World Class Flowers Perfects Green Solutions

World Class Flowers of Egg Harbor City is about as environmentally friendly as a business can be.

The wholesaler meets 95 percent of its energy demands via “green” resources. The State of New Jersey doesn’t allow any business to meet more than 100 percent of its energy demands via these resources.

The latest step taken by the company—located at 1601 West Duerer St.—was to install car and truck ports, which keep cars and trucks under a free-standing structure that keeps the vehicle out of the sun and limits the amount of rain that falls on it because of the way the surface is angled.

The ports were installed about three months ago.

Official numbers indicate these structures offset 45 percent of the company’s energy consumption.

The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey recently installed similar carport structures.

The carport structures stand eight feet off the ground, while the truck ports are 14 feet off the ground.

The company that installed the carports is Mercury Solar Systems, which has installed the ports in New York and Pennsylvania. In Long Island, about a dozen or so of the year-old ports have been installed, according to Mercury Solar Systems Regional Manager David Sugrue.

“They’re new and exciting, and a lot of people are looking at putting them on their structures,” Sugrue said. “ … It pays for itself in four years, and after that, it becomes a source of revenue.”

Sugrue did say that larger companies and businesses packed into a tight city environment wouldn’t benefit in the same way a business like World Class Flowers would. Businesses with a larger area would have to pay more, and it would take longer before it would completely pay for itself.

However, the ports are an ideal situation for World Class Flowers, which also has solar panels on the roof–also installed by Mercury Solar—and a number of other initiatives to make itself a more environmentally friendly company.

“We produce 425,000 kilowatt hours,” which saves World Class Flowers $42,500 a year in electricity costs, World Class Flowers CFO John Fietkiweicz said. “We’ve gone to more efficient lighting, and as a side benefit, it’s a much better light. You can more easily discern the color of the flowers. We weren’t prepared for that.”

World Class Flowers has also changed the motors in its cooling systems, which resulted in a reduction of about 20 percent in the cost of electricity.

“It’s a big piece,” Fietkiweicz said. “You wouldn’t think those motors consume as much electricity as they do.

“We’ve also done things for trucking. We’ve allowed them to pick up at our location and deliver from here, as opposed to just dropping off. We’ve helped them recapture some of their empty miles. We’re helping them reduce their diesel consumption.”

The initiatives are cost-effective, and in the case of the solar panels and the carports, no construction is necessary. The ports are designed to put in an area already designated for parking, so no work has to be done to the ground and no trees have to be taken down for the construction. And, of course, the solar panels go on an already existing roof.

“It allows us to un-utilize space,” Fietkiweicz said of the ports. “We will never have to change that use.

“We have reduced our cost and our carbon footprint. … Any company should take advantage of the (green) program they have in New Jersey. It’s a good program.”

A lot of companies have contacted World Class Flowers about these projects, Fietkiweicz said, and World Class Flowers made a presentation in front of the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA).

“They took a lot of interest and asked us a lot of questions,” Fietkiweicz said.

Fietkiweicz said it’s all about utilizing the space you have, and deciding what would be the best use of that space for your company in the long term. World Class Flowers discovered the best use for its space, and not only did it save money, it did its part to save the environment.