In a move signaling Penton Media’s strategic push into the fast-growing field of business-to-business sustainability services, the company has invested in a strategic alliance with Chicago-based GreenPoint Partners to develop and commercialize Green Per Square Foot (PSF), a web-based energy-efficiency marketplace.
GreenPSF will enable building owners, managers and end-users to determine ways to operate more efficient facilities, and match up with solutions providers to help implement their plans.
The service will launch in November, and will be accessible to anyone. Initial marketing will focus on Penton customers, a target audience of some six million business decision-makers in 16 industry sectors who use the company’s media products and services.
GreenPSF will focus on helping businesses capitalize on lighting retrofits—switching from older systems to more efficient alternatives, including modern fluorescent lighting and LEDs. In the near future, the platform will expand to include energy procurement, HVAC, motors, solar, and other product categories.
“As new government-mandated efficiency standards are phased in, there is a mad scramble among building owners and managers to figure out the cost benefits of transitioning from existing building systems to more efficient alternatives, and to do it sooner rather than later,” said Warren N. Bimblick, senior vice president, strategy and business development at Penton, said in a statement.
“Given the fact that Penton’s National Real Estate Investor, Industry Week, Supermarket News, Waste Age, American City and County, American School and University and a dozen other titles have several million readers with a vested interest in making a smart switch,” Bimblick added, “we think there is a significant business opportunity to launch GreenPSF in serving the enormous demand for lighting and other efficiency retrofits, particularly in these core market sectors.”
GreenPSF is an initiative of the new Penton Sustainability Practice being led by Jonathan A. Schein, noted Bimblick.
Penton selected GreenPoint to co-develop GreenPSF because of its experience as an energy management and sustainability consulting firm for commercial real estate interests, a primary target market for this new service. The GreenPoint team brings decades of collective success in energy, real estate, finance, and operations to GreenPSF.
“In every business, the cost of operating facilities is at the mercy of energy prices, technologies, equipment performance, financial incentives and the ROI case to change,” said GreenPoint Partners CEO Dustin Gellman in a statement. “Our partnership with Penton recognizes the resource challenges every business faces, and gives each one of them access to a robust, qualified suite of cost-saving tools, professional advisors and sustainable products that can return measurable performance results.”