Corporate Climate Response - Live

Check out Ogilvy PR's live blogging from the 3 day Corporate Climate Response conference that ends today, May 31st.

http://www.climateresponseblog.com

Presidential Candidates need to Emulate the Governator on the Environment

In an Op-Ed piece in today's Washington Post, Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jodi Rell blast the federal government for its failure to take the lead on global warming regulations and for standing in the way of states such as California and Connecticut who want emissions regulations that are more aggressive than the EPA recommendations.

This is yet another gutsy move by Gov. Schwarzenegger as he continues to be the maverick of the Republican party. He is taking heat from conservatives and those on the right for being "soft" on the environment, or should I say for believing the Global Warming "myth." Just like we say with Ron Paul's remarks on terrorism during last week's Republican debate in South Carolina, most of the candidates are out of touch with what the public. Old school partisanship is out. Standing up for what is right and bucking your party line is no longer taboo (unless you are Joe Lieberman).

Gov. Schwarzenegger's leadership on the environment is something that is severely lacking from the political debate. Is anyone else sick about Iraq and Abortion dominating these debates? What about the environment? What about energy independence? How about education? Iraq was last election. We need this election to be about our future, about the critical issues where the United States are falling behind in the global economy. Education and the Environment are two issues that have hardly been mentioned during this first phase of the presidential primaries. We need strong leadership and candidates who have done more than just play lip service to alternative energy.

This is not an endorsement but I strongly believe that Governor Bill Richardson is one of the few candidates who actually stands out when it comes to green energy initiatives. Unfortunately, money runs these elections and Richardson cannot touch the fund raising prowess of the big three democratic hopefuls. Most people do not even know who he is! Although I don't see him beating Edwards, Clinton, or Obama for the presidential nod I think Richardson would be the best VP candidate on the democratic ticket. He brings more experience to the table than the three combined. I'll have more on the Presidential candidates and their green policies (hey Iowans - McCain really does hate ethanol) down the road after the field starts to whittle down.

Potential Solar Breakthrough Could be Around the Corner

As some of you know, I am a huge fan of Solar Thermal technology, and although some companies such as Stirling Energy Systems have solar thermal plants currently under construction, the energy produced by these large scale solar plants will still be more expensive than electricity produced by coal fired plants. Last week at the Clean Energy Venture Summit in Austin Texas, Solar Thermal company Asura presented a technology it is currently testing that may be able to store the excess energy it produces from its solar thermal arrays. This could be huge!

Solar electricity is currently only feasible during peak usage periods but the capability to store energy for the hours when the sun is not shining could mean that solar electricity would finally be competitive with electricity produced by coal power plants. I am betting that electricity from coal fired plants will eventually go up due to the utilities passing on the costs of meeting emissions regulations. Unless we finally have a breakthrough in Nuclear waste storage or CO2 ground storage we are going to have to rely on coal plants for the majority of our electricity demands. This is not good. Coal plants are probably the biggest culprit for climate change, smog, and pollution; and even though they talk a big game about reducing pollution they know that there is no competition for cheap electricity, which is why there will be 30 or 40 new coal plants built over the next couple years in the US. That could change if we can see a major breakthrough such as solar thermal storage. The amount of venture capital going into clean tech and solar start-ups means that we are almost certain to see a breakthrough eventually.

My question is this, and I am kind of switching gears here:

When will our government and policy makers stop drinking the ethanol cool-aid and start backing a truly clean technology without the negative consequences of corn based ethanol.

Besides high costs there is no downside to solar energy. There are tax credits for businesses and residences for photovoltaics but that has proven to be cost effective in places such as California which has enough sun hours and incentives to make it a worthy investment. I think the key is getting the incentives to the companies and technologies that are upstream so that customers can use solar produced electricity regardless of their location. The government needs to require utilities to get more of their production from clean tech companies such as SES and Auras and they need to make the deadline to meet that threshold sooner than 2020. They should also make the threshold for clean energy production even higher for dirty coal companies.


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More Candor, Less Pander

This week I need to talk about something that has been greatly irritating me. In the wake of the first two debates for what looks like will be a very long road to the presidency, you can clearly start to hear the political shape shifting that candidates can't seem to stop themselves from doing. This shape shifting is the ambivalent stance they take on issues so they can't be pinned down as being pro or against a certain issue. This is normal behavior but, it can't be tolerated when it comes to pushing forward to save our planet and ourselves.

Recently when certain politicians have been asked "Do you believe in global warming?" they give the type of response that acknowledges that the planet's temperature is rising, and they want to do all they can to help but, are still not convinced that humans are causing this change. What!!!!

Here is an example, Listen to the end of this clip from a presidential candidate. He says "blaming humans for enjoying the environment is extreme"

Maybe his idea of enjoying the environment is pumping extreme amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, dumping waste into our oceans, cutting down rain forests, etc... My concept of enjoyment is a little different.

There is a major problem with the argument that humans can't be blamed for our environmental problems, and we need to call politicians out on it. The problem is that if you are unwilling to identify human behavior as the cause for the environmental problems then you remove yourself of any obligation to change human behavior.

No problem can be approached or solved without identifying the cause of the problem. Yes, I know it sucks to have to change our routine of energy and resource waste that we humans are so used to but, the alternative is much worse.

Going green should not be a divisive political issue. The only reason some candidates are unwilling to blame humans for environmental change is because they are pandering to their corporate interests that may have to change the way they are doing business. That is why instead of pandering we need leaders who will speak with candor about the fact that "yes" we humans caused the problems and now we need to change them.

If we can't agree politically on this issue at least, I'm sorry to say but it is a very sad time in our country's history.

By 2020, we'll all be dead.

"A key Senate committee today adopted a fuel-efficiency plan that would require automakers' products to average 35 miles per gallon by 2020."

Instead of taking action to drastically improve their emissions I am sure the auto industry will instead spend the money on lobbyists to fight the new fuel efficiency proposal adopted by the Senate Commerce Committee today.

The problem with the proposal is that is it 13 years away. By 2020 we'll all be dead from either global warming or nuclear annihilation. Why not be more aggressive and say 2015?

By the way, big ups to Barack Obama, one of the few presidential candidates with the stones to go to Detroit and give the auto industry an earful on how they screwed up and need to change. His plan to trade their production of more fuel efficient vehicles in exchange for assistance with their health care expenses in an interesting one. The government is going to bail these guys out anyways when they go under, so why not get something in exchange for their assistance?

Allegheny County returned over $1.4 million in federal clean air grants since 2002

Now this I cannot believe - it was just reported that the Allegheny County Health Department has let $1.4 million of the $4.8 million in Federal Clean Air grant money go unused from 2002 through this past march. Allegheny County is a perennial favorite to win worst air quality - so how did this happen? Are the people at the Allegheny Health Department that incompetent or do they not really care about our health? Who is accountable? Enough is enough, its time for someone to lose their job.

Read about this inexcusable offense here at the Pittsburgh Trib.

I'm not sure how long the director Bruce W. Dixon, M.D., pictured above, has been with the ACHD, but someone needs to pay the price.

Green With Patriotism

If your not currently familiar with Thomas L. Friedman, he is a New York Times Op-Ed columnist and bestselling author. In my opinion he is constantly on the forefront of progressive ideas. He just wrote an important article that should immediately be acted upon called "Turning the Election Green".

The main theme of this article is that there should be separate presidential debate that focuses environmental topics. Even though the Iraq war is currently the most discussed topic in politics and probably will be a main focal point of the upcoming election. I think that Green issues are just as important, the reason for this is that Green issues are the only issues that permeate the outcome of other issues.

You can discuss til' your blue in the face why we are in Iraq but, a simple fact is that a large majority of terrorists originate from organizations that originate from middle eastern countries and the money to support these organizations primarily comes from oil wealth. While it is a lesser known fact that they US only gets a small percentage of their oil from the middle east, this has no bearing on the fact that if the US took a stand on becoming energy independent with green technology other countries would soon follow suit. This would eventually cut off the flow of money to middle eastern rulers, which would take away their power, and eventually force democratic change in the region. The major point is that it would force democratic change internally instead of externally which I personally believe won't work. In conclusion if you have democratic change in the region it gives people control of their own lives which in turn gives people no reason to join terrorist organizations because now their focus is on living their lives to the best of their ability, and not blaming outside influences for their problems.

I know the above paragraph is a long diatribe but, the idea is that we need to force politicians to take environmental issues seriously. While it's so easy for them to say what they think should be done in Iraq, let's force them to come up with real solutions for our world that not only has a global impact, but has a cross platform social and political impact to make our world a better place. The democratic debate last week had only 1 or 2 questions with an environmental focus. This is not good enough.

Having a separate green debate will force the legitimacy of this issue, and hopefully change some behavior in Washington.

Recently Thomas Friedman has been involved in some excellent projects promoting green ideas here are some links:

"The Power Of Green"
NYT Op-Ed Article
"The Power Of Green"
NYT Video Interview

"What's Red, White, Blue & Green all over?"
WNYC Interview with Thomas Friedman

"Tip Of The Hat / Wag Of The Finger"
Stephen Colbert Bit about Thomas Friedman (After the Shrek Bit) This is just for Fun!!

"It's All About Carbon"
Great NPR bit about carbons effect on the environment (Not Friedman related)

One way to reduce congestion tomorrow....Open the Wabash Tunnel to all vehicles

The Wabash Tunnel was opened in Pittsburgh in 2004 and was supposed to be used by 2,500 cars per day. The sad thing is - since the tunnel is HOV during peak commuting hours people in Pittsburgh will not use it. People here do not carpool - there is no incentive to which is why I have been a proponent of bringing NuRide to the region.

Now, I drive by the Wabash tunnel entrance every day I never see cars taking the ramp off of route 51 to the tunnel. The three entrances to the city in that area - Liberty and Fort Pitt tunnels, and the West End Bridge entrance - are all congested. So, my question is this, and it is self serving since I would use it - why not open up the tunnel to all vehicles? A recent report said that the Port Authority was debating closing the tunnel. Well, I say at least open it to all vehicles and charge a toll. That would still save many of us time in the morning, and, it would alleviate some of the congestion that is detrimental to the air quality in our region.

America's most livable city is once again rated.....most polluted?

Well, 2nd worst for particulate pollution, or soot. I've posted a few times that the Pittsburgh region has poor air quality. While our leaders continue to beat their chests over meaningful rankings such as "Most Livable City", other rankings such as our annual placement in the worst pollution rankings and statistics such as our poor job and population growth seem to refute that this city is in fact on the right track.

Don't get me wrong, I love Pittsburgh, but we need to get our priorities straight if we ever want to be a place that attracts and retracts young people. Redundant commissions are not enough. The new hockey arena won't do it. Casino? Come on. I've said it once I'll say it again. Pittsburgh has to create jobs if it wants young people to stay here and young people to migrate here. One way to create jobs - BE DIFFERENT!

Pittsburgh needs to strive to be unique in its regional economic policies. Clever marketing campaigns won't do it. Why not become a leading edge city for green tech and environmentally sensible regulations? Pittsburgh should build on its success with green building and become the Green city. Why not turn this city into one that replaces cars with light rails, congestion priced roads (want to drive from Monroeville to downtown? Pay up!), NON-SOOT emitting trucks and city where riding your bike to work is not only preferred but safe!

In order to do most of those things hundreds of millions must be spent on infrastructure such as light rails, new roads, personnel, etc but unfortunately there is going to be roughly $1 billion tied up in construction of a light rail tunnel from downtown to the North Shore. People think that much money to extend the 'T' 1.2 miles is ridiculous, it may be, but hopefully it is the start of something big. That rail may eventually extend further north of the city where congestion is getting worse and worse as more people move to the northern suburbs. Not all boondoggles have to be bad.

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Covoiturage et pub à la pompe !

Congestion Junction, What's Your Function?

Michael Bloomberg New York City's mayor gave an invigorating pro-environmental reform speech last Sunday on Earthday. His speech included many exciting ideas on ways that he is planning on reforming New York into the worlds "greenest" large metropolis. Among the many ideas included in his speech is one which has been in debate for quite some time now, Congestion Pricing. Congestion pricing is a flat $8 fee that will be charged for all automotive vehicles traveling in Manhattan south of 86th st during certain heavily traveled times and days. The purpose of this fee is to reduce automotive travel and force more people to use mass transit. In addition the additional revenue created from this fee will be used to increase promote many ideas included in his speech to increase availability to mass transit. This contentious idea is very interesting because it seems to be forcing sides in an rather odd fashion. Some of the pro-groups are the environmental groups and the generally more wealthy new yorkers that feel that this will reduce travel time for those who don't mind paying the additional fees. There have been some very interesting radio discussions on this subject that have given the pro & dissenting groups an opportunity to voice their opinions. To listen to the discussions click here & here.

This idea is already implemented in Singapore and London, which both have greatly reduced their congestion, smog, and increased their usage of mass transit by implementing these fees.

As somebody who would be directly affected by this fee I have strong feelings about implementing this. My against side feels that, I already live in a city that is so expensive that it makes living a middle class life tough as it is. I use mass transit 90% of the time but, the few times that I want to drive through the city why should I have to pay an additional $8 on top of the already expensive $6 I pay to use the tunnels, this on top of high gas prices makes me very annoyed. The thing that concerns me is that how long will it take for the $8 to increase to $9 and higher. New York mass transit prices have increased dramatically in the past couple years, and if I felt confident that this congestion fee would stay at $8 I could deal with it but, I know that once they start raising prices again this congestion fee will go up also.

However, my pro-green side feels that drastic problems require drastic solutions. If this congestion fee does dramatically reduce congestion, increase air quality, and also improve mass transit by properly re-investing the money into improving New York's already better than average mass transit system I don't see how I can complain.

I really feel all in all that going green is about looking forward into the future. You can no longer livefor the day but need to live for the century. I commend Michael Bloomberg on this progressive push toward making New York greener. Although I know I will be upset when I get these additional charges for driving through new york, I guess I can feel a comfort that it is going to towards a good cause, and helping a problem much bigger than me losing $8.

I just hope that in the first 3 trial years that this is implemented it is looked at carefully to actually reduce congestion and air pollution. If it does not work than please retract it, but if it does than I think eventually everyone will be on board.

What Is My Earthday Resolution?

Well... Yesterday was Earthday a holiday that's message has been getting more and more urgent with every year that goes by. This year great strides were made in educating the public on the importance of changing the way we interact with the planet. It seems like the media has generally embraced the importance of "going green" and of course there was "An Inconvenient Truth" which won an academy award for documentary of the year.

However, as an individual we should be forced to ask ourselves what are we going to change in our daily lives this upcoming year that will benefit the planet and every living being on it. In the same vein that we look to ourselves and ask what can we do to improve our own individual lives on New Years Day in the form of a New Years Resolution. I make the call that every individual should ask themselves on Earthday, What will be my Earthday resolution? This resolution is not a focus on internal improvement as much as one focused on external improvement that benefits not the individual but the entirety of the planet.

Here are my Earthday Resolutions for this year:

1. Replace all the bulbs in my apartment with CFL bulbs.
2. Join an organization that either takes action to help people learn how they can "go green" or takes action to replace old systems with green/efficient systems
3. Find people to carpool with at work and other places that I normally travel to by car.
4. Use more mass transit, try to implement at least 3 uses a week where I would normally drive.

I am curious about others Earthday resolutions, if your reading this post yours in the comment section so we can all get some more ideas of things to do!!

Happy Earth Day - thanks to all who are helping to save the planet!

As you probably know there is so much to cover on Earth Day and this past week, from corporate programs such as Home Depot's Eco Options, where they offered to give away 1,000,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs on Sunday ( I shop at Lowes!), to the special news programs on TV dedicated to the Global Warming crisis and then Yahoo!'s announcement this past week that they will become carbon neutral.

Personally, I think the carbon neutral thing is great but until we have two major changes the Global Warming crisis is not going away.

1. Shift from Coal supplied electricity to solar, wind, hydro, and even nuclear

2. Hybrid technology in every new car! There is no excuse for new vehicles to not have this technology - additionally - when is the cost of hybrids going to come down? When will plug in hybrids be available?

Okay, enough spouting off for now. So what did I do this weekend? Well, I was inspired by some debate over at Pittsblog about this article on Pittsburgh becoming more like Vermont. While I think Pittsburgh becoming Vermont (YEEAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!) is a major stretch, I do think the outdoor amenities of the Pittsburgh region are very under-appreciated. So, I was inspired by the article and debate so I finally made it over the Ohiopyle state park with my wife to check out the park and Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous building, Falling Water. The building was amazing to say the least, and the country side, river, and hills over in that part of the region were breathtaking. The beauty of the trip this Earth Day weekend is that we still have places like this where we can go to escape the smog, soot, noise and congestion that has become a part of our daily lives here in and around the city.

Another beauty of this Earth Day weekend is how all the media attention is converting non-believers and skeptics, or just your normal person who really never considered the environmental impact of their daily actions and rituals. Today, my wife, who initially thought I was crazy about this blog and environmental activism, bought some neat stackable recycling bins from Lowe's, a company I am proud to support and own stock in. We still have a lot work to do but we are finally getting on the recycling bandwagon....now I just have to hope to get her to switch all of our bulbs over to CFLs. Our next major green goal is to purchase a hybrid SUV. We drive SUVs because we have two VLDs - very large dogs (English Mastiffs). Because of these two beasts, a Prius is not an option for us, but hopefully the price of hybrids drop when we are ready to purchase a new car in the next year or two.


"GRRRRRRREEN IS GOOD!"

Notice to Corporate America: Go Green.......or else!

.........or else face a backlash from consumers, not just today's green consumers but your typical consumer who is still in the process of learning that Green = Good and Ignoring Green = Bad. According to the Marketing Green blog, brands that ignore green initiatives and environmentally responsible business practices will be labeled as socially irresponsible, a label that is hard to shake (ask GE - people still talk about them dumping PCBs into the Hudson, that happened before I was born!).

From the Marketing Green blog's post titled Green Branding Imperative:

"Emerging green consumer purchase behavior suggests this scenario:

• Despite the real threat of global warming, consumers will continue to spend on the things that they want and enjoy
• Demand for green (or greener) products will increase over time as attitudes and social norms evolve, new product choices become available and information that enables consumers to make informed purchase decisions (e.g. green labels) is introduced
• Consumers will start to shift spending to greener brands within a category
• Consumers will increasingly prefer to purchase from companies with a brand that is perceived as green, regardless of whether or not the product that they ultimately purchase is one of the company’s “green” products"

A New Perspective On Greenhouse Gases

If you ask the average person what is the greatest contributor to greenhouse gases, they will most likely say cars and other vehicles used in transit. This may also be because there is a lot of press pertaining to alternatives for the current oil burning automobiles most people use. Of course, this transition to more green and efficient transportation is a very good and necessary thing but, we can't overlook what may be the largest polluter of them all...Buildings.

A new study by the Bloomberg administration in New York says that buildings are responsible for 79% of New York City's greenhouse gas emissions. In addition even though New York is a massive polluter because of it's size it comes in much lower per ca pita at 7.1 metric tons per person compared to the national average of 24.5 metric tons per person, as mentioned in the New York Times.

This shows that greenhouse gas emissions from buildings is probably a huge problem nationwide. The fact that they get a fraction of the press that automobiles do as polluters is doing us all a huge disservice. It is also much easier to construct buildings to make them more environmentally sound, than it is to change our bad polluting habits with transportation. Everywhere you look new homes and buildings are being constructed at an alarming rate, it is easy to institute new technologies into this construction if it is a priority.

Hopefully after this study which came out today, the focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by changing heating, construction, and other habits pertaining to buildings will be greatly increased. In an article that came out last October, it mentions..
“The architecture and design profession is the only profession that can slow green house gas emissions down,” he said. “Architects have been complaining that they’re losing status . . . Well, that has changed. Now we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the world.”

We are hopeful that those involved in building and home construction will take this information seriously and lead the way to greener future.

Still trying to bring NuRide to Pittsburgh

Last month I posted about NuRide and the lack of action on the part of regional groups to bring a viable ride sharing program to Pittsburgh. The other day I actually met with two representatives of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission at their office in downtown Pittsburgh. The agenda of the meeting was to discuss NuRide and ideas on how we can bring them to Pittsburgh, but it quickly became apparent that is was just a meeting for the sake of having a meeting so the bureaucrats in charge could say that they lee into NuRide but couldn't "see any benefit" to bringing them here. Basically - NuRide is a new idea and bureaucrats hate anything new that threatens the establishment. Below is an excerpt of an email I sent to Mike Madison over at Pittsblog.

Subject: The Region is Doomed

I had a meeting with two individuals from the Southwestern PA Commission's transportation committee. The SPC is responsible for planning and prioritizing the use of all state and federal transportation funds allocated to the region. The topic was the current ride sharing program and the idea I had to bring NuRide to the burgh. What a disaster. The guy across the table from me was a classic Pittsburgh bureaucrat. He couldn't see any reason why we should bring an incentive based ride share program to the region. He thinks that their web based ride share program, which has approximately 250 people sharing rides, is good enough. I told him I've never heard of their program because it isn't advertised anywhere but their website. I was supposed to conference call the CEO of NuRide in on our discussion but the bureaucrat WOULD NOT LET ME CALL HIM. He wouldn't let me call the CEO! "We're here to talk to you, we'll call their CEO on our own if we want to.".

Following the meeting Rick Steele, NuRide's CEO, said the reason they have not tried to come Pittsburgh in the past is the fact that he heard dealing with the bureaucrats here is "a nightmare." We're going to focus on our energies on getting corporate sponsors for NuRide because it is obvious the SPC people feel threatened by a better ride sharing program. I might send the one guy a copy of "Who Moved My Cheese" for Christmas. Anyways, it was a good experience for me because as I try to get things to change around here I am sure this is exactly the response I'm going to get from all corners of the burgh - "It won't work", "Too risky", "I don't see the benefits". I'm going to post on it some more but first I am waiting on NuRide to send me some case studies and statistics on their initiatives in DC and a few other metros.

So, it was a tough sell for me because I did not have all the facts and statistics, which were going to be provided by NuRide's CEO had I been allowed to call him. During that meeting I was told that the SPC's commuteinfo.org has roughly 250 individuals signed up for ridesharing. 250!! The goal of incentive based ride sharing programs is to change behavior. NuRide has attributed 60% of total riders in its markets to those individuals who would not have carpooled in the first place. It also mentioned it was signing up about 500 new riders each month in some of its markets. True, Pittsburgh is no DC or New York when it comes to commuter volume but I think we can do much much better than 250 participants. More to come on this as I receive more data but I expect us to try to get some corporate sponsors involved rather than relying on an organization such as SPC.

Have an idea on how to sustainably power a city block?

Yet another bad ass competition designed to change the world. The RE:VOLT competition is all about using renewable strategies such as wind and solar to come up with the most innovative ways to power an imaginary city block. Entries will be judged on the following criteria: Sustainability and Reality of Intent - 33% Affordability and Constructability - 33% Innovation and Originality - 33% Judges discretion - 1%

The Automotive X Prize - Revolution through Competition

The folks that brought us the X Prize, the $10 million dollar competition for building private space craft, now bring us the Automotive X Prize, a race to build the most practical and most efficient production capable vehicle.

Joel Makower of Two Steps Forward is participating as an adviser to the competition and has a great post on the AXP over at his blog.

The beauty of this X-Prize is that its not just another competition where some MIT rocket scientist can design an ugly, unmarketable, and impractical "concept car" that achieves the 100 MPG floor set by the competition. We've been seeing hyped up concept cars at the auto shows for years. The competitors are judged on vehicle performance but the feasibility of mass production and the marketability of their entry are probably just as important.

The fact that a prize of several million dollars awaits the winner should motivate some of the brightest engineering minds from all over the world to enter the competition. I truly believe this could set the stage for a revolution in the automobile industry. The question is - will it be enough to wake up Detroit? Doubt it.

Latest news on my pursuit to get solar power at my (former) company

Nearly a month after my initial request for their services, I was finally contacted by the solar panel vendor SunPower. The person who called from their sales department was clueless. I told her she was about a month late since I left the company a few weeks back. Since I was no longer with that company I gave them the contact information for the other individual that was championing the project with me. Then I mentioned that there would be a need for consulting services, which they said they did not provide unless the installation was over 1 Megawatt. I said we were not sure how big of an installation we would need since we would need a consulting firm to give us that information. They also mentioned that they did not have a partner in PA that could help with the assessment.

So, while I doubt SunPower will follow through and I doubt that my former company will get their act together, I do recognize the huge business opportunity for a company that bridges the gap between solar panel, or wind energy manufacturers and the commercial marketplace. A lot of organizations recognized that "going green", as one VP my old firm said "is the thing to do these days." Unfortunately, most companies do not have the time and expertise to do the financial evaluation and cost benefit analysis for a large solar installation. Most manufacturers I have been in touch with are too busy trying to fill their large backlog of orders, and have little or no consulting services, and a very weak partner network.

For now I plan on using www.mymave.com to market my consulting services but I may eventually form an LLC and bring on a few partners to start up a consulting firm if there is indeed a very high demand for these types of services.

Entrepreneurship + Environmentalism = Enviropreneurship

Sounds like a great idea for a new business school major! From Trendhunter.com (very cool site by the way!) - "If 'Green Business' (by any other name) means business embracing the concepts of environmentalism, then Enviropreneurship (ENVP) means environmentalists learning the concepts of business. ENVP is about “bringing market principles to resolve environmental problems.”

I love it. Love live Environpreneurship! This brings me back to a few posts I made last month regarding getting my company (former company!) to adopt solar power. More on this in the next post but check out my profile at mymave.com where I am now an official "green" consultant for businesses looking to get their act together.


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