Village Recognizes Green Businesses With First of Its Kind Award

For the owners of three local businesses recently recognized for their commitment to being environmentally friendly, isn't just a fad.

It's a way of life.

,  and D/R Services Unlimited, Inc. were honored with the Village of Glenview's inaugural Green Business Awards Tuesday, Jan. 18.

"We know that our business community is really conscientious about discovering green practices so we wanted to celebrate that," Village President Kerry Cummings said. "And that spreads the word. What one business is doing, another one hears about it and asks about it...so every little incremental piece helps."

Husband and wife team Jonathan and Kim Smith have been operating Effective Air since 1985, though the business has served the community since the 1940s.

The business received the top award, Go Green Gold, for its "impressive array of green initiatives at its office on Lehigh -- from installing energy star appliances to using biodegradable packing materials...and installing bike racks for employees," Cummings said during the awards presentation.

"One of the reasons that I always I wanted to get in the business is to help make a difference in environmental impact and saving energy," Jonathan Smith explained, "because so many of the systems have been designed and installed improperly. So that's one of our main focuses is to design things so that they would use as little energy as possible."

Effective Air staff is always finding that people's current systems are oversized, wasting a lot of energy, Kim Smith added.

The Smiths said one of their customers nominated them, while fellow go-greener Ronald Cowgill of D/R Services Unlimited, Inc. wasn't exactly sure who nominated his business.

"My office manager told me, 'You won this award, go there,'" Cowgill said with a laugh.

In all seriousness, though, Cowgill said his nearly 20 years in the remodeling business has always been focused on restoring and reusing rather than throwing away. D/R was recognized for not only helping clients have greener homes, but implementing green policies in its own office. 

"I really never expected to get anything like this," he said. "It's an honor."

Lior Bega, founder of Sweet Home Improvements, said he was flattered by his Go Green Award.

Bega's company, Sweet Home Improvements was honored specifically for such things as "water-efficient taps and toilets [and] paper with the highest post-consumer recycled content possible," Cummings said.