Our future now 2009 kicks off in the morning

So I'm a little unsure of what to expect in the a.m. My good friend was unable to join me at the conference so I'll be flying solo. Aside from leaving my business cards in my valet-ed car, I'm ready to see what the conference has to offer. In reviewing the agenda tonight I saw jeff rickert I slated to talk green jobs monday. Also will be lloking forward to sen harkin's panel on efca tuesday am.

All in all, I have an open mind and expect to leave here with no less than 50 new national connections.

That's all for tonight.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Being the Nexus

Everyone assumes the new energy economy will take hold easily - like dandilion seeds kicked up by the neighbor kid trapsing through the yard. That we won't have to help it along or force the market to change. Not so.

The transition for the American economy from a high carbon, high waste, high consumption model to a lean, efficient, and low carbon one will take incredible heat, pressure and persistence. Imagine lacing your shoes with steel shoe laces. Yeah, sort of like that.

Tilde Herrerra calls this a New Era of Climate Thinking in a post today on Greenbiz.com.  Tilde sites the recent remarks of Mary Nichols of the California Air Resource Board about the immense opportunity that carbon cap and trade presents for American companies

“So obviously companies that can figure out ways to cost-effectively create products that people want to buy, or things that people need, and do it with the lowest overall lifecycle impact on climate are the big winners in this new economy,” Nichols said Thursday during a keynote speech at the West Coast Summit of the Women's Network for a Sustainable Future in Santa Clara, Calif."

Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be that easy. Here's why.

First, a majority of the businesses in America are small businesses, which tend to have owners and managers that are so consumed with operations and survival in their area of impact they have neither the time or energy to commit to understanding "the greening" of their business.

Second, a misconception exists that carbon management and sustainability only really applies to the Wal Marts and US Steels of the world. The little guy or gal has no need to change his or her ways to reduce net imacts. (Meaning, they'll wait until the bloody last minute to act).

And therein lies the OPPORTUNITY. Businesses that can serve as the nexis between the greening industry (solar, wind, biomass, high efficiency, green roofs, and the lot) and the existing industry (pizza shops, grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors' offices, municipal buildings, and a host of so many others large and small) could stand to be the BOOM of the new energy era. 

Think of it this way. Millions of small, medium and large business owners are going to need someome to help them make a fast transition, and it won't be someone they can afford to hire, train, and be on staff full time. But they certainly would team up with industry partners, business neighbors, or vendors they do business with to hire consultants to help them make the transition to sustainability.

Ultimately what spells success in this arena? Understanding that to be successful the approach has got to be about how to make the existing business more profitable and less impactful. Each step towards sustainability must be towards the core competencies and strengths of the business.  Technology should be utilized to maximize energy monitoring power. And most of all, focus on the three highest net impact areas first. For many businesses, the low-hanging fruit will be reducing electricity waste, implementing electricity efficiency, and exploring a sustainable local supply chain. 

What are you doing to build the new energy era? Get off your carbon emitter and get to action because the opportunities are passing you by.

GM: Have they been eating their bailout dollars?

This morning General Motors unveiled a new concept: the P.U.M.A. project. This project alone appears to reveal just about everything that is wrong with General Motors and why it might not be destined for bankruptcy, but rather total irrelevance and failure. 

The concept appears to be this: partner with the manufacturer of Segway to provide people will another excuse for not exercising or using mass transit. It's almost as if they put five people in a room and said "design us something that will make us the laughing stock of the auto industry." The P.U.M.A looks like a cross between a Ferris wheel bucket and something you'd ride at Epcot center. It's eerily reminiscent of the people movers all the fat people were riding around on in Wall-E.

Seriously GM, why not get into the business of building MAGLEV trains or highly affordable, zero pollution mass transit trains that towns could actually afford to build, maintain, and promote? Why not find the answer to moving rural and suburban people from home to work in cities 15 to 20 miles away? Why on earth would you design something for city dwellers who will have nowhere to store it and already have access to a wide variety of transportation that is being greened: taxi cabs, buses, and subways?

GM, you were supposed to spend that bailout money on solutions for the future. Not offer it as an appetizer in the lunchroom. 

Be a Noah

While out in the yard enjoying the arrival of spring and tending to the work of getting things growing again outside, I listened to a chapter of Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman that was incredibly fitting for the week ahead. As proof of how the universe works, the ideas presented by Friedman reinforced a conversation a friend and I had this morning over oatmeal and eggs: that the sustainability movement in residential energy as well as commercial has the opportunity to fundamentally reshape how we do things. However, the answer to a new sustainability model is not to wait for some megacompany to come along with the incredible single invention that will solve our problems. 

According to Friendman in the book, "Noah had one ark to save the earth's biodiversity in his day, and we need a million of them to save the biodiversity in ours....Some say the key to solving our energy problem is just one really smart Thomas Edison - one inventor who can come up with that magic breakthrough to generate abundant, clean, reliable, cheap power. Maybe."

I tend to think that's a very BIG maybe, and for that reason why sit around and wait. A friend and I spoke this morning about the immense opportunity green jobs and green entrepreneurship brings to our region, and just how few companies out there are engaging in the work now. We talked about how few people in our state today have the training and certification to engage in the work of greening energy, and if they are out there, we aren't all connected as we should be. 

If energypreneurs can muster the will and courage to take a leap into the business world, not only could we push the envelope when it comes to sustainable business practices in our region, but we could potentially create hundreds of good paying jobs and successful companies in the process.

Help Local Companies Connect the Dots, Because No One Else Will

I'm a little disturbed by some articles I've been reading this week in Central Pennsylvania about businesses addressing their energy and natural resource usage. The Central Pennsylvania Business Journal publishes an intriguing publication called Currents that explores various new trends in sustainability, energy conservation, and going green.  David Dagan had a good piece on "5 Ways to Fight the Price Surge" referring to the removal of rate caps from electricity prices by PA energy generators this year. While Dagan did a nice job at cataloguing the steps companies can take to save money in the new energy-climate era we now find ourselves opening the door to, he only scratched the surface, and like all things related to "greening" in Central Pennsylvania, failed to really connect the dots for the reader.

What left me most aggravated about the latest issue however was the company directory supplied in the back. As with all publications, consider the agenda, right? Well, try this on for size. The listing of17  fuel companies included only a single local company that engages in selling biodiesel or other biofuels. United Biofuels,  Amerigreen - not on the list despite that being their specialty. Wouldn't a publication about sustainability work to find a listing of biodiesel and biofuel companies?

Worse yet, when you turn the page to a list of electricity-distribution companies, the list is only 8 companies long because not a single renewable energy company (as in their primary function is the production or sale of clean, renewable electrons) is listed there.

And finally, the listing of electrical, plumbing, and HVAC distributors seems to be a listing of suppliers of this equipment, not necessarily a listing of the contractors and skilled workers in the area who would actually be qualified to install high efficiency air conditioning, solar, wind or other systems.

To be abundantly clear, we will not achieve a new model for business efficiency and sustainability if we take old energy economy firms and paint them green. They have to be retooled, retrained, and re-educated in the language of green. Their standards must rise. What I wish the Central Penn Business journal would have said was "When you think about 'going green' think how Google would do it, not Wal-Mart.

Excuse me. How much is this carbon?

Do you know how much carbon you emit through your job? Here's a better question: In the not-so-distant future, will your company see you for what your bring to the job or for how much carbon you're costing the company?

That second question is one nearly none of us have ever considered at work, but in the new energy century, businesses will assuredly be required to keep account of every ton of carbon dioxide they pollute annually.  What are the accounting practices and procedures we'll use to add up all those invisible but deadly plumes of carbon dioxide? What will the price be for a ton of carbon credits? What is the penalty be for exceeding your annual limit?

These critical questions are part of the new energy century and will be coming to an office, factory, or pizza shop near you. But have no fear: carbon cap and trade is a financial opportunity, not a drag on the bottom line. Consider this recent post by Ryan Schuchard on Greenbiz.com

"Companies that generate and rely on low-carbon energy are set to prosper, as are those that can exploit technological breakthroughs in resource efficiency and materials. Those firms generating new forms of energy -- in particular, renewables -- will participate in a massively growing market. Companies in industries that address adaptation problems, such as pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, stand to gain. In the end, as the world’s climate policies are developed and strengthened, there will be important roles for companies from almost every industry." 

I couldn't agree more. Not only will an entire new market be created in which international carbon credits will be traded, but carbon brokerage firms, carbon accounters, carbon assessors, carbon auditors, carbon day traders, and a thousand other carbon-related jobs stand to be created in the next decade.

I encourage energypreneurs to think creatively about solutions to the dilemmas facing corporations around their carbon obligations in the coming months and share ideas here as authors on the Energyprenuers blog.

Sustainability taking root?

A recent column in our local Harrisburg newpaper pointed to new trends in sustainability as offering hope for the future of Pennsylvania. The author, John Dernbach, points to six areas of improvement that give him hope. Here is number 5:

Sustainable business practices have gone from being just a "movement" to the mainstream of the market. It is increasingly clear to business that the triple bottom line--economic, social and environmental -- provides many profitable opportunities.

The question for energypreneurs is how do we flesh out more clearly how sustainability is profitable and how can it become a key business model for moving a company a step above the competition?

Two thoughts here. First, that sustainability is profitable most directly through energy efficiency and conservation. Businesses that takes steps in the next three to seven years to mitigate their energy costs, conserve energy, and put energy costs and carbon emissions as part of the bottomline will be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition that will be forced to "react" to a changing political and business landscape as energy and climate change come to drive more of our everyday actions.

Second thought: Dernbach suggests in the article that "hundreds" of companies are engaged in recycling, brownfield mitigation, and clean energy production.  Hundreds? Yes, actually thousands.  But quantity does not equal quality here. For example, thousands of small companies running borough to borough or city to city to collect items for recycling may never reach the economy of scale necessary to help their businesses take root and really push recycling rates in Pennsylvania beyond it's meager 35% rate. And it's only that high because PA DEP started counting heavier items in the total tonage calculations in 1996 using the EPA model.  And does that take into account the thousands of tons of trash Pennsylvania imports as the #1 state trash importer every year? Probably not.

There continues to be a disjointed and ridiculous consumption driven approach to waste management, energy, and land use in Pennsylvania as well as other states. Nonprofits have worked for decades to get to the bottom of these matters, but increasinly I am coming to believe business will be ultimate change agent when it comes to behaviors. We need more businesses that can get to the bottom of how to improve these "systems" to be more efficient, actually promote conserving energy and resources, and be profitable ventures with good green jobs for the workers.