About 50 speakers will discuss the latest sustainability practices in hopes of educating local businesses today at the GoGreen Conference at the Phoenix Convention Center. The day-long event will showcase business leaders from across the state to share their success stories on how being green has benefited their company and the environment.
Speakers will include Derrick Hall, president and CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Grady Gammage Jr. of the ASU Morrison Institute, and Carolyn Bristo, sustainability officer for the City of Phoenix.
The speakers are leading examples of local businesses, said Ericka Dickey-Nelson, founder of GoGreen. Presentations will draw on the speakers’ own examples of what they have done in business and topics will range from solar energy to waste management to energy-efficient vehicles.
“What we do is make sure every single business that can attend can learn the best practices, and we give the audience an arsenal of things they can do with their business,” Dickey-Nelson said. “We give them tools, recommendations and advice.”
Lynn Paige, the CEO of Perfect Power Solar, will also be speaking at the conference.
“One of the things to be successful is to have a solid company operate profitably,” Paige said. “It shows that we have business practices that are working,” she added of the company being featured at the event.
Paige’s company, based in Phoenix, has been installing solar panels for the past 33 years. Perfect Power Solar is also often asked to do projects that are very unusual and may involve architectural projects to fit panels to certain buildings.
Solar power is converting energy from the sun to a usable form in a residence or commercial building, and solar panels take in the energy and put it to use.
Using solar panels is an environmentally sound way to save money for both residential and commercial buildings, Paige said. Depending on the size of the panels, the amount of activity happening in the building and the size of the house, solar energy can help save people hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year, she said.
“The type of energy we produce today creates more pollution, more carbon footprint and creates more waste,” Paige said. “Solar power alleviates those issues at hand.”
Solar energy and the use of solar panels may not be a brand new idea, but it is one that is slowly becoming a more popular choice when it comes to generating electricity.
SmartPower, which promotes solar energy in Arizona through marketing and research, will also be featured at the event and Arizona State Director Toni Bouchard will be speaking on behalf of the company.
SmartPower sets solar energy goals for communities in Arizona, recently introducing the Arizona Solar Challenge aimed at getting 5 percent of owner-occupied homes in Arizona to use solar by 2015.
The speakers for the conference were chosen based on recommendations and interviews. Approximatley 120 people from local businesses were interviewed and about 50 spots were filled.
“The most important thing is that we provide actual next-steps for businesses and we consider them cutting-edge examples,” Dickey-Nelson said.
Dickey-Nelson created the GoGreen Conference in 2008. The conference started in Oregon and has since expanded to Washington, Texas and now Arizona.
Contact the reporter at andrea.crandall@asu.edu
