With Gov. Gray Davis declaring a state of emergency and rolling blackouts sweeping the state last week, energy-wise retailer Real Goods has opened its first Southern California operation in West L.A. and is setting out to prove one can maintain creature comforts while sucking up far less juice.
Started in Northern California in 1978, Real Goods’ original mission, in the words of founder and CEO John Schaeffer, was to serve “the needs of rural homesteaders in what was called the-back-to-the-land movement, by marketing solar panels, generators, water-reclamation equipment and other gear to help folks stay off-grid.”
And with rising uncertainty about the supply and price of energy, going “off-grid” or at least being less dependent on the grid may find new appeal among consumers.
Real Goods, which started out as a catalog-only enterprise, has become a real bricks-and-clicks enterprise, operating a flagship store in Hopland, additional stores in Berkeley and Los Gatos, a busy Web site and, as of six months ago, its first L.A. operation at the corner of Barrington Avenue and National Boulevard, where it shares a building and a demographic with a Whole Foods grocery market.
Painless transition
“We’ve had a tremendous response since we started here,” says store manager Lisa Matsuura Walker. “We’ve seen more people take interest in energy efficiency.”
Indeed, Real Goods aims to make a green lifestyle as painless as possible, offering an array of what Walker terms “preparatory steps” to wiser energy use, including rechargeable batteries, solar rechargers and an array of compact fluorescent bulbs for around the house. Those bulbs, Walker noted, all produce “higher lumens for lower watts,” and waste much less energy given off as heat.
For the more ambitious, Real Goods also carries renewable fuel cells, small wind turbines and solar photovoltaic systems even simple ones for the residential rooftops. There is also an array of devices for the kitchen and garden, clothing products, as well as toys and books.
If light bulbs and batteries mean a change in direction from its original mission of helping people recycle gray water and make their own wind power, Real Goods’ October 2000 merger with publicly traded Gaiam Inc. should further facilitate that.
Boulder, Colo.-based Gaiam already has a lead in the “lifestyle” products category, freeing Real Goods to “develop more in terms of renewable energy and hardware,” Walker said.
She also hopes to make the L.A. store “greener.”
Eco-friendly operations
Specifically, Walker would like to model the L.A. store more closely after the company’s headquarters and showroom in Hopland, which is built on 12 acres of a former Caltrans asphalt dump. That facility is built from recycled and low-impact materials and uses 100 percent passive solar power to keep the sales floor lit.
The L.A. outlet may have a way to go to match that. Still, most of the shelving is from recycled materials and a majority of the lights are low-watt fluorescents.
Real Goods, which generated revenues of $16 million in 2000, also has initiated local community outreach efforts by co-sponsoring the annual “Homes for the Future” tour, which showcases Southern California homes that use simple lighting designs, insulation methods, photo-voltaic panels and drought-resistant landscaping to slash energy costs.
And whenever the solar energy running down from your rooftop and through your meter exceeds the amount of power you’re using, then “your meter is going to run backwards,” Walker noted.
