COVER STORY: The Green 15

It's here: OC METRO's annual list of local companies that are listening to their environmental conscience.

January 1, 2009
compiled by Amy Bentley at OCMetro.com


Melting icecaps. Toxic rivers. Belching smokestacks. Massive, ever-growing landfills. Make no mistake about it: Earth, our only home, is under siege. Unless we change our ways and take steps to ease the burden on our environment, our future – indeed, our very existence – could be seriously compromised.

Fortunately, a number of forward-thinking companies right here in Orange County are taking bold steps to help Mother Earth. They're changing our views, by example, of what it really means to be eco-conscious.

The Irvine Co. – master planners, community builders and real estate investors – is waging a war on water waste in landscaping. Seeking to gain control over outdoor use after seeing large amounts wasted due to over-watering, company officials sought ways to better control rising water and landscaping costs while improving environmental stewardship.

The Irvine Co. notes that over-watering contributes to problems such as moldy plants, mushy lawns and wasted water running down sidewalks and streets. The company worked with HydroPoint,a provider of selected WeatherTRAK controllers, as studies show that smart water-management technology systems dramatically reduce consumption and urban runoff pollution, a byproduct of water waste. The Irvine Co. began replacing ordinary irrigation sprinklers with HydroPoint's WeatherTRAK smart controllers and saw immediate savings in water and money, as outdoor water consumption declined by 30 percent at monitored sites.

Today, the Irvine Co.'s property portfolio represents one of the largest installations of smart controllers in the United States, with 173 units operating at commercial, retail and residential sites in the counties of Orange, San Diego and Santa Clara.