Matching Green with Greenbacks Spring Hill Solutions Helps Businesses Calculate Their Energy Use

Greg Strong would be the first to tell you that he doesn’t have the only solution. But the company he founded in 2002, Burlington-based Spring Hill Solutions LLC, aims to be an indispensable partner in the quest for carbon-smarts in an energy-strapped business climate.

Spring Hill Solutions fills a unique consultancy niche in what is commonly known as the “eco-econ” trade — where green and greenbacks harmonize and where zeal meets the bottom line.

The company’s expertise, Strong said last week, is helping clients bring methodical sense to their ever-expanding options.

“There are water specialists, sustainable-energy folks; people who specialize in problems with waste management or public policy,” Strong said. “What we try to do is bring it all together.”

Spring Hill Solutions begins by calculating a company’s energy use.

“We meet with clients where they are,” Strong said. “Then we find ways they can take steps to reduce the energy load. That can be through workplace efficiencies, re-thinking a supply chain, or something as basic as how employees commute. Finally, we help put together a plan for long-term energy security.”
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Strong also helps businesses find funding for pilot projects and feasibility studies through energy-specific loans, grants and tax incentives.

Until last year, he was a one-man operation. Now, with full-time colleague Jon Griesser, he corrals the talents of a team of three part-time consultants out of a top-floor office at 209 College St.

Strong’s background hints at how he approaches a problem: he holds degrees in both mechanical engineering and creative writing.

The company’s clientele reflects that breadth: It includes Gardener’s Supply Co., American Flatbread, Vermont Butter and Cheese Co., Champlain College, Efficiency Vermont, Otter Creek Brewing, Main Street Landing and the Vermont Department of Public Service.

All of them share a commitment to ever-smarter growth, Griesser said.

“People who are running these businesses are generally focused on running the business,” he continued. “They see sustainability as an investment, not a cost. There is so much more to be saved. This country’s been doing things so sloppily with energy for so long — now there’s an enormous opportunity to improve things.”

It’s an opportunity that appears to foster a collaborative, rather than a strictly competitive business climate in Vermont.

Spring Hill Solutions worked as a strategic partner with Shelburne-based Kilawatt Technologies Inc. in designing Gardener’s Supply’s short-and long-term conservation plan. Another joint venture is in the works for a school in Birmingham, Ala.

Ted Fisher, Kilawatt’s CEO, said his own company does better work by sticking to its chief area of expertise: developing software that can remotely monitor and analyze energy consumption patterns in large buildings.

“We bring more value to our customer if we bring in someone with an expertise that we don’t have,” Fisher said. “We could conceivably learn how to do what Greg (Strong) does, but it would take a lot of time, and really take us off our focus.

“Greg is able to do the whole soup-to-nuts thing,” he said. “There are things we do that add value to his work; we’re all trying to do what’s best for our customer. The more partners you have, the better.”

Earlier this month, Strong met with South Burlington-based networks developer SymQuest Group to firm up a partnership that will add “IT Greening” to both companies’ portfolios.

Other businesses anticipate a growing need for a hybrid of hands-on and high-tech consulting said Will Patten, director of Burlington-based nonprofit Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.

“Energy costs have left businesses feeling pretty helpless,” Patten said. “But business people don’t like to be helpless. They like to predict things. They like to manage things. They like to work their formulas.”

Only from an accurate baseline understanding of its carbon footprint, the reasoning goes, can a business successfully reduce it.

“There’s an axiom — that you can only manage what you can measure,” Patten said. “What Greg does is provide the measurements, from the granular to the universal. You can just focus on consumption or supply chain. But the farther you cast your metrics, the more accurate they are.

“Paying attention to your carbon footprint used to be a moral imperative,” he added. “It’s now seen as a market imperative, as protecting the bottom line. It’s just good business.”

It’s also good governance, says energy consultant Deb Sachs. Her South Burlington-based nonprofit 10 Percent Challenge translates climate change concerns into more-bang-for-the-tax-dollar strategies for eight Vermont towns, including Essex, Hinesburg and South Burlington.

Like Strong, Sachs believes that collaborative efforts best serve her cause.

“You do what you do with the talents you have,” she said. “We all work together. We call each other when we need to. We network.”

Sachs also agrees with Strong that the market for energy experts can only improve — and that Vermonters might provide a winning business model for the rest of the country.

If Spring Hill Solutions is looking for business beyond Vermont, it has a firm local base. It has forged strategic partnerships with Cx Associates, Earth Carbon Offsets, Native Energy and Local Motion, all headquartered in Chittenden County.

Is there a limit to growth in Vermont’s sustainable-growth industry?

Strong doesn’t think so.

“There is no end of the chain,” he said. “You can always do better.”

Contact Joel Banner Baird at 660-1843 or


‘Green up’ online



Many Vermont nonprofit groups work with businesses to trim energy use. Among them:

Efficiency Vermont: http://www.efficiencyvermont.com/pages/Business/ResourceLibrary/Green_Make_Over/

10 Percent Challenge (online calculations of energy use): http://10percentchallenge.org/

Way to Go Vermont (commuting options): http://www.waytogovt.org

Vermont Environmental Consortium: http://www.vecgreenvalley.org/index.htm

Carbon Lite Lunch (informal workshops): http://www.vtearthinstitute.org/programs.html

Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility: http://www.vbsr.org

A Spring Hill

Solutions sampler




Two energy assessments recently completed by Spring Hill Solutions are available online:

Champlain College: http://www.champlain.edu/contact/Phase1CarbonProfile.pdf

Vermont 25 x ’25 Initiative: http://www.vermontagriculture.com/energy/documents/report.pdf



Spring Hill file



NAME: Spring Hill Solutions

SERVICES: Consultants in carbon management, energy use and business sustainability

LOCATION: Burlington

PRINCIPAL: Greg Strong

TEAM: Two full-time staff; three part-timers

FOUNDED: 2002 as a one-man consultancy

CLIENTS: Gardener’s Supply Co., American Flatbread, Champlain College, Efficiency Vermont, Otter Creek Brewing, Main Street Landing and the Vermont Department of Public Service

PARTNERS: In Chittenden County include collaborations with Kilawatt Technologies and SymQuest

WEB: http://www.springhillsolutions.com