Going green, environmentally and financially
Dec 25 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Diane Mastrull The
Philadelphia Inquirer
If Charles Szoradi could figure out how to power a car or even a light
bulb with his caffeine-free personal pep reservoir, he just might
achieve his goal of ending America's energy-hogging ways.
But for now, the 43-year-old Main Line environmental entrepreneur is
gaining widespread acclaim and recognition as he presses the case for
going green in more conventional ways. In the process, he's trying to
make some money.
His delivery is breathless, his enthusiasm seductive. But don't mistake
for an over-the-top idealist this man who is perpetually strategizing,
teaching, selling, researching, and inventing. (An architect by
education, Szoradi designed the system that heats, cools, runs the
electric, and heats the water for his 4,800-square-foot ultra-green
house in Wayne, all from renewable sources. It earned him a cover
profile in Inventor's Digest magazine in 2008.)
His sales pitch is grounded in what Szoradi contends is an
incontrovertible premise -- that unless going green makes financial
sense, it will not be embraced by anyone other than the most
enthusiastic of environmentalists.
The soon-to-expire utility rate caps in Pennsylvania are expected to
serve as a mighty effective motivator, Szoradi contends.
"When people open that utility bill," he said, "it will be like being
hit by a brick."
But in these pre-rate-increase days, Szoradi said, "the [going-green]
chatter is 10 times the action."
Much of that talk is coming from Szoradi himself.
He is, as he put it, on an "all-out sprint" to promote what he contends
are the economic and environmental virtues of the latest generation of
conservation lighting -- LEDs, or light-emitting diodes. For that, the
father of two young children has formed LED Saving Solutions.
It is a division of his better-known GreenandSave L.L.C. Founded in
2006, GreenandSave is believed to be the first public resource on green
initiatives to provide return-on-investment data for homeowners and
businesses wondering what sorts of conversions to higher-efficiency
lighting, appliances, and heating and cooling systems, if any, they
should make, and how soon to expect a payback. The Web site is
www.greenandsave.com and evolved from Szoradi's desire to share what he
learned as he retrofitted his home.
GreenandSave also offers continuing education and retraining for new
careers in the green economy, as well as energy auditing and retrofits
-- all of which constitute Szoradi's business and source of income. But
for now, the focus is on retrofitting businesses with LEDs. (The
technology is considered too cost-prohibitive to realistically push for
residential use, where lights simply do not stay on as long as they do
in the workplace.)
"This is a three-year run," he said of his LED undertaking. "And I'll
tell you why: Vinyl records switched to CDs in three years."
In other words, the world of green technology is a work in progress.
Blades for wind turbines are getting longer and lighter. On the lighting
front, compact fluorescents are ceding ground to LEDs.
Szoradi's goal is to have sold $1 billion in LED lighting by the end of
his sprint. So far, active accounts and proposals total $5 million, he
said.
With the urgency of a doctor handling a trauma code, he speaks of the
importance -- as much to the business world as to his own bottom line --
in reaching that $1 billion sales goal.
"Our current lighting is, in effect, bleeding," Szoradi said. "We're
wasting dollars in not acting."
Among his early converts is Braxton's Animal Works, a third-generation
pet-supply business in Wayne. More than a year ago, co-owner David
Braxton had persuaded Szoradi to join the Main Line Chamber of Commerce.
That was after Braxton had toured Szoradi's house and came away
convinced that Szoradi's vast knowledge would be an invaluable asset to
the chamber's new "Go Green" committee.
Earlier this year, Szoradi turned the tables with an LED-lighting sales
pitch to Braxton.
"The estimates on savings I thought were a stretch," Braxton said in an
interview this week.
Turns out they weren't. His nearly $19,000 investment in LED lighting
has yielded an 80 percent reduction on electrical consumption each of
the last two billing cycles, for a total savings of $1,400, Braxton
said.
"He's a salesman, absolutely," Braxton said of Szoradi. "But he believes
so much in what he's selling that that sincerity comes through as well."
On a trip to Washington this year, Szoradi joined 16 other delegates
from the Greater Philadelphia Sustainable Business Network in lobbying
members of Congress to include $500 million in the stimulus package for
green-jobs training. What was obvious, said Leanne Krueger-Braneky, the
network's executive director, is that Szoradi never stops pressing for a
more energy-efficient way of life.
"He would walk into the congressional offices and say, 'If you change
that light bulb right there, this is how much money you could save,' "
Braneky recalled.
Hanley Bodek, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania's department
of city and regional planning, has gotten to know Szoradi the last few
years by leading students on tours of Szoradi's house.
"He's advocating a lifestyle that isn't so much frugal as rather smart,"
Bodek said. "I think Charlie clearly has figured out how to use the
capitalistic system to do good while doing well."
For that, Szoradi gets the last laugh. He is fond of noting that when he
wrote a master's thesis at Penn in 1993 on eco-humanism "no one cared."
Now his green work is referenced on Google News, and the National
Realtors Association is using it as part of its green curriculum for
sales agents.
Cisco Systems, supplier of Internet networking equipment, this year
selected Szoradi for its "One Million Acts of Green" campaign -- a
program, said spokesman Marc Musgrove, that is intended to show "the
power of the human network."
Contact staff writer Diane Mastrull at 215-854-2466 or
dmastrull@phillynews.com.
(c) 2009,
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
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