The dire news about global warming and soaring energy prices could translate to lucrative market opportunities for businesses that figure out how to capitalize on developing products for the green movement, environmental experts told PPG Industries employees yesterday.

PPG, which is striving to be one of those companies, invited employees to hear about its green initiatives in a setting seemingly designed for the environmentally conscious event: the plant- and natural light-filled PPG Wintergarden adjacent to the company's headquarters in One PPG Place, Downtown.

Though one speaker at the company's "Energy Security and Climate Change Day" quipped that the conservatory-like Wintergarden might have been more energy efficient with its windows open on what was a cool, clear, spring morning, PPG used the forum to tout its efforts to cut energy consumption at its industrial facilities and to promote its line of environmentally friendly paints and solar glass.

About $3.5 billion of PPG's $11 billion in sales last year were generated by so-called green products, said Charles Bunch, company chairman and chief executive officer.

Besides Mr. Bunch and other PPG officials, the event featured presentations by The Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen, a climate expert; Rebecca Flora, executive director of the Green Building Alliance; and Vivian Loftness, professor of architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.

According to Ms. Cullen, scientific studies and models show that global warming can be traced to carbon dioxide that results from burning nonrenewable fossil fuels. "It's human influence; it's coming from us," she said.

Among the most effective ways to get people to think proactively about the environment is to make it an economic issue, said Ms. Flora. "That's a reality and not one I like …. But it drives most of our American thinking. Energy costs are driving the whole green [movement]."

Ms. Loftness, who said her remarks were targeted at employees of PPG's glass business, contended that the next generation of commercial buildings would be designed with windows that take advantage of "free" energy supplied by natural daylight, natural ventilation and solar heat. There are other, lesser known benefits to such designs, she said: higher test scores for students in naturally lit and naturally ventilated classrooms and fewer incidents of sick building syndrome.