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Can a cap and trade system for greenhouse gas emissions harness market forces to address climate change? As I noted on Monday, that’s the thesis of Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn’s new book Earth: The Sequel. To support this claim, Krupp and Horn focus on the innovative ecopreneurial efforts happening around the world in the broad field of clean technology. From thin-film solar to algae biodiesel to an Alaskan ice palace powered (and kept frozen) by geothermal energy, Earth: The Sequel tells the stories of scientists, business people, and outright dreamers experimenting with both current incarnations, and the next generation, of renewable energy technologies. A few of these companies include:
Of course, the technologies under development by the companies profiled in Earth: The Sequel aren’t cheap; in almost every case, major investors, such as Vinod Khosla and John Doerr, have backed these start-ups with significant funding. At one level, some might argue that the market is already working: capital is flowing to promising ideas.
I’ve always thought that many of the issues I am concerned about—the environment, human rights, peace, overconsumption, animal welfare—are all really one big issue. Everywhere I look I see countless connections between many social, political, and environmental issues. I may be involved in many separate causes, but they overlap so often that I feel that I’m really just part of one big movement. Which is why when someone asks me why I’m vegetarian, I am so overwhelmed with reasons that I don’t know where to even start explaining. The top ones are the environment, animal rights, and health, but no matter what you call them, they’re all one big issue to me.
I’m not the only one who has noticed this overlap, of course. And rarely have I encountered such a thorough examination of the connections between animal welfare and just about every other issue that concerns me than in the book Why Animals Matter by Erin E. Williams and Margo DeMello.
Editor’s note: This week’s post from our friends at Eco-Libris seemed much appropriate for Ecopreneurist: an interview with author Jill Bamburg about her book Getting to Scale: Growing Your Business without Selling Out. While the book is two years old, Jill’s ideas about how mission-driven businesses can grow and thrive are still very timely. This post was originally published on Wednesday, April 23, 2008.
Getting to Scale is the second book so far that Swedish publisher Bookhouse Publishing translated and balanced out with tree plantings by Eco-Libris. They are doing great work over there and we encourage all our Swedish speaking readers to check them out.
How can you structure your green or mission-driven business, so that you can grow and even possibly sell it one day, without compromising your ideals, beliefs and mission? How can you fund your growth without finding out too late that your new investors are not at all interested in what you are doing for the environment or society, but only in the financial bottom line? While Getting to Scale is not a “how to” guide, it describes a wide variety of case studies that illustrate key findings. It is based on extensive in-depth interviewes with dozens of CEOs and founders of mission driven businesses such Ben & Jerry’s, Stonypoint, American Apparel, and many others.
By Sam Aola Ooko •
April 28, 2008
There’s a review of this book that goes by the title “50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth” and curiosity got the better of me to get to know how I have personally impacted on the future of our planet.
But then it has been around with us since just before Earth Day 1990. A lot of water have since passed under the bridge. Save the forests; there is a website and a rave blog too: 50 Simple Things.
Eco-friendly shopping, for instance, may be fashionable, but critics have argued it won’t reduce global warming. What has been the role of the Green Movement in ecological modernization?
Since the early 1980s, green as a political ideology championing ecological and environmental goals, has given the face of the Green movement a newer look, but not without the usual controversies: global warming, biofuels, or “agro-fuels” in more fluent eco-speak, solar-powered future, etc.
By Julie Sammons •
March 25, 2008
Seeking new sources for inspiring business ideas, leading-edge strategies, and eco-entrepreneurial ventures? Look no further than the inaugural Axiom Business Book Awards, sponsored by the Jenkins Group, Inc. The awards committee combed the globe in search of the year’s best business books before naming awardees in 25 categories including entrepreneurship, business ethics, and philanthropy. If you’re in need of a new book to add to your gym bag or carry-on bag, try one of these winning titles:
Leadership
Business Ethics
Economics
Additional categories:
Unless you live a Compact-like lifestyle, you are going to be shopping on a somewhat regular basis. Whether it be home improvements, gifts, furnishings, crafts, gardening, fashions, babies, sports, pets or anything else you have going on, there is a green option to be found.
But where do you buy from? I’m all for promoting local businesses and buying from small stores right in your own town. Unfortunately, depending on where you live, you may have little to no options in that category. The easiest thing to do is log on to the internet (and you already have since you are reading this) and partake in the massive variety it has to offer.
After the runaway success with their first thepurplebook: the definitive guide to exceptional online shopping in 2000, authors Hillary Mendelsohn and Ian Anderson have released a number of specialized editions. Hitting book shelves in January 2008, thepurplebook Green: an eco-friendly online shopping guide is the latest of their incarnations.
Whether you’re new to the eco-lifestyle or so sustainably settled that you have a composting toilet and solar panels, thepurplebook Green Edition has something to offer everyone. Though the book is about shopping, it continually reminds readers to reuse what they already have. “The greenest thing you can do is to extend the lifespan of the products you already own,” says Hillary in the book’s introduction. “When it comes to shopping, it’s usually a matter of buying eco-friendly versions of the same products you already use.”
By MC Milker •
February 28, 2008
Business books by and about eco-entrepreneurs are all the rage these days. Biographies of newly famous entrepreneurs vie with “How to” books on greening your business to get your attention.
The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan, takes a slightly different tack and explores how altruistically minded people operate a bit differently in the business arena than typical entrepreneurs.
Published by Harvard Business Press, this book reminded me a bit of, Blink and The Tipping Point, both by Malcolm Gladwell as the authors discuss how a small movement can gain momentum until reaching critical mass. Filled with case studies from around the world, ranging from Whole Foods to Band Aid, Elkington and Hartigan demonstrate how compassionate entrepreneurs use market based solutions to tackle problems and opportunities in a variety of situations.
By Kelli Best-Oliver •
December 17, 2007
I have a confession to make: I never outgrew young adult novels. There are few things I would enjoy more than checking out a stack from our school library and spending a day lost in the world of teenage protagonists. Don’t hate; young-adult novels have come a long way from the pulp that was Sweet Valley High. A large percentage of them are well-written, engaging, and feature likable characters and fascinating plots. Best of all, you can knock one out in a few hours of reading.
Even better, YA novels are starting to address environmental issues. Dystopian societies are a staple for YA books: Lois Lowry’s Giver trilogy, Jeanne Duprau’s Books of Ember, and Scott Westerfields Uglies books all tackle the idea of the destruction of society at least partially due to humanity’s interaction with the environment. Now, one of my favorite YA authors, David Klaas, tackles the possibility of dystopia in the first book of his Caretaker Trilogy, Firestorm.
The phrase “oil addiction” has been uttered and written countless times since George W. Bush used it in his 2006 State of the Union address. While many still rightly question the current President’s commitment to ending US dependence on oil, David Sandalow, assistant secretary of state and senior director on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, notes that the concept of “oil addiction,” and the failure to address it substantively, both predate the current administration. His new book, Freedom from Oil: How the Next President Can End the United States’ Oil Addiction
, traces the use of the phrase back to the Nixon administration, and observes that every president since has struggled with the concept… and ultimately failed to do anything to address it.
Despite his political leanings, though, Sandalow’s purpose in Freedom from Oil isn’t to criticize the current administration, or to bemoan the overall lack of progress in lessening American dependence on oil. Rather, he sets a much more daunting challenge for himself: illustrate how the US can overcome its dependence on this resource that’s responsible for environmental damage, security concerns, and economic indebtedness to some of the world’s most unsavory governments. In presenting his ideas, Sandalow deftly illustrates the depth of our oil addiction… and the complex circumstances any administration will have to address in order to set the country on a path towards a low-carbon energy future.
By Sonia Aggarwal •
August 6, 2007
I had the occasion to stumble upon two uniquely imagined facets of the same future over the past week. The first: The World Without Us
, an eerily quiet scenario in which humans disappear from the Earth and nature slowly and persistently takes over. The second: Children of Men, a visually stunning dystopia in the form of a sterile
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William H. Kemp, The Renewable Energy Handbook (2005) and $mart Power (2004): Aztext Press
Wiliam Kemp has written two books on renewable power and off-grid systems for homes, $mart Power (2004) and The Renewable Energy Handbook (2005). (Smart Power actually uses a dollar sign for the S in the title.) These two books are largely a first and
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