Northern Colorado is starting to ride the green wave.

Shoppers are snapping up those reusable grocery bags, they’ve poured into the streets with their hybrid vehicles and bicycles, they line their sidewalks with recyclables ready for pick-up and they shop farmers markets for locally grown foods. As the green trends grow, northern Colorado businesses are testing the waters, too. Green Ride Colorado, a hybrid-vehicle cab service, is trying to get off the ground; Clean N’ Green, a 100 percent environmentally friendly janitorial service, could cash in on home and commercial cleaning; and Brinkman Partners, a development company, promises to build and support sustainable businesses while encouraging its workers to follow suit. “We’re definitely riding the wave of green. It’s the right thing to do,” said Robert Flynn, who is working to establish Green Ride Colorado. He hopes to gain Public Utilities Commission approval in January to start a small fleet of hybrid cabs and more fuel-efficient airport service. “We know there’s a segment of the public that really is interested in doing the right thing. “We see a market advantage by promoting the fact that it is burning less fuel, creating less pollution, less congestion. There’s just so many reasons to do it.”

These business owners have good timing. Green or sustainable business practices are the rage in this modern world, where as much as 20 percent of consumers nationwide would pay a premium on “green” goods and services, said John Grant, a visiting professor of management at the Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado. He has spent the past four years focusing on sustainable business practices.

Recent economic turmoil may hinder that trend in the short term, but Grant said he believes the die is cast. “I’m confident in the long run that consumer behavior will move in this direction because there is enough momentum now in the education system,” Grant said. “I’d think in northern Colorado, the percentage is more apt to be 40 percent of people willing to pay a bit of a premium both to help the environment, as well as, in some places, to get the slight status benefit of being associated with environmentally” sound practices, Grant said. The key for the business is to walk the walk, said Paul Brinkman, president and CEO of Brinkman Partners, which built its new building last spring at 3003 East Harmony Road in Fort Collins.

The design-development and construction company focuses on sustainability. “Some people use it as a marketing tool, and others really walk the talk,” Brinkman said, adding that the company recently promoted an employee to director of sustainability. “There a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon from the standpoint of marketing, and a lot less that are really living it every day.” Brinkman’s new building is LEED certified, and it offers nine close-in parking spaces for hybrid or fuel-efficient vehicles. A couple of employees already have bought the new hybrid vehicles to gain the privilege of better parking. “Often, it takes a financial incentive or encouragement,” Brinkman said of the parking spaces. “For us, it was a way to encourage it, and when people come up, it draws your attention and forces you to think about that someone is making a commitment to sustainability.”

Keith Gregory, 25, and a recent graduate of the University of Denver masters of business administration program, said sustainability means being more efficient and ensuring business success in the long-term. “Sustainability to me is a position companies should take no matter what they’re doing, so they can operate more efficiently over the long term,” said Gregory, whose business, Clean ‘N Green, is based in Greeley. “Sustainability and being a green business doesn’t mean being an environmental wacko. It means doing things sensibly.” Gregory, who grew up working in the wood industry and admittedly “hating” environmentalists, said he learned some lessons in his masters program that showed him the way to make business better through sustainability, while being more earth-friendly. He offers only environmentally friendly products in his business, which he says also is riding that green wave in residential and commercial cleaning. His cleaning techniques use high-pressure, high-heat water instead of bleach, for example. Why expose yourself, or employees, to those chemicals when environmentally friendly methods do just as well, he asks. “One of the reasons we’ve seen success is because people do want to go green and we offer an easy alternative,” Gregory said. “The only thing we’ll do is green cleaning and the only products we use have to meet those certifications. … In the U.S., we have the technology to do these kinds of things and we don’t have to have a drastic impact on the environment. .. Hopefully, in some small way, we can make the world a better place.”

The green wave is likely not going to go away, Grant said. “It’s a trend in the sense that a lot of businesses see this as a marketing opportunity, particularly with a certain demographic, whether it’s the college-aged student or people who’ve been sensitized in recent years,” Grant said. “But the public education is getting to be much broader and deeper, that it is going to become an enduring trend as people increasingly realize” how important it is.