Greatest American Business Challenge: Survive today’s ‘Great Recession’, and be strategically positioned for tomorrow’s ‘Green Economy’

February 01, 2010

Call them the two greatest challenges now facing American businesses: Companies must not only survive the “Great Recession” of today, but must strategically position themselves for the green economy of tomorrow.

The bad news is that the pressure to perform flawlessly on both scores is greater than ever.

The good news is that there are ways to do both for the short-, medium-, and long-term, saving money while also reducing a company’s overall carbon footprint.

More than ever before, sustainability objectives converge with profitability expectations. In fact, one of the best means of doing so comes from an expense many companies take for granted — lighting.

Often, lighting is simply a forgotten topic.

Best case, it may only be a fixed cost with limited wiggle room — yet it still has a significant impact on the operational bottom line, especially given fluctuating energy costs.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, lighting consumes as much as 30 percent of all electric expenses in commercial buildings nationwide, costing some $37 billion — an amount almost equal to Fed Ex’s entire revenue last year.

In the typical commercial building, lighting costs about $1 per square foot, but with recent advancements in lighting technology, it’s now possible to bring that number down by 50 percent. Not a small savings for any business: A typical 200,000 square foot building may offer $100,000 annual savings through re-lighting.

No, this is not some visionary technology that may never leave the confines of the R&D lab. Nor is it so complex that it can’t be deployed under real-world conditions.

It’s using the smart use of the cutting-edge technologies that are commercially available today to solve twin challenges that face virtually every business in America today. The implication for business can be profound — exactly the “twofer” they have been looking for: Cutting costs while also minimizing a company’s carbon footprint.

Source: http://www.greenerbuildings.com/blog/2010/01/28/lighting-path-greener-bottom-line

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