The Natural Resources Defense Council’s new office has just raised the bar on what it means to be green in Chicago — or anywhere else, for that matter.

Published in Crain’s Chicago Business on October 31, 2013

Dan Rosenthal, left, with Mark Knauer, architect on his latest project

Veteran Chicago restaurateur Dan Rosenthal and his new Streeterville venture have secured funding from an angel investment group focused on financing all aspects of the local food system.

Erie St. Clair Restaurant LLC, the group that owns the soon-to-open Italian fast-casual Sopraffina Market Caffe and Cicchetti, a Venetian-style bacari wine bar, received $435,000 in financing from the Sustainable Local Food Investment Group, or SLoFIG. The equity infusion brings total funding for the two adjacent restaurants with a shared kitchen to more than $5 million of combined debt and equity financing, he says.

SLoFIG was formed about two years ago by a group of Chicago angel investors committed to investing in startups and midsize businesses engaged in strengthening the local and regional food system.

The group has allocated more than $600,000 to three businesses, including its first investment to Nellcote chef Jared Van Camp’s West Randolph Street restaurant that derives much of its menu from nearby farms and food producers, says Kim Hack of SLoFIG. A blueberry farmer in Michigan was the third recipient of SLoFIG funding.

The decision to offer financing to Erie St. Clair was made in large part because of Mr. Rosenthal’s track record in promoting locally sourced, naturally raised food at his restaurants for many years, Ms. Hack says. Aside from the five other Sopraffina eateries and his role as a founder of Harry Caray’s, he also is an owner of Poag Mahone’s and Trattoria No. 10. “He has a remarkable commitment and has had a huge impact on rebuilding our local food system,” she notes.

The newest Sopprafina will be the first of its five siblings outside the Loop but will continue the tradition of sourcing animal proteins raised without antibiotics. Both new eateries will tap local sources for produce, including a new partnership with the Cook County Department of Corrections that’s already underway with Mr. Rosenthal’s other restaurants for naturally grown tomatoes, kale, squash, beets and more.

The two new food establishments will be the first in Chicago to receive third-party certification from Washington-based Green Seal for new restaurant construction. Eco-friendly design features include floors made of reclaimed wood, timber beams from Northern Wisconsin, and artwork that was originally hanging inside a Wisconsin grain elevator, Mr. Rosenthal says. The restaurants will use recyclable and biodegradable products whenever possible, sourced through the Green Chicago Restaurant Coalition, a nonprofit purchasing organization Mr. Rosenthal helped establish.

Cicchetti’s kitchen will be headed by executive chef Michael Sheerin, most recently co-owner of Trenchermen in Wicker Park with his brother Patrick, and formerly a chef de cuisine at Blackbird. Just announced: Sarah Jordan, (Blackbird, Boka, Jean Banchet Pastry Chef of the Year and one of Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Pastry Chefs in 2013) and Phil Rubino (Acadia, Cafe des Architectes, L2O, Bin 36, Spiaggia) will join Mr. Sheerin in the kitchen as sous chefs.

The small plates tapas bar will have a Venetian twist to it, highlighting foods that were influenced by Eastern and Middle Eastern cuisines introduced to Europe through that port city over the course of 1,500 years, Mr. Rosenthal says. Dishes may include pork belly buns with cabbage and argodolce and sardines with gremolata, fennel and rolled bread.

The restaurants are expected to open in mid-December and will be located at the corner of Erie and St. Clair streets, in the heart of the bustling Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s medical complex.

Originally published on sholomchicago.org

Temple Sholom always held a special place in my heart from the first days our family joined and my son Cole Spanierman (now 15) went to Gan Shalom. But it took another decade and an “aha” moment for me to get involved in a more meaningful way.

My son was volunteering regularly at the Monday Meal as his social action project in preparation for his Bar Mitzvah in the fall of 2011. As part of that effort, I joined him one Sunday a few weeks before his big day where we and other Temple members harvested leftover vegetables from community gardens on the South Side to use as ingredients for the next day’s Monday Meal.

That Monday, Cole and I delivered the fresh-picked cherry tomatoes, giant kale, zucchinis and more to Temple Sholom for the minestrone soup and salad that would be part of that evening’s Monday Meal. I stayed to help cook. I remember opening a large can of tomato sauce for another course and looked around for a recycling bin. One of the regulars told me, “Just  toss it in the trash.” A staffer will pick out the recyclables later and place them in a separate bin, he promised. My first thought was, “Yeah, right, like that’s going to happen!” My second thought was, “We need to fix this!”

As a family, we decided to make our donation to the Temple for Cole’s Bar Mitzvah as something to help the Monday Meal become a little friendlier to the planet. We heard better recycling was in the works, so we thought of purchasing re-usable dishes to serve the dinner instead of using hundreds of styrofoam plates each week for the multiple courses served. Styrofoam is one of the worst things you can send to a landfill because it takes about 100 years for it to break down.

Rabbi Shoshanah Conover appreciated our gesture, but suggested we wait. She said there was a bubbling up of interest to transform our Temple, its programs and hopefully our members into becoming better stewards of the environment in accordance with Jewish values. There was talk of forming a new green committee. I told her I was eager to be part of that core group.

Fast forward a year later. In the fall of 2012 I was among a small group gathered around the kitchen table at Karen Lewis’ house. That was one of the first meetings of the newly-formed green committee — Eco Chavura. In the last few months, the group has grown and we’ve launched some major eco-minded improvements.

Some of our eventual goals for the Monday Meal include: having a full-blown recycling program in the kitchen and dining areas; serving food on re-usable plates; composting all food scraps and compostable items; and sourcing more food from local growers.

I finally found my path to be more deeply connected to Temple Sholom in a way that reflects some of my own core values of what it means to be a Jew and a good citizen of our planet. Maybe this could be your way to get more engaged as well.

Please join us at one of our next meetings or send us your ideas of how you’d like to see your Temple leave a softer footprint on the Earth.

Published in Crain’s Chicago Business on September 16, 2013

Michael and Helen Cameron in their backyard

Uncommon Ground restaurant owners Helen and Michael Cameron had enough eco-design features in their newly constructed home on the city’s North Side to win certification from a respected green building group.

They took a pass.

Unlike a growing number of Chicago commercial building owners seeking third-party certifications, people building green homes are less eager to chase the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification. Some, like the Camerons, say it’s not worth the cost and hassle.

“I have enough plaques on my restaurant walls,” says Mr. Cameron, whose two Uncommon Ground restaurants, in Lakeview and Edgewater, were named Greenest Restaurant in America two years ago by the Boston-based Green Restaurant Association.

In design circles, LEED certification confers bragging rights to building owners and designers, but it doesn’t come free.

What’s more, some argue that LEED’s rigorous point-based design checklist doesn’t focus enough on a home’s performance in energy efficiency, water conservation and other measures that can be more telling about whether the structure is gentler on the planet. In response, says Jason LaFleur, who chairs the Residential Green Building Committee of the USGBC’s Illinois Chapter, LEED administrators are tweaking that checklist to toughen standards.

Jason LaFleur chairs the Residential Green Building Committee of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Illinois chapter.

The Camerons tore down their crumbling, 100-year-old home last year to build anew with as many green elements as they could afford. With a construction budget of less than $600,000, the Camerons considered pursuing LEED but couldn’t justify the estimated $6,000 to $8,000 for the application fee plus consulting fees and features not in the original design, Ms. Cameron says. They were confident that hiring Evanston-based green architect Nate Kipnis would allow them to achieve their sustainability goals.

LEED doesn’t take into account the size of a home, which makes a huge environmental impact. The restaurateurs could have built as much as 5,200 square feet on their property but settled on 2,850 for a smaller carbon footprint. Much of the home is outfitted with Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood, nontoxic and natural materials, and kitchen cabinets crafted from local, fallen elm trees. Natural light floods the home through giant windows on the eastern and western exposures and from a skylight atop a central stairwell that cuts through all four floors.

The most dramatic sustainable feature is the 6.2-kilowatt photovoltaic panels that blanket the steep incline of the garage’s southern-facing roof. The 24 panels are expected to generate enough electricity to power the entire home, as well as charge the couple’s electric Nissan Leaf. A two-way meter from Commonwealth Edison Co. was installed so excess energy can be pushed back to the power grid.

The Camerons spent $650 on a Home Energy Rating System report, a program used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether a home is performing at “Energy Star” level. The Cameron home results were in the low 30s, much the same as a top-rated LEED Platinum home Mr. Kipnis designed in Glencoe last year.

The energy score is gaining popularity as a measure of energy efficiency and is more affordable, Mr. Kipnis says. “The definition of green is fuzzy enough, so getting some kind of third-party certification is important, especially with something as complex as a house,” he says. “Otherwise, it’s so easy to build a normal house (and) throw in a geothermal system so they can call it green.”

Chicago-based architectural and design firm 2 Point Perspective is working on homes with five clients pursuing LEED certification, but it hasn’t made sense for many other projects, founding partner Lisa Elkins says.

DOES LEED AFFECT RESALE?

About two years ago, Ms. Elkins says, a client considered applying for LEED certification during a major renovation of his Lakeview home that included installation of two wind turbines and photovoltaic and solar thermal panels. Going for LEED came up early in the process, but it wasn’t feasible because of required insulation inspections, she says. LEED raters must see exposed walls to ensure the home is properly insulated. But the drywall had been replaced recently and was in good condition.

“The owner proved his greenness by adding all those renewable-energy features,” Ms. Elkins says. “Ripping all that good drywall out and putting it into a landfill or even recycling it would’ve been more detrimental to the environment.”

Some architects recommend pursuing LEED for a potential higher resale value—as much as 8 or 9 percent in areas like Portland, Ore., and Seattle, as estimated by Portland-based Earth Advantage Institute.

In the Chicago area, few homes with LEED designation have hit the market, but one recent new-construction sale in suburban Lemont garnered a 3 percent bump in its appraisal because of a pending LEED award and higher expected energy efficiency versus a comparable home without its green features, according to Michael Hobbs, an appraiser specializing in sustainable properties and president of PahRoo Appraisal & Consultancy in Chicago.

Dana and Joe Sidoryk briefly considered the LEED path when building their home in Elmhurst last year but opted out when they realized the eco-friendly measures they were adopting—including non-formaldehyde cabinetry and whole house filters that remove chlorine from water entering the home—wouldn’t be enough to meet LEED standards, Ms. Sidoryk says.

“We made green choices that made sense to us,” she says.

Published in Crain’s Chicago Business on September 2, 2013

Joshua Yellin hopes his BioHaven prototype will lead to more islands here and other urban rivers.

The Chicago River often doubles as an open storm sewer. Among the garbage that Joshua Yellin sees bob downstream on the river’s North Branch are Styrofoam cups, soccer balls, cigarette butts, plastic and glass beverage bottles, plastic bags and condoms. Into this jetsam, Mr. Yellin recently added a small, plastic island near the northern tip of Goose Island.

His artificial plot—essentially a 10-inch-thick mesh raft seeded with native plants and tethered by a chain—is intended to help restore the river to a more natural state. The underside provides a habitat for fish, as well as microbes that can clean the water of pollutants, while the top is a sanctuary for waterfowl, turtles and insects.

Mr. Yellin, an educator at the Shedd Aquarium, installed the BioHaven island as his capstone project for a master’s degree in natural resources and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was donated by Floating Island International Inc., a company in Shepherd, Mont., that designed and manufactures them.

“The Chicago River is a graphic example of a river dramatically impacted by humanity,” says Bruce Kania, Floating Island’s project development director. “Here’s a young scientist who’s attempting to expedite the process of recovery, and we absolutely want to support that.”

The Chicago River is a challenging environment for a BioHaven island, which is made of nonwoven recycled plastic. Most of the more than 5,000 placed around the world are in lakes or other placid waterways. The river’s current, as well as passing boats, has buffeted the 5-by-10-foot mat, damaging its edges. Ducks, meantime, have eaten much of the plant life, which included wild iris, hardstem bulrush and prairie cordgrass.

Mr. Yellin, 29, is rebuilding his artificial wetland. He is making it twice as thick, which should allow it to float higher in the water and enable the plants to take better root. He also is constructing a ring around its front end to shield it from debris.

A Chicago native, Mr. Yellin headed to Montana after he graduated from Illinois in 2007 with a degree in integrative biology and psychology. In the wilderness, he learned to fly fish and fell in love with rivers. After a stint guiding canoe trips in Alaska, he returned to Chicago in 2011 to work for Friends of the Chicago River.

“I was drawn to these pristine rivers out West, but most of the work out there is about preserving them as they are,” he observes. “Back here it’s more challenging because it’s about trying to get the Chicago River back that way.”

A BioHaven island like the one on the North Branch costs about $1,250, plus year-round maintenance. Mr. Yellin is hoping his prototype will lead to more islands here and other urban rivers. The other day, he spotted more than 100 small fish eating under the island and possibly spawning. The river may be damaged, but it isn’t irretrievable.

Published in Crain’s Chicago Business on June 10, 2013

Click here to check out WBEZ’s Jerome McDonnell of Worldview interviewing Judith Nemes about an article she wrote for Crain’s Chicago Business’ June 10 issue on bosses who bike to work.

Published in Crain’s Chicago Business on May 06, 2013

Michael Stacey, CEO of Lono LLC: “Eventually people will be able to tint their windows remotely using their smartphones.”

We’ve all seen people wearing glasses that darken when the sun blazes brightly. Michael Stacey foresees office windows screening out the too-hot sun as well, though with a flip of a switch.

Together with a couple of engineering undergrads at the University of Notre Dame, Mr. Stacey has won a series of business plan competitions and more than $1 million in prize money and grants for their SmarterShade polarizing glass films. Lono LLC, their startup, is working with film manufacturers in Asia and supplying samples to France’s Saint-Gobain SA, one of the world’s biggest building-products companies.

By blocking sunlight, SmarterShade can keep interior temperatures from rising, reducing air-conditioning costs. Another savings: The darkened windows also could do away with the need for conventional window treatments. “Blinds and shades have been around for hundreds of years, but we haven’t seen much affordable shading innovation for windows until now,” says Mr. Stacey, Lono’s 37-year-old CEO. “Eventually people will be able to tint their windows remotely using their smartphones.”

Polarizing technology has been around for 30 years. But most designs required an electric current to darken the window, which cost too much to be worth it, Mr. Stacey says. SmarterShade uses a manual control switch that changes the position of the two films applied to the glass to block sunlight.

“We’re trying to keep offices and homes at a constant, comfortable temperature, and this technology is a whole different, sophisticated way of shading,” says Ed Woodbury, president of Chicago real estate developers McCaffery Interests Inc. and a judge in the recent Clean Energy Challenge. “I think it has the potential for being a game changer in our industry.”

The contest’s other judges agreed and awarded the SmarterShade a $50,000 prize in April.

Mr. Stacey has launched several businesses since high school, starting with a landscaping outfit. While pursuing his MBA at Notre Dame in 2007—he got his undergrad degree in business logistics from Pennsylvania State University in 1997—Mr. Stacey was looking for a great idea to enter a business plan competition. Reading a message board, he found two undergrads studying mechanical engineering and industrial design, Will McLeod and Ryan Tatzel, who had developed a way to apply two films to glass, then move them to allow more or less light through. They won $20,000 in the contest.

The team initially targeted the recreational vehicle market, in part because the industry is clustered near South Bend, Ind., where Notre Dame is located. “It’s hard to put blinds on a moving vehicle, and people spend a lot of money on this kind of leisure so they’d probably like the cool factor of this feature,” Mr. Stacey says. “We got great feedback from RV makers, but our prototype wasn’t very manufacturable yet.”

Since then, the SmarterShade trio has taken home more prize money and almost $875,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation and others. Mr. Stacey quit his full-time job as a business consultant in Chicago in 2011.