BRIGHT LIGHTS

Craig Hall, Carl Smith and Bob Fugerer of Sunovia Energy Technologies

Craig Hall and his boyhood friend Carl Smith, now both 38, launched Sunovia Energy Technologies, a Manatee County renewable energy company, in 2004. They kept two facts in mind: Florida is the Sunshine State, and solar power is a trillion-dollar industry. Today Hall, Smith and partner Bob Fugerer are developing extremely efficient solar PV systems and light-emitting diode (LED) products. They won the 2008 Governor’s Business Diversification Award in the “Green to Gold” category, and Secretary of Energy under former President George W. Bush, Spencer Abraham, is the new chairman of their advisory board.

Last year Sunovia partnered with Chicago-based EPIR, one of the world’s leading infrared and solar companies, and is getting ready to install a brand-new type of solar system that will be three to four times as efficient in converting sunlight to power.

They’ve also just gone to market with their first LED lights, winning $5 million in contracts, including a beta test in Sarasota along Boulevard of the Arts. These LED lights last 15-plus years and provide an 80-percent savings in electricity costs.

Currently Sunovia employs 25 in sales, marketing and engineering. Both the solar and LED products are being manufactured in Chicago and Texas, respectively, but Hall hopes some of the production can move to this region.

The company has raised $18 million from about 250 local investors, and Hall believes the investment will pay off. “[Gov.] Crist is pushing utilities to make 20 percent of all electricity from renewable sources,” he says. “That’s a 20-fold increase over what we have now.”

DESIGN PIONEER

Michael Carlson of Carlson Studio Architecture

In the mid-‘80s, way before sustainable design became fashionable, Michael Carlson became enthralled with eco-friendly architecture as a student at Ball State College of Architecture. Today Carlson Studio Architecture in Sarasota has become one of the region’s top green architectural firms, and Carlson, 45, is a leading voice in the growing chorus that buildings can be beautiful and environmentally meaningful. He’s paved the way for other architects and builders in our region who not only care about the planet but are convincing their clients it’s the smart way to build. His Twin Lakes Park Office, built in 2005, was the first green building in Sarasota County and remains the greenest building in the state based on LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) points.

Carlson’s Fruitville Road office is a “green” converted 1934 vintage grocery story; he’s designed the new green home for the Wellness Community of Southwest Florida to be a model for Wellness Communities around the world; and he’s even created a sustainable doghouse, called Scrap-e house, made from recycled materials.

Carlson sees his once lonely pursuit gaining “a lot of momentum” and becoming mainstream. “The products are here, and affordable and contractors and subcontractors are getting the idea that it’s not a fad,” he says. “There is a better way, and that’s what I want people to know about.”

CLEANER AND GREENER

Scott Miller of Coastal Chemical & Paper Supply

Scott Miller, 49, the president and CEO of Coastal Chemical & Paper Supply Inc., one of Florida’s larger janitorial and cleaning supply companies, decided five years ago to take his company on a cleaner, greener path. Now he’s using recycled toilet tissue and trash can liners, microfiber mops and cloths, vacuums with filtration systems and cleaning products that have earned the industry’s Green Seal. The company has even developed its own line of green products called Coastal Green, and it’s now ranked in the top 10 percent nationally for its green practices by cleaning supply manufacturers. Miller’s decision has had a huge impact on local businesses, manufacturing plants, hospitals and all of Manatee and Sarasota public schools. “We’re a leader,” he acknowledges.

Every day Miller and his 28 employees search for better and safer cleaning products and methods. And Coastal follows its own advice, says Miller. The company has reduced its paper needs by 55 percent, and water consumption by 50 percent. Business cards are printed with soy ink. New insulation, weather strips, electronic thermostats and low-energy bulbs have cut power consumption, and a new fleet management system has reduced fuel consumption by 1 0 percent. “I’d put us up against anyone,” Miller says. “It’s wonderful to go home at night and know you’ve made a difference.”

PAY IT FORWARD

Cherie DiNoia of Shelby Financial

In 2001, financial adviser Cherie DiNoia almost walked away from her career because she had come to realize that many of the companies she had her clients invested in were harming the environment. Friend Mary Ann Bowie of Sarasota Green Marketplace asked her why she didn’t direct her energies and her clients toward socially responsible companies.

“I shifted my focus,” DiNoia, now 35, says. “I saw the huge difference that people can make by putting money in companies that are doing the right thing.” How much money have her clients invested in such companies? About $35 million, she says. “We took out defense, tobacco and oil. I work with companies that are making a difference.  BP, for example, is doing the most to research alternative energy. I’d never buy Halliburton. If one of my clients wants to invest in that, I tell them to go somewhere else. I’ve lost clients over this.”

DiNoia is an honor roll member of the Social Investment Forum, a national trade association of more than 500 professionals and institutions dedicated to socially and environmentally responsible investing. SIF has rated her one of the top in the state and the only one in Southwest Florida. She is also a developer of a for-profit community she launched in Honduras five years ago and is involved in an affordable housing program in North Carolina.

Her two young children helped push her into this specialized type of investing. “I’m passionate about it for my kids. It’s exciting. It fulfills me,” she says. 

STAYING THE COURSE

Tom Harriman of Harriman’s Inc.

Solar industry pioneer Tom Harriman received his solar license back in 1982. Since then he has installed more than 10,000 solar water heating/solar pool heating systems and many solar electric systems. According to Harriman, who keeps track of this sort of thing, he has reduced CO2 emissions by 1.8 million tons.

There were lean years, but Harriman, 49, built his business by servicing the systems he—and other companies—installed, and today he has a large base of customers.

Some of his most recent projects include Turtle Rock’s solar street lighting project, which took 176 gas lights offline, reducing the subdivision’s carbon footprint by 420 tons of CO2; installing solar water heaters on seven Habitat for Humanity homes at Janie Poe and the Diocese of Venice; and, soon, a partnership with Johnson Controls and Solar Source on the new megawatt solar project at Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center, the largest solar electric project to date in Florida. It will produce enough energy to drive a car 2.48 million miles, he boasts.

Harriman is also the immediate past president of the Florida Solar Energy Industry Association and a leader in making energy training available to students throughout Florida at technical institutes and community colleges. The Environmental Defense Fund has recognized him as an industry leader.

“Our business has increased 25 percent every year for last three,” he says. “We’re fortunate that we’re in an industry that’s poised to grow at 30 percent per year.”

FIRMLY ROOTED

Tammy Kovar of Biological Tree Services

Since Tammy Kovar started Biological Tree Services as a weekend enterprise in her garage in 2004 she has been shaking up the landscaping industry by using fungi and bacteria—the same little organisms found in Florida’s forest floors—to treat and rebuild root systems rather than use chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Roots, she says, are a key to keeping plants healthy and can reduce watering since healthy root systems are so extensive. “These are forest floor microbes, and no one is fertilizing and watering forests on a timer,” she explains.

A plant biologist by training, Kovar started out as a corporate manufacturing rep for chemical herbicides and pesticides. Later she began working with natural organisms and discovered that they produced root systems “700 times greater” than what chemicals could provide. Eventually, John Dukovac of La Maison, a Southwest Florida builder, heard about her success and helped launch her business.

Now she is winning awards and big contracts up and down Southwest Florida, and revenues have grown from $100,000 in 2005 to more than $700,000 in 2008. Kovar has founded another company, Sustainable Landscape Supply, to distribute her new line of summer fertilizer to comply with Sarasota’s strict new fertilizer ordinance; now both companies work under the name of Think Global. She’s also collaborating with other landscape experts locally, around the country and internationally to teach them her methods. “We’ve become a landscaper’s landscaper, so they can do sustainability from the beginning,” she says.

About the Contest

Biz941 launched its Best Green Businesses contest in September to honor innovative companies in Sarasota and Manatee that are helping us live within the limits of the planet. Companies can be developing products or services that help to reduce energy and resource consumption, or can be promoting good global citizenship in other ways by reducing their own energy consumption.

We asked companies to submit their nominations online and share their stories and successes with our readers.

We received 65 nominations and were impressed at the depth of talent and commitment businesses have in this region to preserving our environment locally and globally.

Our panel of judges included Biz941 editors Susan Burns and Ilene Denton, and Gulfshore Media editorial director Pam Daniel; Jerry Karnas, the director of the Environmental Defense’s Florida Climate Project; and John Burgess, a global energy investor living in Sarasota.

The judges sifted through the nominations, looking for those companies that are leaders or pioneers in their industries. The six companies on these pages are examples of the entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity that are helping to change the way we use resources, diversifying our economy and showing that green business is good business.