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Focus : Living & Working Green - Real Estate & Construction

Sylvain Côté and his family had been renting a home in Yorktown for about 14 years before deciding to buy one on Truesdale Lake in South Salem a few years back.

“Clean tech” is not just good for the environment, it can also help jump-start the economy. At least that’s how it’s being positioned in the mid-Hudson Valley. Several companies with innovative technologies are working with the state to establish manufacturing facilities in the region.

Steve Feldman left his job as a marketing manager at two radio stations in Rhode Island to raise funds for All Addicts Anonymous, a 12-step program with national headquarters in the Sullivan County town of Hankins. Trying to get donations was a difficult task, given that it was 2001 and the economy was doing badly. But when Feldman happened to drive past the demolition of the former empress of Iran’s 10,000-square-foot home during a visit to a donor in Greenwich, he got an idea: Why not rescue the expensive, barely used kitchens from mansions destined for the wrecking ball and resell them in outlet stores at a discount, using the proceeds for the charity?

The U.S. Senate is considering a new round of tax incentives to encourage the production and use of clean and renewable energy.

“It’s like moving an iceberg,” said architect Jason Black, describing the process of going green in the commercial sector. “You want to try little small tasks and gain acceptance.”

Colleges and universities throughout the region are catching up with their students, inaugurating campuswide recycling programs, building green buildings according to stringent design standards and joining a growing list of colleges that have agreed to make institutional commitments to neutralize their greenhouse gas emissions.

When it’s time for an office building, school or hospital to seek out cleaning or janitorial services, these days it’s not so much about cleaning, as it is about greening.

Environmentally conscious consumers in Fairfield County and the Hudson Valley have a multitude of options for hybrid and energy-efficient cars.

Forget the nuclear jet packs and you-drive-it submarines. The future, it turns out, looks exactly like a Chevy Equinox.

Few things rile a taxpayer like waste. That sentiment is now dovetailing with a groundswell across the political and scientific spectra the planet is heating and humans are to blame. It’s telling that not a single presidential candidate in either party denies the reality – even if the severity of the situation is up for grabs.