Small businesses across New Jersey are starting to save money, share their successes and inspire other businesses by implementing sustainable business best practices. Joining this list of small businesses, Lasley Brahaney located in Princeton, New Jersey, became one of the first businesses in the state and the first in Princeton to be recognized as a New Jersey Sustainable Business.

Recently, the New Jersey Small Business Development Centers (NJSBDC) launched the New Jersey Sustainable Business Registry. The registry is an Internet site where businesses that have implemented sustainable business practices can register their achievements and be recognized.

Lasley Brahaney achieved recognition for their sustainability efforts surrounding their LEED certified office building. LEED, or Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, is a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices. The sustainable features include water efficiency, solar power, reuse of building materials, EPDM roofing, increased insulation, energy efficient windows, automatic light/power shut-off features, low flow toilets, high efficiency appliances and HVAC to name a few. The office was designed/renovated as a LEED project to experience green building first hand and pass our experience onto homeowners.

“We are excited about working with homeowners to create environmentally friendly living spaces. We can help push back against global warming while having a big impact on the quality of our clients home living environments. Efforts we make, care we take, in our small company really make a difference.” said Brahaney.

“We’ve taken that mission further by offering customer advice on how they can turn a renovation, an addition or a new construction project into an effort to fight global warming,” said Marc Brahaney, who has been in the industry for more than 30 years and co-founded the firm in 1997.

Altering conventional construction practices to achieve energy savings is more streamlined when design and construction are done through one firm. For example, the firm established quality standards for rough framing in order to insure that insulation gets into all corners, nooks and crannies of a building envelope. This is critical considering most homes have enough gaps and pinholes to create the equivalent of a 3-foot by 4-foot window that is always open.