Anthony Tsai of Urban Solutions made a great point during last week’s talk – “Sustainability can actually save money”. His talk was refreshing for a small business. Small business by definition is barely able to make ends meet. In this tight economic entity, every penny saved is every penny earned. Urban Solutions as a non-profit organization, is helping such businesses save substantial dollars while promoting sustainability principles. Started as an organization to promote businesses in the low-income neighborhood of San Francisco’s sixth street, this organization has grown into helping businesses to become green and at the same time save money. For example, in one of the businesses, they went in and changed the old inefficient fluorescent lamps with efficient ones, saving 40% on their electricity bills. Anthony points out in this instance everybody benefits as PG&E can divert the savings to other areas where it is needed. 

Anthony was advocating for a complete sustainability framework, where one should not limit to just electricity and water to look for sustainable savings. The three main areas where savings are huge include: energy usage; water usage and garbage disposal. Energy and water are fairly well understood. Garbage is the least understood of the three. Anthony prescribed that every business should look into the amount of garbage generated more carefully. They should divert most of the garbage generated into recycling bins. The more they shrink the size of the regular garbage bins, better it is for the environment.

Overall, the talk was quite enlightening to most of the attendees. His experience in analyzing the rainforest in Borneo for carbon credits was unique. The greatest learning from the talk and the experience of Anthony was that it does not take much to be on the path of sustainability. Sustainability begins with everyone looking at their own lifestyle to realize the savings.