Dan's Papers - October 31, 2008 - Contractors, Businesses form Hamptons Green Alliance

Not too long ago in the Hamptons, a group of contractors and businesses dedicated to providing goods and services to make homes greener created the Hamptons Green Alliance (HGA). The HGA mission statement on its web site, www.hamptonsgreenalliance.org, states it "is an association of building and related-service professionals in the Hamptons, on Long Island, organized to promote green building and maintenance practices. HGA provides information on materials, systems and best practices for building, maintaining carbon-neutral, zero-energy homes and ecological landscapes via its web site and other public forums. Members are leaders in their respective fields. HGA's goal is to be a resource for proven green and ecological practices. We are driven by a commitment to use our expertise in making our planet greener."

With huge bullet points, it states its ideas and goals with bold letter phrases like, Simple Tips to Improve My Footprint, Alternative Energy Basics, How Can My Insulation Choice Make Me Greener?, How Can a Smart Home Reduce Energy Usage?, How Do I Select the Best HVAC System?, How Can I Create Beauty and Health in My Landscape and Do It Naturally?, How Can Updating My Heating System Better the Environment?

Who, after reading such phrases, doesn't pause to reflect on whether or not it's time to visit this line of thinking? With the huge increase in the cost of all energy, why should you only be concerned about your car's gas mileage and not your home's? So it's to your advantage to start taking a look at the businesses in this alliance with the same scrutiny you give cars and the gas mileage they get.

Founding firms and organizations included in the HGA are proud and ready to assist anyone with simple needs or the most complex problem solving. The list of firms is impressive. There is Telemark, Inc., which specializes in premier estates. They have already completed over 500 prime estates in the Hamptons. Connected Hearth is a security and automation systems firm for "the smart homeowners."

Also included in the alliance is Delfino Insulation Company, a family company for over 50 years, specializing in energy saving insulation systems. Then there's Flanders Heating and Air Conditioning, which specializes in energy saving ways to heat and cool your homes. Southampton's Sun Stream USA is a company that installs state-of-the-art solar energy systems for pools and homes. Its plan is to reduce your energy bills now while "securing our environment for generations to come." If it's ecological landscaping you're looking for, founding member Treewise is poised and ready to help you with 100% organic solutions.

On the forum page on its web site, HGA lists simple, understandable concepts for all aspects of making your home, grounds and energy systems as green and efficient as possible. The HGA also holds gatherings, like it did last Tuesday evening, October 27, at 75 Main in Southampton. Its web site lists the events, although the next one is not posted yet. Also on its web site, HGA lists useful information through published articles that can be easily accessed on the page. Co-founder Frank Delene, also president of Telemark, in an article he wrote in September, described the green movement, saying it's "like a freight train out of control."

Delene believes the alliance to be a way to harness the energy of the movement in an organized, informative and pro-active way. He says this must be done to prevent the movement from wrecking everything in its path. Or, as he stated, so that the Hamptons "can develop the best practices in green building and improve means and methods of green elements to prevent the green freight train from smashing and wrecking everything in its path."

With so much confusion and indecision on what to do about energy costs, it's comforting to know that such a group is out there to inform and guide people in creating their personal plans to combat it. The saving of the planet is not just an afterthought - what was once an expensive alternative, going green is now actually a cost saver. Even as political figures make promises to transform our energy dependence on foreign oil in a decade, in reality, that mantra has been proclaimed since the times of President Richard Nixon, almost 40 years ago, with the situation actually being worse today.

The green movement, via solar, wind or other forms of non-fossil fuel-based energy, is the individual's way of doing something about this problem. Delene and the HGA is ready to light the way to a greener future by presenting the wisest choices one can take whether it is in building, heating, cooling, or selecting appliances when it comes to the home or workplace. Delene concludes, "Education will substantiate that the Return On Investment is justifiable and, at the same time, the choice to go green will have an impact on a better future of the homeowner's children and grandchildren.

The contributors to the HGA consist of firms like the cutting edge Moritt Hock Hamroff & Horowitz Lip and Patchogue-based Baldon group, among others. The truth about going green is not if but when you should do it. You would buy a solar car, if one was out there that could work like the one you are driving. Perhaps you should transfer that way of thinking to your home.