Help Local Companies Connect the Dots, Because No One Else Will

I'm a little disturbed by some articles I've been reading this week in Central Pennsylvania about businesses addressing their energy and natural resource usage. The Central Pennsylvania Business Journal publishes an intriguing publication called Currents that explores various new trends in sustainability, energy conservation, and going green.  David Dagan had a good piece on "5 Ways to Fight the Price Surge" referring to the removal of rate caps from electricity prices by PA energy generators this year. While Dagan did a nice job at cataloguing the steps companies can take to save money in the new energy-climate era we now find ourselves opening the door to, he only scratched the surface, and like all things related to "greening" in Central Pennsylvania, failed to really connect the dots for the reader.

What left me most aggravated about the latest issue however was the company directory supplied in the back. As with all publications, consider the agenda, right? Well, try this on for size. The listing of17  fuel companies included only a single local company that engages in selling biodiesel or other biofuels. United Biofuels,  Amerigreen - not on the list despite that being their specialty. Wouldn't a publication about sustainability work to find a listing of biodiesel and biofuel companies?

Worse yet, when you turn the page to a list of electricity-distribution companies, the list is only 8 companies long because not a single renewable energy company (as in their primary function is the production or sale of clean, renewable electrons) is listed there.

And finally, the listing of electrical, plumbing, and HVAC distributors seems to be a listing of suppliers of this equipment, not necessarily a listing of the contractors and skilled workers in the area who would actually be qualified to install high efficiency air conditioning, solar, wind or other systems.

To be abundantly clear, we will not achieve a new model for business efficiency and sustainability if we take old energy economy firms and paint them green. They have to be retooled, retrained, and re-educated in the language of green. Their standards must rise. What I wish the Central Penn Business journal would have said was "When you think about 'going green' think how Google would do it, not Wal-Mart.