Blogs & Ecology

SoCap08 provided all sorts of reasons for optimism about capitalism as a force for social good. A new breed of entrepreneurs is busting through old mental models and market forces to drive results based on the new metric called the triple-bottom line.

My take-away from SoCap08 was the realization that, as essential as the private market is in producing large-scale change, the public sector – government – is just as vital, for at least a couple of reasons.

Over the last few years I’ve heard a lot of talk in the environmental and social entrepreneurship communities about the importance of ‘scalability’ in social ventures. Simply put, scalability is basically the ability for a system to expand. It’s one of the key indicators for grant or investor funding…but it often clashes with “green” values.

Part of a series of posts by John Gartner of Matter Network: Just as the solar industry has spawned many new business (specialty finance companies, power aggregators, installers) so will electrified vehicles create supporting niche industries. According to utility, automotive, and related industries executives attending the RMI Smart Garage charrette, these companies will be needed to assume risk that automakers and utilities aren't willing to take as a service layer in between the two. These new services include:

MMA Renewable Ventures and SunPower Corporation joined representatives from Gap, Inc. on Tuesday to unveil a one megawatt solar power system at the Gap’s West Coast Distribution Center in Fresno.

Twenty-five cell phone service providers have signed on to the GSM Association’s “Green Power for Mobile” program, which aims to convert 118,000 off-grid cell transmission towers from diesel to renewable power or fuel sources by 2012, reports Greenbiz in a Sept. 23 article.

When I was asked if I’d like to speak with Dr. Richard Sayre, a leading biofuels researcher who was recently named director of the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, I admit my first thought was more the potential of corporate greenwashing than it was than about biofuels research. A rental car company funding biofuels research? (What next? Big Oil funding biofuel research? Hmm….)

It's as simple as the name of the company's diminutive, inexpensive yet iconic product, the Civic. Honda Motor Company has built a world-beating business rooted in a straightforward social commitment. As Tetsuo Iwamura, president of Honda North America puts it, ". . . We want to make Honda the company that society wants to exist."

In its race for the green tech gold medal (sorry, I'm not supposed to use Olympics references anymore), Dell has just received the EPEAT Gold standard for its new Studio Hybrid line. The Hybrid is the first consumer level desktop to meet the gold standard. The computers are 80% smaller than standard desktops, ENERGY STAR compliant, use 75% less printed documentation, and use packaging comprised of 95% recycled material.

Look out lululemon!
Sustainable yoga and athletic sports apparel behemoth, lululemon has got some competitors on the way...

There's no better time to buy sustainable clothing than Nau. The stringent fashion line that appeals to sports enthusiasts to fashionistas alike was close to shutting down until Horny Toad, entrepreneurial adventure clothing company in Santa Barbara decided to take up Nau's assets, as was announced in WendMag today.

Dovetailing nicely into my post last week about the work GreenFuel is doing with algae and their emissions-to-fuel process, air carrier KLM reported last week their intention to begin testing airplanes that run on an alga

While there is a movement to avoid printing printing emails, and attachments can be read in PDF, resumes, photos and legal documents are often items that still require printing.

HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) continues to push the envelope with an announcement yesterday to reinforce their position as "a leader in environmental sustainability for the imaging and printing market."

“We're now hip deep, if not drowning, in the ‘experience economy’.”

I recently attended Part 2 of the Commonwealth Club’s panel discussion Conscious Capitalism (part 1 of the discussion was held last January and is available online at Fora.TV – Part 2 should be available there soon).

Panel members included:

Think back to when you actually saw a UPS truck sitting at a crowded intersection waiting to turn left. Depending on where you live, it may have been awhile. Because in some test markets Brown doesn’t go left. (and I’m not talking about the upcoming election.)

Today, a dozen companies will reveal plans to implement business expertise, including the use of their technology and innovations to serve poverty alleviation within the Majority World.

A study by the Kenexa Research Institute indicates that organizations environmental initiatives significantly influence employee motivation and their opinions of senior management. Fifty-four percent of employees surveyed in a cross-culture study that spanned 13 countries looked favorably on their organizations’ “green” initiatives. More Indian workers (63%) looked favorably on their organization’s environmental initiatives than their counterparts in Russia (42%) and Japan (40%), where the two least favorable ratings were recorded.