Old City ecommerce shop WebLinc plunked down $40,000 on some new gear for its 100 Market St. location.
No, they didn’t get a dozen vintage pinball machines or gold-dipped handles on all the doors. Rather, they installed 38 solar panels on the roof, which covers 75 percent of the office’s energy needs.
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In four days, the installation was up and running. Thanks to a 30 percent tax rebate on the technology, the investment will pay for itself in five and a half years, the company says.
“Solar is a personal interest of mine,” says cofounder Darren Hill. “For almost two years I had a small 100W panel powering everything on my desk.”
That small panel was taken down to make room for the larger, more sophisticated system that now lives atop the 133-year-old building, which houses 35 members of the company’s 160-person staff.
Hill says that, while he hopes other startups are incorporating these kinds of green strategies into their operations, he understands they’re not all in a place to make these kinds of investments. “I think everybody’s doing what they can,” Hill said. “It’s not something we could have afforded to do when we were a two-year-old company.”
Besides the installation of the panels, the company has also eliminated those pesky K-cups to reduce waste, switched to LED lighting and installed energy efficient windows. The solar project even got a “badass” write-up on Philly.com.
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