Owning a business can be a financial struggle. That's especially true when the business uses lots of energy every day. But one business is managing by being environmentally sound.

Brian Hooker owns seven dry cleaning stores. He cleans over 4,500 pieces of clothing every day. "These machines are three times as efficient as what we were using previously," he says.

Hooker has only been using his new machines for two months. Their main selling point was their energy efficiency. They also use far less cleaning solvent. "Our solvent use has dropped four times just because of the machines.  The way the solvent is reclaimed with these machines is much more effective than with the old machines," he says.

With the new equipment clothes are washed and dried in the same machine.  The old equipment needed someone to move clothes from the washer to the dryer. That process caused some of the solvent to vaporize into the air. "The solvent is reclaimed in the drying process, the solvent turns into vapor.  The machine reclaims the vapor turning it back into solvent and filtrates out all of dirt and lint in the solvent at that time," he says.

Hooker paid more for his new equipment but expects to recover that in lower energy bills and reduced overhead. That's good for business and good for the environment.

The best news of all is there’s no price change for his customers. "What the customers are seeing with the clothes is they are cleaner and have a better smell to them, odor to them when they come out," he adds.

Hooker's cleaning business also has a hanger recycling program. He gets about 25% of his hangers back on a weekly basis.