All business owners understand that a number of factors will affect their bottom line, as well as how they are perceived by their clients and the community. One of the ways to excel at both is to be as environmentally conscious and friendly as possible when it comes to your operations and equipment. Also commonly referred to as eco-efficiency, this is a management philosophy aimed at minimizing ecological damage while maximizing efficiency. Promoting environmental efficiency has many short-term and long-term benefits aside from saving money, and there are many different ways to pursue in achieving the same goal depending on the specifics of each unique business.
“Geothermal heating and cooling is considered the world’s greenest and most energy efficient way to heat and cool your home, office or business,” emphasizes Troy Spady of Complete Comfort Heating and Cooling. “It eliminates the need to use propane and natural gas, it is more efficient and cost-effective compared with conventional residential systems, and geothermal energy can be found underground virtually anywhere. The Waterfurnace systems we use emit no carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide or other greenhouse gasses. They are truly a natural, green heat pump.
In addition to being environmentally friendly, the tax benefit for installing geothermal heating and cooling is fantastic for home and commercial building owners. The Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 offers a one-time tax credit of 30% of the total investment for homeowners who install residential ground loop or ground water geothermal heat pumps. A credit of 10% of the total investment is also available for a commercial system installation. On top of that, our vendors often offer rebates at various times throughout the year that provide additional savings. In some situations, the cost of installing a geothermal system ends up being close to the same price as a traditional heating and cooling system! How many times does a person get to be environmentally conscious and budget conscious at the same time?!”
He adds, “In this day of rising energy costs and more and more talk of being environmentally conscious, it’s vital that we begin to look at alternative energy sources. Especially one such as the ground that is 100% renewable and not going anywhere! The benefits range from a smaller carbon footprint to putting money back in your pocket year to year. Geothermal energy is not only the future; it’s the present and is growing by the day!”
Other components of your building, such as plumbing and lighting as two main examples, will also factor into your overall eco-efficiency. Local companies specializing in these areas can help you with innovative ways to go green.
“One of our most effective green offerings is a product called frogflow, which harnesses the power of Mother Nature by using naturally occurring non-toxic, nonpathogenic (not disease carrying) live vegetative bacteria as the active ingredient,” explains Todd Jones, owner of bluefrog Plumbing + Drain. “There are no soaps or surfactants contained in the formula, and the odor counteractant is 100% biodegradable. Also frogflow uses the process of Bio-Remediation to clean the drain lines with the only by-product of this action being water and carbon dioxide. When added to your drains on a regular basis, frogflow will help keep your drains running efficiently. Drain lines need ‘good’ bacteria to help break down organic matter such as fats, oils, grease, sugars, starches and soaps. Caustic drain cleaners, bleach and degreasers destroy the ‘good’ bacteria as do the anti-bacterial hand soaps, sanitizers and dish soaps. frogflow will add and replace the missing ‘good’ bacteria in your drain line system.”
Controlling your home or building’s systems will also dramatically improve its overall environmental efficiency. Today, energy use in a commercial building is becoming an ever-increasing financial concern for building owners. Building owners are looking for reliable, cost-effective solutions to answer these new energy challenges and manage overall energy cost.
“Most building owners are aware of some of the energy reduction technology that is available to them for improving their building’s energy efficiency but many times lack the time and resources needed to develop a comprehensive building energy plan,” asserts Pat Killeen, owner of Engineered Controls.
“To that end, Engineered Controls can provide cutting edge building automation systems (BAS) that will play a big role in assisting building owners in monitoring, measuring and controlling their buildings energy costs, while still maintaining comfortable building environments. The BAS’s core functionality is to keep the building interior environment (temperature, humidity, pressurization, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide levels, etc.) all within a specified range. Beyond normal comfort control, the purpose of a BAS is to provide the means of minimizing the above environmental requirement at the most effective energy or utility costs. Typical control strategies provided within the framework of the BAS include time-of-day control or daily scheduling, optimal start-stop programs to optimize load operation and duty cycling and demand limiting software programs to minimize a buildings total kWh consumption. All of these software features are designed to optimize (minimize) the run time of a building’s electrical motors associated with fan and pump loads.”
He continues, “Building owners or energy managers are always looking for assistance from contractors to help in developing reliable and cost-effective solutions for their specific energy challenges and for ways to reduce their carbon footprint. So in order to provide that customer support, Engineered Controls has an Energy & Environmental Optimization (EEO) program to address these concerns of building owners in order to provide their employees, customers, or tenants with the building energy efficiency they are looking for. Our EEO program is designed to leverage a broad portfolio of energy efficiency products and solutions, as well as offer a high level of energy expertise for commercial buildings in the hands of our skilled, knowledgeable and certified EEO professionals. Our EEO team can help building owners and managers obtain real-world data to help them make fact-based decisions about how to optimize their buildings for occupants comfort and save energy at the same time.”
“Indoor air quality (IAQ) is also a major concern to businesses, hospitals, schools,” Killeen emphasizes. “A building with poor IAQ can have a very negative adverse effect on employees, customers and tenants because it can impact the health, comfort, well-being, and productivity of the building occupants. Good IAQ in buildings is an important component of a healthy indoor environment.
Today in commercial buildings, building technology companies like Engineered Controls can provide building owners and managers with sophisticated building management systems (BMS) that will monitor a building’s indoor environment for possible contaminates and then automatically adjust the quantity of fresh air intake into a building to reduce the impact of these contaminates on the workers. In addition to monitoring a building’s environment a BMS can also monitor human exposure to pollutants (e.g. carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, radon, VOCs – volatile organic compounds and more) that can have an adverse effect on a worker’s health. To combat all of the indoor air problems, a BMS has software IAQ features (demand control ventilation) that will automatically adjust HVAC systems to introduce higher levels of outdoor air only when occupancy levels of building contaminants are at a high level.”
Killeen adds, “In order to obtain a buildings maximum energy and environmental efficiency, the selection of building control equipment is more important than ever before. Today this is accomplished by selecting control equipment with open protocol communications capability. This allows intelligent building networks to be connected together in order to monitor and control all aspects of a building’s heating and cooling system and beyond.”
There are many ways to improve environmental efficiency, and the number of available options is growing just as fast as technology advances. You can be environmentally friendly on any budget, and whether you make small improvements or major upgrades, every little bit helps!