By Mark Winstein •
June 12, 2008
Like this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay up to date.
To prime the pump on this “Dear Abbey” style ecopreneur coaching column, I’d like to start with some actual consulting projects, with enough changes to protect the client.
A few years ago I got a call from a cool green company that already had good sales, about $1 million a year. Problem was, their cash flow was “upside down” - they were trying to cover current expenses with money they wouldn’t get until later. They wanted me to help raise money to cover the gap.
At first, it seemed they were all set to receive some financing. I had a lender in mind who specialized in high-risk loans to green enterprises. All the lender needed to start the approval process was an up to date financial report. But as I started interviewing the principles, I learned that the company’s financial books were several months behind. Sadly, even weeks and months later, this situation persisted, making it impossible for the firm to make effective requests for money from anyone other than family members.
Dear Ecopreneurs…
Thanks again to GreenOptions.com for adding me to the Ecopreneurist blog team.
My favorite activity these days is coaching and advising ecopreneurs, investors, and green leaders on how to shorten the path to their objectives.
Having founded several green businesses and non-profits over the past 25 years, I’ve accumulated a ton of experience on starting, growing, and capitalizing green enterprises, and producing results via a broad assortment of strategies and leadership paradigms.
For GreenOptions readers, I’m offering my [...]
By Olga Orda •
March 29, 2008
Image source: http://timblair.net | Lights out for Sydney, Australia 2007
An http://greenprinteronline.com dispatch.
Earth Hour is tonight, March 29th from 8 to 9 pm. The idea is to turn off the lights as a symbolic gesture that us citizens, business owners, uber-corporations (hello, Google’s black screen, hello McDonalds in Toronto saving 10 000 kilowatt hours) local governments and non-profit groups are taking climate change seriously.
Despite gripes that Earth Hour falls on the NCAA basketball regional, it’s lights out for over 23 major cities worldwide like Toronto and Bangkok.
By Olga Orda •
March 17, 2008
Image source | www.jiinjoo.com
An http://greenprinteronline.com dispatch.
When asked: how “green” are you, the brains behind accounting, IT and architectural firms who, kudos to them – both the closet greens or eco-warriors who proudly bear their eco-badge on their sleeve – jump up to say that they are helping their clients drive sustainability solutions.
Even lawyers are realizing their impact on their environment. No seriously, lawyers are sharp enough to know that using all that virgin paper cannot be good to the environment.
But when it comes to driving internal sustainability initiatives? Many still respond by: “we recycle”. Period.
By Lisa Kivirist •
February 21, 2008
A Tufts senior e-mailed me the other day, attaching her resume and asking for career advice. While that play of events seems typical, her ambitions probably didn’t fit the cookie-cutter mold of most of her class peers. She wanted to run her own eco-retreat center one day, felt passion for the green movement and embraced her ecopreneurial passions.
In short, she blew away the goals and mindset I had back in my twenty-something days, when the only “green” in my world came out of an ATM machine. And frankly, as I’ve been off the mainstream career path for nearly two decades now, I don’t typically have seniors knocking on my e-mail door for advice. So I felt compelled to launch a dash of the unconventional her way — a dose of out-of-the-box career advice for someone heading down ecopreneurial career paths at a young age. Here’s what I sent to her:
By Olga Orda •
February 6, 2008
Image source: www.futureproofnola.com.
Design Goes Green - The first of a series of articles by Green Printer on the cross-section between the environment, business and the creative communications industry.
At some point, one comes to the inevitable conclusion that in order to “green” your marketing material, one needs to take a little extra time to plan ahead and live a “slow food” version of marketing. Yes, I hear the snickers and yes, even marketing speed demons can learn a thing or two from the slow movement.
So, for all you energizer bunnies out there, here are a few tips from Montreal based Vivace Design‘ s Karine Himbeault that, incidentally, we found take 60 seconds or less to actually carry out.
