The Greening of Wall Street

THE PRIMARY PURPOSE of Wall Street is to make money. Investment banks, hedge funds, and commercial banks large and small are always looking for ways to enhance their bottom line. One way of doing this is to reduce the fixed cost of operating their business. Some financial institutions have found ways to accomplish this while conserving natural resources.

Bank of America’s new headquarters in midtown Manhattan is scheduled for completion in 2009. Among many of its sustainable features, the bank’s HQ will make its own electricity using clean natural gas. A conservation tool that has been in use for years in Europe called “grey water” will alslo be used. “Grey water” is the water that goes down the drain after washing your hands and will be recycled to flush toilets. Estimates show that although the initial costs of construction are higher than usual, those costs will be recouped rapidly as the building will use half the energy and water of a more conventional building.

Morgan Stanley has replaced its old air conditioning system in the Purchase, New York headquarters with forty-eight eleven foot high tanks that produce ice at night when energy is less used. The ice cools the air during very hot days and also provides cool air to data center equipment. The new system saves the company $500,000.00 on its electric bill each year plus financial incentives from New York State for energy conservation.

Credit Suisse (CS) installed a similar system in the old Met Life Building on Madison Park in New York City. CS estimates it saves one million dollars annually in energy costs. The new cooling system was initially expected to pay for itself in three to four years. However the initial investment was actually recouped in 2.5 years. In addition to lower energy costs, Credit Suisse received $820,000.00 from New York State in incentives to reduce its energy usage. The substantial energy reduction relieves the pressure on New York State’s overworked electricity grid.

Goldman Sachs’ sparkling office tower in Jersey City opened in 2003 and made Goldman the leader in green building on Wall Street. Among its green features, the office building harvests daylight and cools itself using storm water. The tower walls should make PETA activists happy as they improve the visibility of migrating birds resulting in lower feathered mortality rates.

Both J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs plan to open new green headquarters near Ground Zero by 2010. Goldman’s goal for its $2.4 billion, 43-story building is to obtain Gold certification through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). J.P. Morgan’s new investment banking headquarters being built in lower Manhattan will garner LEED Platinum certification. Saving energy and natural resources combined with saving money add up to a winning trade for these banks any way you look at it. “Sustainable banking” is a growing model that will continue to make sense socially and economically.

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