Over the last year, Beyond Oil NYC has explored ways that community-based nonprofit organizations (CBOs) could earn income from promoting sustainability initiatives.
We published a report in fall 2012, and in the last few posts offer our updated results: there's probably no opportunity for CBOs to earn easy income either through compost or urban agriculture, although we found some promising innovations. The good news: CBOs can earn money from promoting solar energy systems right now. It's easy and we'll show you how, on request. Community solar promotions can start many other conversations on local sustainability and resilience.
Government leadership on sustainability is centrally important, of course, but enlisting the active support of community organizations is potentially powerful.
Because CBOs can reach out to neighbors and networks of close relationships, they can be very effective marketing partners in sustainability projects. The articles in this series drew on interviews with many sustainability program providers and advocates in NYC, and on our direct experience promoting a range of services in western Queens at Long Island City Partnership.
Lessons from the City's white roof painting program
Through promoting the NYC program to paint roofs white we learned that voluntary programs just don't work if they're not perceived to offer more value than the standard choices. Highly reflective white roofs are much cooler in summer than NYC's standard black tar roofs. While it's great for the City as a whole, savings to individual building owners from lower electric bills were too small to induce them to pay for the cost of paint, even if the City took care of labor costs. The City sensibly made roof cooling compulsory. Officials upgraded the building code to require that new and repaired roofs meet minimum reflectivity standards - which will gradually and unobtrusively cool more of NYC roofs.
Case study: community group promotes energy upgrades, participation goes way up
People are more likely to sign up for a program after being contacted by a community group they know than by the program’s outreach staff, who they don’t know. We proved this in Long Island City. Con Ed's Green Team energy efficiency retrofit program is a great deal for businesses but it's still a tough sell.
When LIC Partnership promoted the program to our constituents, the businesses we referred participated in the program at a much higher rate than area businesses contacted only by program contractors. Check out the details of our successful energy efficiency retrofit promotions.
We were motivated by our environmental agenda. Other groups could get similar results – but would be more effectively motivated by money.
With the right cash incentive for results, nonprofits around the City would get on the phone and call their contacts, and energy retrofits would skyrocket. Maybe someday Con Ed will decide to offer such incentives to supplement its omnipresent ads...
Until then, are there sustainability projects viable today through which civic groups could use their connections to earn income?
Business projects in urban agriculture?
Despite the buzz, there's actually very little urban agriculture in NYC considering the vast amount of rooftop and backyard space available. It's very hard to run such projects as businesses: start-up costs can be high, and profit margins are usually low. Entrepreneurs with enough money to build high-end rooftop greenhouses capable of year-round production can do well producing high value greens and tomatoes. But where cash is limited, options are fewer. However, we found some opportunities for groups more concerned with hunger, nutrition and environmental literacy than cash profits.
Groups could aggregate vegetable production from multiple parcels in a neighborhood, either selling produce or giving it to food pantries. The Food Bank for Westchester set up farms on the sites of five nearby nonprofits and donates the yield to food pantries. That model could be applied to NYC, if community groups were to use vacant public lots.
The City is already working to identify vacant public lots and get residents to turn them into community gardens. Even more potential garden space would be available if one were to add temporarily vacant private lots. They're usually not considered for gardening, as no one would want to go to the effort of building permanent raised garden beds on them.
But add low-cost, portable planters, and temporary gardening use of lots becomes more feasible. Just move the planters to new sites each year. Or use temporary, biodegradable planters - straw bales. Combining these innovative practices could make it easier for community groups to promote gardening. The City's biggest yields from low-cost urban agriculture are likely to come through environmental and health education as well as community building.
What about composting?
NYC generates massive amounts of food waste. Instead of paying to haul it away, some have suggested it could be collected by community groups, composted at neighborhood facilities, and sold at a profit. Such projects would face profound operational, legal and financial obstacles. It's possible that bags of nonprofit-branded compost could be sold as a fundraising product, like Girl Scout cookies, but unlikely. Only massive municipal action can make a dent in our food waste problem, and fortunately that's what we're getting. New City plans to scale up food waste collection and composting deserve our support.
Finally, here's some money: solar PV system installations
LIC Partnership created referral agreements with solar installers. The group's outreach to its clients resulted in two solar system installations so far, earning referral fees for the group. With this model, virtually any NYC civic group can leverage its local contacts and earn income, cut costs for its constituents, and helping make NYC more sustainable and resilient at the same time. It's a win-win-win solution. We're giving out the referral agreement and promotional materials on request. You can do this in your community. Call us.
We're not suggesting that community groups will only support sustainability projects when they get paid. But why not take advantage of that opportunity, and use it as a conversation opener to other projects?
After Hurricane Sandy, NYC government and policy circles have focused on making the City more resilient. Will the new emphasis on resilience, and the City's Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency, complement better known sustainability initiatives? Or will it compete for limited funds and attention, lowering the priority of climate change response? Identifying projects that promote both sustainability and resilience, while engaging neighbors at the grassroots level, would be of great value. We'll offer some answers in the next newsletter.
Until then, follow our Facebook page or our blog.
Over the last year, this blog has explored ways that community-based nonprofit organizations (CBOs) could earn income from promoting sustainability initiatives. Government leadership on sustainability is centrally important, of course, but enlisting the active support of community organizations is potentially powerful. Because CBOs can reach out to neighbors and networks of close relationships, they can be very effective marketing partners in sustainability projects. The articles in this series draw on interviews with many sustainability program providers and advocates in NYC, and on our direct experience promoting a range of services in western Queens at Long Island City Partnership.
In fall 2012 we published a report looking into potential projects in composting, urban agriculture, energy efficiency retrofits and solar power for CBOs with more local contacts than cash.
The ideal sustainability program to engage community groups would provide:
(1) enough incentive for community groups to make the effort of promoting them
(2) enough benefit for constituents to sign up
(3) value in the form of income, savings, goods, services, or social capital
(4) low entry and set-up costs
(5) applicability to NYC
"The report is quite impressive, synthesizing a lot of information."
- Kubi Ackerman, Project Director, Urban Design Lab at The Earth Institute, Columbia University; Lead author, "The Potential for Urban Agriculture in New York City."
Our updated results
There's probably no opportunity for CBOs to earn easy income through compost, and probably not through urban agriculture either. The good news: CBOs can earn money from promoting solar energy systems right now. It's easy and we'll show you how, on request.
Lessons from the City's white roof painting program
Here's an example of a sustainability initiative that's great for the City as a whole, but insufficiently appealing to would-be participants. Highly reflective white roofs are much cooler in summer than NYC's standard black tar roofs. Through promoting the NYC program to paint roofs white we learned that savings to individual building owners from lower electric bills were too small to induce owners to pay for the cost of paint, even if the City took care of labor costs. The City sensibly upgraded the building code to require that new and repaired roofs meet minimum reflectivity standards - which will gradually and unobtrusively cool more of NYC roofs. Without enough incentive, voluntary programs don't work.
Upcoming posts in this series
- Case study: community group promotes energy efficiency upgrades, participation goes way up.
- Easy income from urban agriculture? Not so much.
- Can community groups sell compost instead of Girl Scout cookies?
- Finally, we'll show you the money: referral fees for promoting solar PV system installations. We'll reveal our model so you can try it in your own neighborhood.
Can NYC community organizations earn income from neighborhood scale food waste collection and composting? To put it another way, could bags of compost with the name of your block association or church ever be used for fundraising like Girl Scout cookies?
“We currently spend more than $1 billion a year to manage solid waste including $300 million to export 3.3 million tons of City-collected waste. These costs are projected to rise exponentially. We must take aggressive steps to make our waste management system more environmentally and economically sustainable.” PlaNYC, p. 137.
According to the NYC Dept. of Sanitation (DSNY), food scraps constitute about 17.7%, approximately 650,000 tons annually, of the total NYC DSNY-managed waste stream. 4% of the City’s waste stream is leaf and yard waste. (PlaNYC, p. 138)
Before we delve into opportunities for businesses and nonprofit groups to earn income while dealing with this problem, we'll review the City’s current efforts, and then the Bloomberg Administration’s newly announced plans to expand recycling.
Food waste collection today
Some community groups have been collecting food waste from residents at their facilities for years. Red Hook Community Farm, NY Restoration Project, Earth Matters, and the Gowanus Conservancy all collect food waste and compost it for use in their own gardens. It’s fairly easy for programs that compost up to 1,000 cubic yards per year to meet NYS licensing requirements. (Volume above that requires a NYS DEC Part 360 permit.)
DSNY is collecting and composting food scraps dropped off by NYC residents at neighborhood locations through the newly launched NYC Compost Project Local Organics Recovery Program (ORP) and the GrowNYC Food Waste Drop-Off Program. There are fifteen food scrap drop off sites. DSNY also collects food scraps from about fifteen Green Market sites.
DSNY and Department of Education are already piloting a food waste collection program in about 40 Manhattan and Brooklyn public schools and 20 nonprofit institutions. (More at DSNY Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling.) Those programs only account for a microscopic percentage of the food waste that’s dumped in NYC trash every day.
What about selling compost?
Lower East Side Ecology Center has been collecting food waste at the Union Square Market, composting it near the East River, and selling it back to consumers since 1994. BuildItGreen! Compost in western Queens has been making its own compost since 2010, but as required by its funding gives it away instead of selling it. Its director Justin Green is looking at creating a huge worm composting facility to create a high quality, higher priced compost. “We haven’t come up with a money making formula yet. The market for compost and how you reach it is still unknown.”
GrowNYC enters the compost retail market
A big breakthrough in compost sales is coming this year. GrowNYC / Greenmarket plans to start selling bags of Greenmarket branded organic compost, with an estimated retail price between $10 – 12 for a 12 lb. bag, according to David Hurd, Director of GrowNYC’s Office of Recycling Outreach and Education.
Hurd agreed that it’s possible for community groups to buy Greenmarket brand compost at wholesale and resell them at their local Greenmarket, but that doesn’t mean it would work. Although some NYC gardeners will pay extra for Greenmarket compost, and would be more willing to buy if some of the sale price was going to their neighborhood group compost is probably never going to compete with Girl Scout cookies as a fundraising product for nonprofit groups. Besides, it’s hard to compete with the low end of the market. Generic compost from Lowes sells for about $2 for a 40 pound bag.
Will New Yorkers pay to have their food waste picked up and composted?
Ordering take-out food for home delivery is a standard business, but will it work the other way?
Greg Todd has proposed collecting food waste from residents or businesses for neighborhood composting using industrial tricycles, charging a fee for waste pickup and perhaps selling the finished compost. This method has been pioneered in Northampton, Massachusetts. It’s a fascinating idea, but there are legal and operational barriers to this in NYC.
To actively pick up food waste, a license from the NYC Business Integrity Commission is needed. NYC BIC aims to eliminate organized crime from the business sectors it regulates, such as waste carting. Carting licenses cost $5,000 for a two year term, with extra fees per vehicle. BIC license fees and procedures pose a barrier for community groups which might want to collect food. Entrepreneurs would have to convince City officials and lawyers to create an exemption for community based food waste pickup, or find ways to partner with commercial holders of BIC licenses.
Another challenge would be finding multiple sites on which community composting facilities could be sited that are large enough to process large amounts of food waste. And finding the money with which to purchase and operate the composting facility, when there’s no guaranteed market for its product, and the City’s newly announced plans for massive expansion of food waste collection.
Perhaps there are ways to capture very specific parts of the waste stream for value added products. Two UC Berkeley seniors discovered they could use coffee grounds to grow oyster mushrooms. Their Oakland-based company now employs 21. They’re selling mushroom growing kits at Whole Foods, as well as very pricey bags of compost. If you can think of any, please post them.
The City changes the game - announcing new recycling and composting plans, and a styrofoam ban
In his February 2013 State of the City Address, Mayor Bloomberg laid out a host of new initiatives:
“We’ll also take major new steps toward another important sustainability goal that we’ve set: Doubling the city’s recycling rate to 30 percent by 2017… It starts with making recycling easier for everyone by putting 1,000 new recycling containers in streets on all five boroughs this year… We’ll also tackle New York City’s final recycling frontier: food waste… So with Speaker Quinn and the City Council, we will work to adopt a law banning Styrofoam food packaging from our stores and restaurants. And don’t worry: the doggie bag will survive just fine.”
• Put 1,000 new recycling containers on streets in all five boroughs this year.
• Work with Speaker Quinn and the City Council to adopt a law banning polystyrene foam food packaging from stores and restaurants.
• Finalize a major new facility in South Brooklyn that will accept all kinds of plastics, have a state-of-the-art education center to teach children about recycling and one of the largest solar installations in the city.
• Begin recycling food waste, nearly 200,000 tons of which fill landfills every year at a cost of nearly $80 per ton. That waste can be used as fertilizer or converted to energy at a much lower price.
• Launch a pilot program to collect curbside organic waste from single family homes in Staten Island for composting.
Ron Gonen, Deputy Commissioner for Recycling and Sustainability at NYC Department of Sanitation, told us that the most important question is how to increase the organic waste processing capacity in the NYC area. What’s needed is not just industrial size but municipal size facilities. “We need companies with much bigger capacity, like Recology.” The City of San Francisco partners with Recology and now diverts 80 percent of all waste generated in the City away from landfill disposal through source reduction, reuse, and recycling and composting programs. San Francisco’s recycling and composting rate is the highest of any city in North America. Other leading municipal recyclers are Portland, Seattle and Toronto.
The biggest challenge, says Gonen, is making sure that NYC has the budget and the long term vision to build the composting and recycling infrastructure we need. The City is expected to issue requests for proposals (RFPs) from private firms to build massive composting facilities in the metro NYC area.
Businesses can join this effort, Gonen suggests, by looking into the design of products and packaging, and stimulating consumer demand for products made from and packaged with only recycled materials.
Back to our original question: can community groups make some money from composting while complementing City efforts? Even if someone could hurdle the legal and logistical obstacles to neighborhood food waste collection, they would be in competition for what NYC plans to offer for free as a municipal service. As far as we can tell, this is one of those sustainability dilemnas that cannot be addressed by entrepreneurial projects. It requires massive government action, and fortunately, it's on the way.
As with urban agriculture, there may not be much money to be made, but a great need to make New Yorkers more environmentally literate that doesn't translate easily into income. We should still encourage people to garden in their own yards, using the compost they produce from their own food and landscaping waste. The new DSNY composting services will need lots of neighborhood champions. We'll need to build broad public support for a range of government sustainability measures in economically volatile times, and composting isn't a bad place to start.
