Green Jobs Seen As Future of Long Island's Economy

Hauppauge Industrial Association's annual Go Green conference Wednesday brought together businessmen and universities to discuss possible ways to go green and green job generation on Long Island.

HIA-LI's  conference brought together specialists in green technology, innovators, advocates and businessmen looking for ways to go green, looking for ways to grow Long Island's economy. Over 300 attendees received advice on how to finance green technologies in their offices, its benefits to future job training aimed at developing a local green industry.

"I believe the next generation of jobs to replace the 15 million jobs that were lost in this economic recession are in green technologies, green jobs," said Rep.  Steve Israel, D-Dix Hills.

In his opening address, Israel said the United States needs to rebuild a new middle-class economy that focuses on innovative green technology to stay in the race against countries like China and Germany.

"It was inspirational to hear Congressman Israel speak. To me, he hit the nail on the head when he said we need to rally. People need to rally behind the conception of green energy, it makes his job easier to get funding," said attendee Kathleen Cunningham of East Hampton-based K.C. Consulting.

Keynote Speaker Robert Catell, chairman of AERTC, focused on teamwork and innovation as keys to developing green energy technologies.

"In order to have a sustainable energy system, we're going to have to work a lot smarter and also work together," he said. "We need more technology innovation than we have seen in the last century."

Catell said the first and immediate focus is improving energy efficiency in existing technology. He challenged businesses to find a way  to store the energy generated and reduce use of fossil fuels.

One way business are doing this is by constructing LEED certified buildings, which meet a variety of energy efficiency and low waste standards. Many of the day's break out sessions were focused on costs, financing and how to achieve this.

"I have two pieces of advice: LEED or energy efficiency does not cost more to build. It costs less for three reasons: It reduces your operational osts daily, your real estate value increases and you are becoming socially conscious by becoming an energy conscious brand," said Abraham Tellian, of Thee Cotocan Group in Hicksville.

However, Jack Stallone, vice president of operation for StarLite Propane Gas Corp., said he was concerned about finding the money to help his company go green after attending the Energy Benchmarking and Evaluation lecture.

"They are talking a lot about the incentives the state is giving to go green, but it's for very limited groups," Stallone said. "Going green, it's all about return on the investment. But what if you don't have the money to invest?" 

Session Moderator Fred Raimondo, of Bridgehampton-based theEnergyFirm, encouraged business owners to look at the issue of sustainability from a different viewpoint.

"Sustainability is about the effective allocation of resources and reduction of wast. as a result, your business is more environmentally friendly. The green benefits are a consequence, not the driving force," Raimondo said.

As businesses contemplating going green and innovative approaches to existing programs, they turned to a college and university roundtable featuring panelists Edward Guiliano, president of New York Institute of Technology; W. Hubert Keen, president of Farmingdale State University of New York, and Kurt Becker of Polytechnic Institute of New York University for how colleges are preparing students for the wave of green technologies.

"The great opportunity we have with education is we have to work to connect what we do in our operations with what we do in educational research. To make our campuses showcases of what we can do with green technology," Keen said.

Each university highlighted green conferences, solar panel instruction and innovative projects they are working on.

"[Green technology] is becoming the world's biggest business and career opportunity, but its going to take time to get there" said David Winchester, chair of the HIA-LI's green committee.