GOING GREEN ON THE CHEAP, P.2

The board itself has spread information about recycling worn-out electronic devices at the Union Square Greenmarket, and changed from incandescent bulbs to CFLs in common areas. To complement the new bicycle lane on Bleecker Street, the board doubled the number of bike racks in the building. On the high-dollar end of the spectrum, the co-op installed a garden on the roof and is working to develop a system to capture rainwater runoff that would water that garden. And it hired an engineer to devise a proposal for solar electricity-generation and water-heating systems on the roof.

"That's going to be a hard sell," Geils says, noting that the electric generator would cost about $100,000 and the solar panels about $300,000 — investments that would take about 10 years to recoup. "

Regardless of the fate of those two proposals, Geils believes the awareness of environmental issues in this city has turned a significant corner. "It's grown exponentially," he says. "People stop me in the hallway and ask me what we're doing to reduce the building's carbon footprint. ... People are looking for ways to make a difference." For Geils, thinking in such a global way also has a deeply personal aspect. "Having a child made me much more conscientious," he says. "Now I look at this as a mission. I'm doing this for my daughter."

Payback

The rate at which green initiatives pay for themselves is almost always an issue. But while the return on a big investment such as a green roof is difficult to calculate, the return on others is not. "The easiest thing individuals can do to save money is buy CFLs, which saves 75 percent on electricity," says Alan Schogel, head of 15-year-old Synergy Lighting Renovation. "In hallways, we change to CFLs and we change the ballast, the part that supplies the correct amount of electricity." Payback for installing CFLs takes, he says, from just one to three years.

That kind of return catches the eye of board members like Howie Biren, president of an 88-unit co-op at 275 Webster Avenue (left), on the border between the Midwood and Kensington sections of Brooklyn. Biren, a teacher, as been the co-op's president since 1989 and is sensitive to the financial constraints of his fellow middleclass and retiree shareholders, and so his co-op's greening has been done on the cheap. CFLs were replaced in common areas at no cost by Con Ed; when city water metering arrived in the 1990s, the co-op installed low-flow toilets under a city program and persuaded most shareholders to voluntarily install flow regulators on showerheads. The heat-reflecting coating on the roof is replaced every two years, and the boiler cleaned yearly.

"We have a dual-fuel boiler that can use natural gas or heating oil," Biren says. "We use natural gas almost all the time because it's less polluting — as long as the price is close to the price of heating oil."

Reactions to these changes have varied. "Some people have a renter's mentality and regard the changes as an inconvenience," Biren says, "while some of the younger people are happy we're helping out the environment."

In Biren's view, this is one of those rare areas where it's possible for co-op boards to eat their cake and have it too. "People came up to me when we changed the lights and told me the new lights look nice," he says. "I told them we're saving money too. I'm always looking for ways to save money and make the earth a better place. The way I see it, every little bit helps."

Adapted from Habitat May 2008. To get the print magazine, visit our Subscription Page >>