to negating its carbon footprint—or more precisely, reducing it by 1,200 tons this year. They have installed a photovoltaic solar system on their roof, among the largest in the state, with enough juice to power their entire 375,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and manufacturing plant. And, adds David Jaxheimer, financial controller, “We are in the process of converting our high-pressure sodium warehouse lighting to high-efficiency lumen optics ECO lighting, which will reduce our carbon footprint by an additional 288,684 pounds.” Other initiatives include a new low-VOC paint system, and the preservation of 10 acres in front of the plant, including woods and, best of all, the company’s own softball field.
Making Strides
Mixing hot asphalt at temperatures of more than 300 degrees uses lots of energy. Reduce the mixing temperature by as much as 100 degrees and your fuel usage and emissions go way down. That’s what inspired West Deptford’s NuStar Energy to switch over to warm-mix asphalt—a product that improves not only efficiency but pavement quality, too. Notes Doug Brown, NuStar’s technical services director, “It’s a win for the environment in terms of emission reductions, and it’s a win for our customers because they benefit from fuel savings and have access to a product that is easier to work with as they build and repair roads.”
Future of Green
Solar fields are one thing—but solar power on the go is another. Haddonfield’s PowerFlower Solar is offering a solution in the form of a deployable solar generator that will be in production later this year, for use by the military and others. “Our focus on transportability and deployability has led us to create a device that is not only lighter and smaller than competing products, but also easier to set up,” says CEO Jason Halpern.
Published (and copyrighted) in South Jersey Biz, Volume 1, Issue 6 (June, 2011).
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