Small businesses take big steps into green practices
— -- As environmental practices sweep much of the corporate world, U.S. small businesses also are jumping in.
Tens of thousands of small companies — from mom-and-pop stores to manufacturers — are going green by cutting energy costs and reducing the "carbon footprints" from their facilities, offices and fleets of vehicles.
"Small businesses have barely scratched their potential," Makower says. "In every market now, there's a retailer, dry cleaner, auto mechanic, coffee shop with a green consciousness."
In Ohio, restaurant owners Peter and Laurie Danis recently embraced environmental practices after much prodding over dinner from their 16-year-old daughter, Cameron.
As owners of the Figlio and Vino Vino restaurants in Columbus and Dayton, the Danis family launched a recycling program, installed energy-saving light bulbs and now buys produce from local grocers rather than overseas suppliers that burn more fuel to ship produce.
Peter Danis says his restaurants, with $5 million in sales, will save tens of thousands of dollars in the coming years.
Danis also bought $2,700 in "clean energy credits" from EcoVoom, an energy firm in Dublin, Ohio. The money will offset the greenhouse gasses emitted by the Danis' restaurant business by going to a solar, wind or other clean-energy program .
"We want to lead our lives and business not for short-term profit, but for future generations," Danis says. "We want to leave a legacy."
Robert Bechtold, a U.S. Army veteran and founder of Harbec Plastics, a tool- and mold-maker in Ontario, N.Y., has touted renewable energy for decades. But he couldn't get financing from skeptical bankers who looked at him as if he was "a burnt-out hippie or tree-hugger," he jokes.
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