Green is good for business

Waste Management Systems was one of the sponsors of the conference Going Green is Good for Business. (See page 6.) (L- r) Barry Sanderson, Kim Hardin, Wendy Miller, Russ Hightower, and Shawn Heimbach. The Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce and the Public Works Department of the City of Columbia sponsored an all-day affair at the convention center

on Lincoln Street, Green

is Good for Business, Tuesday, October 7, 2008. This was the second annual such conference, and it drew more people than last year.

The conference was self- supportive through sponsorships, vendor fees, and participant registrations. Both Ameresco and Waste Management chose to be major sponsors for the second year in a row. Other major sponsors included Lexington County, Richland County, SCANA, Jim Sonefeld, WW Williams, and the USC-Columbia Fuel Cell Collaborative.

From the lectern, former member of city council Anne Sinclair and Mayor Bob Coble welcomed the crowd, as did the Chamber's Grant Jackson.

Jim Sonefeld, a sponsor of the conference, Going Green is Good for Business, with Julie Ruff and Marli Drum. The opening session was an overview of the future of business in a sustainable environment. Myra Reece, chief of the Bureau of Air Quality at SCDHEC, said the state was doing pretty well in keeping up with federal air quality standards, but the standards were continuously becoming more stringent. Once a set of standards has been met, another tougher set comes along.

Air quality monitors around the state recently revealed the following locations as having below standard air quality: Due West, Jackson, Clemson, Parklane, Sandhill, North Spartanburg, and York.

Reece was followed by Andrew Mangan, the executive director of the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development. Mangan talked in national and international terms. He warned the crowd they were living in a time when the world was heating up fast. In China alone, another 14,000 new cars hit the street every day.

By 2012, there will be another billion people on the planet, and by 2050, 85% of the world's population will be living in what is now called Third World countries. Mangan invited the audience to follow his group's progress: www.USBCSD.org.

John Dooley, director of Public Utilities for the City of Columbia The exhibit floor opened at 11 am with more than 46 vendors from environmentally conscious concerns.

The keynote speaker following lunch was Keith Trent, the chief strategy, policy and regulatory officer for Duke Energy, Charlotte. A graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Trent was previously the in- house counsel for Duke. To start, he emphasized "Security's Three Es": environmental, economic, and energy security.

Trent described his company's Save- a- Watt program, a concept that actually offers incentives to the electric power utility to sell less electricity. Under Duke's Save- a- Watt, an electric power utility can still make a respectable regulated return for its shareholders while reducing the supply and demand forces on profits. As Trent put it, "Existing approaches to incent utilities to pursue energy efficiency are not working well, leaving untapped significant efficiency opportunities. Save- a- Watt is the new approach that, if adopted widely, could (1) create the most energy- efficient econ- omy in the world and (2) substantially de- carbonize our energy supply."

Keith Trent , chief of strategy at Duke Energy A cap and trade marketplace in carbon emissions, like those in Europe, is coming into the country in a sketchy and uncertain pattern. The end goal is to significantly reduce carbon emissions and even to bury carbon emissions, called sequestration, in the next generation of coal- fired power plants.

The only emission free plant that still works by generating heat to turn the wheels to generate electricity is nuclear.

Later in the day, two architects showed their buildings as illustrations of exemplary energy efficiency. Tom Savory presented his firm's headquarters, the completely reworked Edgar Morris Law offices on Washington Street between Sumter and Marion.

Savory's work was shown as about the most that could happen with an existing building upgrade, while architect Curt Davis showed his new building, a ground-up commercial project at the top of energy efficiency.