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Nyenrode Grad Cleans Up Bad Gas From Office Blocks

Green start-up ZestIQ can help companies at no extra cost

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Nathalie Jonk is a Nyenrode MBA alumna

Nathalie Jonk is a Nyenrode MBA alumna, who will leave her job in banking to be a fulltime green entrepreneur. She says, "this transition from the certainty of a steady income to the adventure of pioneering in sustainability is very exciting to me!"

Emission-free office buildings
The company is called ZestIQ (Smart Energy) and we look at the carbon dioxide balance of corporate buildings. The usage on the left side and the delivery of energy on the right side of the balance. We make a scan of the current situation and offer solutions in the direction of emission-free office buildings.

What we do is reduce the need for electricity or gas by introducing alternatives e.g. for lighting and other big energy users, and for the rest we offer alternative power supplies, such as solar panels or small windmills.

We offer all the solutions as a package where the investment can be financed through us and the repayments can be done from the savings on the energy costs. In that way it is an offer that the customer can't refuse. Saving energy instantly without extra costs!

Does the business world really care about the environment?
There is so much work to do in the corporate social responsibility world, that it seems difficult to see where to start. This makes it very exciting and refreshing to start in this field.

Many hurdles need to be overcome, because this topic is not top of mind within large companies or governmental bodies. It isn't part of the average corporate DNA yet. I see it as a challenge, to make it attractive within large companies to switch to using less energy.

This transition can be marketed with a feel-good, look-good flavour to it. In order to connect to more sustainable energy sources one must make use of new technologies and the latest innovations. This way the company has a feeling it is innovating as well.

I believe that a green world is much more accessible than thought at first glance. The slow green revolution is still led by people who have a sincere belief in the cause, but slowly it’s finding its way to the larger public, who can see that their quality of life can improve at no extra cost by switching to "feel-good, look-good" alternatives. We'll get there!

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Comments

27 July 2010

Hi Nathalie this is a really great idea..I'm interested...how much can you save a company per year? Who pays for all of the up-front costs that might be associated with 'going green' like installation of the solar panels/new light bulbs - office plants?