A few hard winters were all it took to convince Subaru dealer Bob Becker to go green.
Before upgrading to a new facility in Allentown, Pa., Becker was paying up to $25,000 a month to keep the dealership’s 1980 showroom and offices warm during the winter.
Now, he pays virtually nothing in heating costs under a system that uses recycled oil from the dealership’s service center to heat the 40,000-square-foot facility.
Becker is just one of a growing number of “green” auto dealers all over the U.S. making changes to their operations. More than 200 dealers have taken steps to make their facilities more energy efficient since January 2007, when NADA and the EPA’s Energy Star Program launched an initiative challenging dealers to reduce their energy use by 10 percent.
Getting Started
With tools provided by NADA and Energy Star, it’s easy to begin saving energy – and money. A menu of helpful data and documents are available at www.nada.org/energystar.
Portfolio Manager, an online tool tailored to auto dealers, is a good place to start.
By entering data about their energy use and the costs associated with it, dealers gain access to general energy-saving tips and help setting benchmarks for future reductions. The program also lets dealers track their energy savings over several months.
Gary Prepejchal, president of Centre State International Trucks in Peoria, Ill., is one of many dealers who recently took advantage of one of Energy Star’s free online seminars.
Prepejchal was drawn to the seminar after watching his power bill double in a matter of months as the result of utility deregulation in his area. He plans to soon begin cutting his facility’s energy use by limiting entryways to the dealership’s service center and installing more efficient lighting. Says Prepejchal: “Even if I could save 10 percent, 10 percent on the dollar is a lot.”
Harnessing Creativity
NADA’s pledge to help dealers conserve energy provides endless opportunities, as Bess Wills, general manager of Gresham (Oreg.) Ford, has proved.
After making adjustments to improve her dealership’s energy efficiency, Wills saw another chance to help the environment when a local computer recycling center came to her in search of a new home. Working with her community’s chamber of commerce, Wills offered a piece of unused land at the dealership for a reduced price.
The recycling center has taken in thousands of old cell phones and computers that would otherwise end up at the landfill, and the community is grateful. “The dealership and Ford Motor Co. have gotten a lot of good publicity for that,” says Wills. The dealership also has benefited from the technical support of employees at the recycling center, and Wills even bought a recycled desktop computer for her office for just $100.
Wills urges other dealers to think of creative ways they can cut down on their energy use, including small steps like adjusting employees’ uniforms for the changing seasons. She allows salespeople to wear shorts in the summer, and she recently purchased heavy-duty jackets for employees to sport during winter months in an effort to cut heating and cooling costs.
Proof in the Savings
As Becker and Wills have proved, boosting dealership efficiency can make a big difference in the amount of energy a facility consumes. It also makes good business sense. According to the EPA, if all dealers followed in their footsteps to reduce their energy consumption by just 10 percent, they would save approximately $193 million in energy costs and eliminate more than one million tons of greenhouse gases each year.
After almost 12 months in his new facility, Becker says he is starting to see how the investment in energy-efficient systems is paying off, both for the environment and his wallet.
In addition to reworking his dealership’s heating system, Becker has added several other energy-saving amenities to the facility, including a phased lighting system, double doors that cut down on the amount of cold air entering the building, and a car wash that uses recycled water.
He says he has saved close to $34,000 in just one year – almost enough to pay for the furnaces he bought that translate recycled oil to heat. “I almost got a clean payback in one year,” Becker says. “That’s some really nice savings.”
Wills estimates she has saved about $18,000 in technical services and computer costs since installing the recycling center on her dealership’s lot. And the savings continue to mount as she builds a closer relationship with the center’s employees.
With dealers like Becker leading the way, NADA’s Energy Stewardship Initiative is now being cited as an example for other industry associations committed to protecting the environment. Energy Star’s Jerry Lawson says NADA’s “straightforward and simple” approach to improving energy efficiency through the management guide, A Dealer Guide to ENERGY STAR: Putting Energy into Profits, and online tools like Portfolio Manager have positioned it as a leader among small businesses.
Becker says greater efficiency “just really makes sense” for the environment and for the dealer. “The environment – we have to protect it whenever we can,” he says. “And saving money is not a bad thing.”