"You don't have to believe in the science, you don't have to believe in the politics of anthropogenic [man-induced] climate change," Glen Franklin says assertively. "Being green is about being efficient. It's capitalism in its purest form."

Although Earth Day is a global event celebrated every April 22, the emphasis remains on personal initiatives. We read articles or watch programs that teach us what we can do at our homes and schools, but less emphasis is placed on business, especially local operations.

Glen is out to change that. Over the last few years, he emerged as one of the more thoughtful speakers during the last term of the RTM. His quiet demeanor belies the mind always at work, absorbing and filtering the information, reaching a conclusion and synthesizing a response that deserves attention.

While working at Citibank, he was part of their Innovation team, and in 2007, "We identified climate change as an emerging trend for business opportunities; identifying new and different financial services which ranged from adding solar powered flashlights into rewards programs to using options futures from oil contracts to receive renewable energy credits."

The Innovation team spent two and-a-half years working with other companies to fashion products for businesses and design employee engagement programs emphasizing sustainable business practices. As the economy went into freefall, two things happened last election day. Glen lost his RTM seat and his job.

He immediately founded Green Sight, LLC, a consultancy based in Fairfield. At present, he and a partner are full-time and they work with a part-timer in addition to partnering with New York City's Strategic Communication Group to offer Strategic Green Source, aimed at employees.

"Fundamentally, going green is about saving money and saving money engages customers. People with environmental consciousness tend to be loyal to businesses," Glen tells me.

Green Sight will work with companies to identify savings through going green, both in their practices and in how their employees work. By engaging the staff, they tend to be happier and more productive. "We're trying to identify prospective customers across target markets and move forward with helping them initially go green or enhance their sustainability efforts along the way."

Looking around Fairfield, Glen sees that businesses of all sizes could benefit from ecological initiatives. "No company is too small," he insists. "A small business can benefit from simple initiatives. They resemble residences so the same habit changes apply: switch to using compact fluorescent lights, improve insulation, place lights on timers." If a company uses computers and leaves them on overnight, it's the equivalent of leaving a 100-watt bulb burning. Since we don't do that, we should also turn off the computers."

To Glen, it's all a matter of scale. Going from a mom-and-pop shop to our largest commercial enterprise, GE, they too could benefit. "Information Technology is the single biggest consumer of electricity," he explains. "Someone like GE could look at their data centers and what they could do; then the desktop computers, and lighting in that order."

In all cases, getting the word to the employees is vital. Human Resources departments often will send out a message about ecological and cost-savings habits but employees are people with the attitudes and the behaviors of the rest of us. A single message won't necessarily be effective enough. Green Sight's Strategic Green Source would work with any size company to devise a program to sensitize the staff and get them on board. These changes could be simple such as turning off the computers or switching from paper cups to reusable mugs.

Even Town Hall and the schools could benefit from additional efforts, Glen notes. An example would be turning the lights off at the football fields sooner than two hours after the completion of a game. "One of the phenomenons is that this initiative is much stronger with younger generation cohorts. Students are more amenable to saving electricity."

His company has yet to sign on a custumer, but it's a slow process, especially in an economy where decision making takes longer given concern over expenditures. Still, he says there's been a positive reception. The challenge, he admits, is that "even saving money is perceived as costing money. Look at the debate we had when the subject of  LEEDS building standards in schools came up. The RTM debated the costs upfront compared with the savings on the back end.

"The truth is, some solutions have parity in cost. Your savings accrue pretty quickly, from 12 to 24 months with a capital investment." Using similar math, Glen is trying out different business models to convince companies to use his services, such as "how a company can employ us without spending a lot of money. They can pay us with savings realized over 12 to 36 months."

With the world slowly emerging from recession, the focus is on expense savings, but revenue growth opportunities offer chances for companies to be smarter and more efficient. "Companies could reconstruct the customer experience by going electronic, using less paper," Glen suggests.  "There's a potential to create more products and services that are more ecological and to encourage customers to adopt them."

It is also a chance for America to remain competitive. He notes that China has stated that they're going to measure GDP [Gross Domestic Product] in terms of energy consumption per unit of GDP, to more effectively compete with the United States. "Unless we embrace efficiency in that way, as an economic necessity, we could fall behind the rapidly emerging economies of China and India."