Sustainabilty is certainly a hot topic.

But why should roofing contractors go green?

For one, "because our customers are going to require that from us," Ken Kelly, president of Kelly Roofing, said during an exclusive interview with Roofing & Exteriors.

"So some of the things that we can do right off the bat without raising, raising our price to the customer, or really changing what we do is just simply offering a lighter-colored roof system," he noted.

Contractors can also be proactive in cleaning up job site waste.

Kelly said that five percent of all of the garbage and debris that goes into landfills in the United States is roofing products.

"So the less we can ship in that direction, the more that we can reuse or use on-site, the better," said Kelly, who pointed out that PVC, for example, is 100% recyclable. 

Another way to go green is to make the leap from paper to digital.

All the paperwork from jobs could be turned into a PDF, for example, Kelly noted.

"Email it to your supervisors or your crew leaders and let them refer back to that email whenever they have questions about the job," he said. "There's no paper involved."