Seeing green

In a recent post on the economy blog of the newly created, locally based Web site sustainablewnc.org, sustainable-enterprise expert Steve Cochran, noting that more and more big businesses are adopting greener ethics, opined, “Real change is here, now.” He cited the latest issue of Fortune magazine, which lists the world’s top 10 “Green Giants”—Fortune 500 companies such as PG&E and Hewlett-Packard that have changed some aspect of their production or services to lessen their environmental impact. Cochran wrote excitedly about “the reality of the evolving ‘green’ marketplace and its potential for REAL systemic change.”

But the blog’s editor, Richard Fireman, took a different view, writing, “We have come to a place where the old paradigm of the invisible hand of the market has destroyed the fabric of earth’s systems, and letting the solutions be ‘profit’ motivated will not work anymore.”

The discussion thread seems particularly relevant to Western North Carolina’s evolving economy. Ideas for a sustainable future for the region are being fleshed out, and green-business entrepreneurs are talking up the phrase “sustainability capital.” The term describes both a vision of what the region could become and the economic support needed to get there. In the interim, however, a slew of questions still remain—not the least of which is what, exactly, the term “sustainability” actually means.

From high-tech to clean-tech

David Wallace, western regional director of the State Energy Office and a native of Scotland, believes Western North Carolina has the potential to nurture a soaring green economy.

Wallace delivered that message to the State Energy Policy Council during a March 26 discussion of the economic opportunities created by the “clean-tech sector” (which includes both alternative fuels and renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power). By 2016, clean energy is projected to generate global revenues of $225 billion, said Wallace, which creates a huge potential for attracting investment capital. With the proper support services in place, he argued, North Carolina could position itself at the forefront of this clean-energy wave—and in Western North Carolina, that could translate into both well-paying jobs and a collective leap toward protecting our natural surroundings.

“In the ‘80s, some people in the state recognized that biotech was going to be big, and the legislators moved quickly to fund the biotechnology center,” Wallace told Xpress later. “We are now No. 3 in the biotechnology industry, behind California and Massachusetts. Now the same thing is happening with clean energy, but it’s likely to be much bigger than biotechnology.” To help get there, Wallace urged state legislators to take a number of key steps: setting up green-business incubators, creating and strengthening educational programs to provide a work force for the clean-tech sector, and crafting environmental policies such as revamped building codes that would make the area more attractive to green builders.

Some steps have already been taken to attract outside investors, notes Wallace. “AdantageWest has decided to focus on [a] theme of the environment and renewable-energy sector in the fall, when they show off the region to outside interests,” he reports.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are getting interested in clean energy, says Wallace, and they’re starting to look for projects outside California.

More than caffeine-powered

At least one former Silicon Valley businessman has already landed here. Charles Leahy owns Eco-Panels, a Mocksville-based company that manufactures structural insulated panels, and he plans to relocate operations to the Asheville area later this year. Typically made with “quickly replenished lumber products” and urethane-foam insulation, SIPS offer greater energy-efficiency than conventional building materials. This is Leahy’s fourth business venture; his hi-tech work has ranged as far afield as Japan.

Please step into my office: Ian Booth, host of “Green Radio Bistro,” thinks Western North Carolina could become “the Sustainability Capital.” Here, Booth is in his element at the Dripolator Coffeehouse. photo by Rebecca Bowe

Western North Carolina has the brainpower, he maintains, but the area is sorely lacking in industry. “Asheville can have all the smart people and all the consultants in the world,” he says. “But until you have industry, you’re just going to be a bunch of people talking in coffee shops.”

Some of Leahy’s ideas echo Wallace’s. Passing green-oriented city and county ordinances and creating green-tech programs at local colleges would help lay the groundwork, he maintains. “The people are coming here that have the money, that have the wherewithal, that have the drive. But you need to also have an environment that’s conducive to hiring these people.”

After relocating to the mountains from Silicon Valley in 2003, Leahy says the rapid pace of development in the area gave him pause. “We hate to see the hillsides go, and in some respects I didn’t want to enter the building-products industry,” he reveals. But the chance to offer a product that can substantially reduce the amount of energy it takes to run a home made it worthwhile, he says.

Another California transplant, Joseph Malki, is acting vice president of business development at Seven-Star, an Asheville-based green-event planner. The company, which he co-founded with his sister, Georgia Malki, is teaming up with two national nonprofits, Co-op America and Global Exchange, to produce the Green Festival in Chicago. “Seven-Star produces the largest green events in the United States, ranging from green-construction trade shows to green-consumer expositions,” reports Malki, who has a background in marketing and public relations. A proponent of “green capitalism,” Malki believes the term “green” should also connote social justice; accordingly, he says, his company deals only with businesses that are both environmentally and socially responsible.

“There’s hope and promise in this area, especially with seed money from the state,” asserts Malki. “The most desperate need is jobs that can sustain families and … are better than service-sector jobs.”

Solar-powered synergy

Appalachian Energy co-founder and CEO Scott Clark, meanwhile, describes his business as “homegrown,” and he’s fully behind the idea of making Western North Carolina the national—and maybe even global—sustainability capital.

Appalachian Energy operates a small hydroelectric plant that produces enough power to run 850 homes. The company also manufactures nationally distributed solar panels. Its mission, says Clark, is to use renewable power to reduce overall consumption of fossil fuels.

To that end, Appalachian is retrofitting the former Steelcase plant in Fletcher with solar heating and cooling. The idea is to infuse new life into a structure that “represented something great at one point, but with global competition now represents job loss,” Clark explains. “By taking a dilapidated building and reviving it, we’re creating a template for other communities throughout the country to model.”

Getting local residential developers interested in renewable energy is crucial to building support for clean technology, Clark maintains. Installing solar-energy systems in new homes, he notes, is “a win for the developers, a win for the homeowners, and a win for a company like ours as we are able to grow and add jobs.” Clark calls this dovetailing of interests “community synergy.”

Retrofitting the American dream

At first glance, singer/songwriter Ian Booth might seem like an odd choice for an economic pundit. But Booth—the other blogger, besides Cochran, on the “economy” section of sustainablewnc.org—is also the creator of Green Radio Bistro, a local radio/television program. And while he freely admits that he’s no economics expert and jokingly refers to the Dripolator Coffeehouse as his “office,” Booth says he’s the originator of the catch phrase that’s generating such a buzz.

“To me, ‘sustainability capital’ was both a vision and a marketing-and-branding mechanism,” Booth explains. Citing examples of green companies now sprouting up here, he says, “We’re starting to be in the early stages of having that synergy in the business sector that can really launch a paradigm shift.”

Booth’s vision of a sustainable future, however, isn’t limited to green businesses. “Anyone that thinks we can take the existing American dream and make it sustainable is dreaming,” he declares. “We have to retrofit the American dream itself. OK?”

It’s crucial that people understand what sustainability is—and isn’t, Booth maintains. “It’s a lot more than putting out your recyclables. It is a lot more than putting a [solar] hot-water system on your 5,000-square-foot house. … If sustainability means living and working in a way that meets today’s needs without causing harm to the environment, to other people or to future generations, we are a long way from it.”