Green Valley Greenhouse: Growing smarter with Energy Smart and Waste Wise

When Phil Johnson, CFO of Green Valley Greenhouse, connected with the Energy Smart program in March 2025, he was looking for help with one project. A year later, his 28-acre operation has implemented several sustainability upgrades that are saving the business real money.

The journey started with a referral from their contractor, Sustainable Energy Savings, a fellow Chamber member. Morgan Nordby, Program Coordinator for Energy Smart, met with Phil to explore options and help apply for a business energy efficiency grant for a blackout curtain system the greenhouse was already planning to install.

"Maintaining proper growing conditions in a greenhouse can be difficult and expensive," says Morgan. "Blackout curtains are a great way to lower energy costs while also improving growing conditions."

The results were significant. CenterPoint Energy approved a custom rebate of $8,090 for the project, and the new curtain system will save Green Valley Greenhouse 1,541 Dekatherms of natural gas every year and more than $9,000 on annual natural gas costs. 

That first win opened the door to more. After their site visit with Energy Smart, Green Valley Greenhouse joined the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and connected with Kristyn Buetow, a Senior Sustainability Specialist with the Waste Wise program.

Leveraging an Anoka County grant and a Chamber member grant through the Sustainability Foundation, they received $11,890.02 to fund waste reduction projects across the facility, covering forklift hoppers, an electric food mill and collection containers to expand their existing composting operation for unsaleable plants. The result: 2,500 pounds of organic matter diverted from landfill each year.

But the biggest opportunity was one they hadn't anticipated. Kristyn identified plastic film as a major untapped recycling stream. Soil bags, pallet wrap, and other incoming packaging were heading straight to the dumpster because the sustainability decisions of suppliers were simply out of Green Valley's hands. Grant funding covered startup costs for a plastic film recycling program, including reusable pallet wrap and storage hoppers, and the numbers speak for themselves: 10,920 pounds of plastic film recycled annually, and more than $10,000 in annual savings on waste hauling.

Phil puts it plainly, "We saved $6,000 by not putting plastic film in dumpsters over the past four months and instead we found a place to recycle them."

What started as a single energy project became a full sustainability overhaul.