Another variation on this would take off on Paul Hawkens ideas on conservation utilities (Hawken, 1993, p. 191-194). The utility is a combination public/private enterprise whose self-interest can be designed to correspond to the long-term public interest. In the realm of energy, green thinking has already spurred a new vision for electrical utilities formerly oriented only to generation or sales. It has proposed new kinds of market incentives for saving, and some of these incentives are actually being applied as part of growing concern with demand side management. Hawken has proposed something similar for resources, more applicable to primary resources and extraction industry, as a means, for example, of stewardship of forest and aquatic resources. The idea could, however, also be applied to retail sales, since building material retailers are in a similar position to most municipal utilities (like Toronto Hydro) whose financial raison d'tre has been to sell as much energy as possible. Becoming a utility requires, however, taking on larger responsibilities, internalizing related costs, and developing new sources of income. Building centres could do that by combining material sales (new and used) with green building education, deconstruction services, inspections and audits, building retrofit services, etc. Tax measures could be a means of encouraging this. And EPR legislation closing loops and curbing disposal certainly would be. But many other kinds of structural incentives could be employed, reflecting the centres roles in trades training, job creation, building certification, waste reduction, etc. Because of the enormous role of building materials in the economy, and because of its pivotal position in the community, the building centre should become, like the municipal energy utility (Milani, 2000, p. 128), a strategic institution of green community development.