Up on the Roof


In 2010 Vanessa Keitges and several investors purchased Portland-based Columbia Green Technologies, a green-roof company. The 13-person firm has a 200% annual growth rate, exports 30% of its product to Canada and received its first infusion of venture capital in 2014 from Yaletown Venture Partners. CEO Keitges, 40, a Southern Oregon native who serves on President Obama’s Export Council, talks about market innovation, scaling small business and why Oregon is falling behind in green-roof construction. 

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BY LINDA BAKER

0915 tactics01

In 2010 Vanessa Keitges and several investors purchased Portland-based Columbia Green Technologies, a green-roof company. The 13-person firm has a 200% annual growth rate, exports 30% of its product to Canada and received its first infusion of venture capital in 2014 from Yaletown Venture Partners. CEO Keitges, 40, a Southern Oregon native who serves on President Obama’s Export Council, talks about market innovation, scaling small business and why Oregon is falling behind in green-roof construction.

How did your work experience prepare you for the green building sector?

I worked for VoteHere.net. We made online voting and electronic voting machines during the punch-card fiasco in 2000. Overnight the federal election commission mandated electronic voting across the country. So I learned about the mandates piece of the business and how to get into mandating areas to change policy, which then shifts innovation. I grew up with that company and ended up going to London to open their European offices. It was really fun.

You rode the dot-com wave, then moved into sustainability.

I looked at solar and wind and couldn’t figure out, to be honest, how to make money from it. There was this green-roof company in Portland. I looked at it like: green roofs, what hippie thing is that? But I dug into it and understood that green roofs, which date back to the beginning of time, are there to manage water. Managing water, cleaning water, is a massive business for cities.

Green roofs are about storm- water management?

We focus on storm water because that is where the revenue and ROI [return on investment] is. But the other bifactors are phenomenal. We reduce air pollution. We reduce the heat-island effect. We bring back habitat.

What’s behind your 200% growth rate?

We manufacture green-roof products, then sell them through roofing membrane companies. In the green industry, buying from small businesses can be nerve-racking. Buying from someone who has been around for years, with a name — that allows companies to feel comfortable about buying the green roof. This model of not trying to go direct but selling through the manufacturer gives us scale.

What are the policy drivers?

Growth comes from following where regulations are, where storm-water fees are high. The company was started because of a Portland policy change. Portland had the first ecoroof department and the first incentive in the country. But where we used to be very innovative in the space, we are falling behind — way behind. Other cities across the country are adopting more innovative policies around green to make a bigger impact.

What are other cities doing that we aren’t?

Portland discontinued the incentive. Other cities have mandated you have to retain X amount of water for X amount of landscaping; you can’t build unless you use a percentage of site with landscaping. In Seattle we just finished one of Paul Allen’s [Vulcan Inc.] buildings. The city reduced the storm-water fee to incentivize the developer. The storm-water discharge fee [would have been] $300,000. The city reduced the fee to $150,000, and we did the green roof for $80,000. So the developer netted $70,000.

That can’t happen here?

Here we don’t do mandates. It’s unfortunate, in a time when the market is coming back from a construction standpoint, we’re not going to see a lot of green. We are building the same number of green roofs today as we did in the year 2000. Portland did more green roofs in 2008 — during the worst construction time — than today. We export to Toronto, where they have mandated green roofs. Chicago has mandated green roofs. France just mandated green roofs!

First-generation green roofs had technical problems: leaks, dried- out plants.

Brown roofs. Not only did plants die, storms would come in and flood. We had a lot of lessons learned. We design and manufacture our green roofs and have perfected the technology. We use trays that lego together on the roof, and then you put in the growing medium. The system has a built-in irrigation system with sensors. When it gets too hot, it will water the plants.

Describe a few market innovations.

We received a grant from Oregon BEST and Portland State University built us a storm-water modeling tool. It allows us to say, for example: In New York City, if you build this type of system, this is how much water the roof will retain. That performance data is new to the industry. We’re looking at taking air conditioning condensation, putting that into a barrel and using that irrigation to water the system. We’re trying to connect [green] technologies instead of keeping them siloed.

Portland Mayor Charlie Hales wants to put more solar panels on buildings. Does that interfere with green roofs?

They are both important. Now we can do both and make panels work more efficiently as well. Portland State University has been studying it for three years. Solar panels pooled with green roofs can be 3% to 10% more efficient. We did our first project, the United Nations Plaza Federal Building in San Francisco, and it won Federal Project of the Year [2014] for integrating green roofs with solar.

What’s it like being on Obama’s Export Council?

Exciting. We’re the first Oregon or Washington company to report to the council. Each CEO represents a sector. We meet every six months, and I report on small business and green building innovation. It’s very nerve-racking being in the room with the most powerful people in the world.

Is Oregon losing ground in green-roof construction?
“Portland is a leader in green infrastructure,
including green-roof technology,” says Amy 
Chomowicz, the city of Portland’s ecoroof manager.
She ticks off the city’s accomplishments over the
past decade: “589 green roofs covering 1.7 million
square feet of rooftop keeping 19.7 million gallons
of storm water out of our sewer system every year.”

Portland developers can reduce storm-water fees
by building green roofs, and the city has a floor
area bonus policy allowing builders to increase
density if they incorporate a vegetated roof.

Chomowicz agrees other cities are moving ahead
“with some pretty strong and innovative green-roof
policies.” But Portland is also exploring new
initiatives. One option is adoption of a Seattle
landscape code called the “green factor.” It provides
a menu of choices developers can use to meet
green infrastructure requirements.

“The work we’ve done here has helped spark
enthusiasm and innovation in other cities,” says
Chomowicz. “Any city with strong green-roof
programs and policies is making progress in
protecting the environment and watershed health.”

What happened at the most recent meeting?

We presented for the first time on green building, ensuring the new trade agreements have environmental standards and the importance of global green building standards. It was cool because every CEO has to get behind your recommendation, and all of them got behind our letter about global green building standards.

Your position on the Trans- Pacific Partnership?

I support it. In order to compete globally, you’ve got to figure out how to get your product and services abroad. Here, the largest project we’re working on is maybe an acre. We’re working on a design in the Philippines that is 17 acres. They are building cities. The council is about how we get small business to export. We want to make sure American companies are positioned to take advantage of that.

What about competition from China?

We don’t go to China. China is a huge issue but we can’t afford to fight that battle. They have no patent protection at all. But it doesn’t stop us from taking risks. In the green building world, you have to keep pushing.

What’s next?

We are going to target segments: universities, hospitals. Students these days will apply to a college and one of the first things they look at is the sustainability of school. Universities are walking the talk.

But Portland — not so much?

You want to be a city that is innovating because that’s how you create jobs. Portland needs to step it up on the policy side. Government mandates — that’s how you make change happen.

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