Green Options » eco entrepreneur

Disgusted By Trash, Ecopreneur Takes Action

mcmilker — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:24:46 +0000

Reusable bag entrepreneur Andy Keller has a lot to say about being well, an entrepreneur. Andy was a software guy back in 2005 when he happen to visit a landfill during a home improvement project and was shocked to discover just how many plastic bags were swirling in the wind…

…on fences, on trash heaps, with birds picking on them….

He told me that this was the moment that got him started on his entrepreneurial adventure. “Note to self,” he said, “I need to start using reusable bags.”

Of, course, back in 2005, the reusable bag trend was just starting. And, people were then, as they are now, carefully purchasing them and carelessly leaving them in the car instead of carrying them into the store with them.

Read more of this story »

First Steps to Greening Your Existing Business

Leah Edwards — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:51:15 +0000

Guest Post: Several months ago, Jennifer Kaplan contacted me to ask for more details about a post I had made about consumer attitudes toward green products. She teaches a market research course at Marymount University in Arlington, VA and is a partner in the marketing consultancy, Greenhance LLC. In the following post, Jennifer reports back on a project that demonstrates where to begin when considering any change to your business, with research. — Leah

To Green Or Not To Green: That Was The Question

There are 26.4 million small businesses in the United States. This is a story about one of them. Mary Hutchens, owner of a children’s clothing boutique in Washington, DC, was thinking about going green but didn’t know where to start. Mary, like many small business owners, was interested in going green for all kinds of reasons—to control skyrocketing energy costs, to meet customer expectations, to be on the leading edge, to promote sustainability. However, Mary worried that her older customers, the “grandmas,” would revolt against fewer gift boxes and organic onesies. Like many small business owners, Mary had a lot of questions about going green and didn’t know where to find the answers.

At the same time, I was looking for a “real life” project for my undergraduate Marketing Research class. What better way to teach the students about the real world of marketing then to act as a consultant to a real life small business owner? What happened over the following four months shed light on both what consumers want AND what small business owners want when it comes to going green.

At the beginning Mary simply wanted to know specifics about gift-wrapping and shopping bag preferences. The students just wanted to know how consumers felt about going green. It was my job to make everyone see the macro and micro environmental issues at play. As such, I wanted to make sure we also determined whether purchase intent would be affected by a move toward green and which green practices would resonate most with consumers.

Read more of this story »

Wal-Mart Tracks Green Product Adoption

mcmilker — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:06:05 +0000

As retailer to over 90% of US households, Wal-Mart is in the unique position of being an excellent compiler of information.

Recently they started tracking shoppers’ green buying habits. Actually all retailers track products their consumers purchase for inventory control. Wal-Mart however was one of the leaders in using this data to tightly control inventory and share information with manufacturers. They retain leadership in this area with RFID tracking systems and well managed JIT manufacturing cooperative programs with their vendors.

Now Wal-Mart is sharing some of this information with the world with the Wal-Mart Live-Better Index .

Read more of this story »

Green Business Founded on Desire to Meld Beauty with Social Responsibility

Leah Edwards — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:46:50 +0000

I recently had the chance to talk with the co-founder of VivaTerra, Bonnie Trust Dahan, about her motivation to found the catalog- and online-retailer of high-design, green products. Dahan had authored three books on interior design and headed merchandising and/or branding for major retailers including Banana Republic and Smith & Hawken. However, it was her personal shopping preferences that made her want to market beautiful products made from organic, recycled, and renewable sources.

I have noticed that a number of entrepreneurs have started business based on their personal frustration at not finding a source for a desired product or service. (Another example is Beth Gerstein’s fiancé wanting to buy an engagement ring that he could feel good about, and Beth then co-founding another green business, Brilliant Earth.)

When asked about having the vision to start VivaTerra, Dahan says, “It wasn’t cool to be green yet. Even as recent as five years ago organic and green products generally looked pretty awful. I was committed to buying eco products, but I didn’t want to sacrifice style.” Dahan figured there were more people like her, certainly enough to support one retailer, so she started writing a business plan in 2000. 2001 did not turn out to be a great year to start a business, so she re-launched, with partners in 2004, and her timing couldn’t be better.

The most important news you’ll read this minute: Shea Gunther is leaving Green Options and Planetsave and is converting to Scientology. Praise Xenu.

Noelle dEstries — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:08:05 +0000

Big news Planetsavekateers, I’m outta here.

I’m leaving Green Options and Planetsave, though not to join Tom and John in their fight against the thetans.

I would like to say it’s to spend more time with my family, but that just makes me sound like a scandal ridden Bush official.

While I probably will get to spend more time with my family now, I’m leaving the company to work on my green home project and a few other side projects. My tenure at Green Options and Planetsave has been one of the most interesting, exciting, and invigorating times I’ve had. It ranks as one of my favorite startups (out of my current total of four) and I’m walking away with a greatly expanded network of friends and contacts, a ton of great experience in green publishing, and an awesome project to jump to.

What would have been called “The GO Home Project” is coming with me. I am buying the entire project from Green Options and taking it independent. I’m still working on a name for it (send it on if you have a good one) and will be building a site for it once that’s nailed down, but we’ll be starting up right away on sheagunther.org.

The short of it is is that me and my family are moving into two tipis to live for a year before building the coolest greenest house on the planet. We have 52 acres in North Yarmouth, Maine; the leading green architect in the state; a partnership with Smart HomeOwner Magazine, and a whole lot of great energy pushing it forward. Both me and my wife Heather will be blogging about living in the tipis and I will be set up in a smaller third tipi as my office. I’m sure I’ll have many a five minute snowshoe commutes to work this winter. We’re going to do our best to create a guide and recorded history of our life and work so as to inspire others to do choose the same green building path.

It’s been a great past year building Green Options and past few months working on the new Planetsave, but I’m super excited about all the fun stuff I’ll be able to take on now that my time is freed up from GO/PS work.

Here’s a few places you’ll be able to follow along on my adventures…

- SheaGunther.org - This is my home site, where I started blogging before I knew what blogging was (back in 2001) and current home of Musings of an Eco-Entrepreneur, the most kickass in-stasis eco-entrepreneur blog on the web. It’s been dormant since we launched Green Options but I’ll be doing a relaunch with a new theme in the next week or two. We’ll be blogging about living in the tipis and I’ll have a separate page for my links/musings drops . If you grew to like my blogs here on Planetsave, you’ll want to head over there.

- Treehugger- Graham Hill was kind enough to set up me up with a writing spot at Treehugger. I have to work out the exact details with their uber editor Michael but I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve been a huge fan of Treehugger since back in the day (back in the day in the green blogosphere means two+ years ago) and have always wanted to write there. They have such a great group of editors, writers, and an amazing reach- about 25X more daily readers than what Green Options is pulling these days.

- Yet to be named website for the Green Home Project. We’ will be documenting the crap out of our experience building the coolest greenest house on the planet on our yet to be named website. Sheagunther.org is a good place to go to keep up while I figure out what this new thing will be called.

- Stumblegods.com- It’s not really officially launched yet, but my buddy Michael (editor and founder of Groovy Green, founder and publisher of Ecorazzi, chief editor guy at Ecotality Life) and I will be sharing our insights about the power of StumbleUpon at our new site Stumble Gods. Our thumbs move masses baby.

- Ecotality Life- I’ve been working as a consultant with the awesome and talented Brooke Lowry over at Ecotality on the relaunch of their blog. We’ll be getting Ecotality Life up in the next week, in the meantime check out the current site. Ecotality Life will be relaunched with a focus on green gadgets and green business and investing and should be a good read.

- Email: sheagunther@gmail.com, Skype: shea_gunther

It’s been rad, I’ll miss a lot of the people at Green Options and Planetsave. I’ve gotta give it up to my main man Jan, the founder of Planetsave (he sold it to Green Options this Spring and works on both GO and PS stuff) and pimp dad advertising sales guru man. HIC! He’ll be assisted by the talented Noelle d’Estries (Michael’s sister) who will bring her savvy news sense (have you seen the Green Report, that’s all her) and keen wit to the table trying to fill the void that my voluminous ego will leave behind.

Keep up the good fight. Keep on saving the world.

Read more of this story »

Green Business: Get rich, save the world, and party with rock stars

Noelle dEstries — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:12:29 +0000

Reuters has a cool story “Eco-millionaires see boom times ahead” where they ask four eco-entrepreneurs two simple questions- ‘how did you get rich’ and “is ‘the business of green’ a bubble?”. It shouldn’t be a surprise that none of them think green business is a bubble- more they saw it as the way that everything will eventually run and as of now a very rich source of business opportunity.

Green business has already made a lot of people rich and will only make more even richer (I’m working on being on that list). The four eco-entrepreneurs interviewed - Bruce Khouri, co-founder of Solar Integrated Technologies; Pedro Moura Cots, co-founder of EcoSecurities; David Scaysbrook, founder of Novera Energy; and Neil Eckert, the CEO of Climate Exchange - share some good bits of wisdom, jump over to the post for the full read, here’s a quick snip of the wind guy (close to my own heart- I have a sizeable piece of equity in my now-ass kicking startup Renewable Choice Energy, the nation’s leading provider of wind credits):

DAVID SCAYSBROOK, founder of Novera Energy, a 43-year old Australian, made 3 million pounds ($6 million) when he cashed in some of his shares in the wind power and landfill gas firm he founded in 1998. He has about 3 million pounds ($6 million) worth of shares invested in Novera and carbon cutter Camco International, which he advises.

Q: How did you get rich?

A: Three things had pushed up share valuations in the wind power industry, he said.

First, people were more worried about energy security and producing energy themselves. Second, the cost of traditional energy sources such as oil and gas had gone up. Third, tax breaks, subsidies and emissions caps had prompted even more conservative investors “to finally move off their perch”.

Q: Is ‘the business of green’ a bubble?

A: “The scale of investment to date is nothing compared to what is coming.

“The bubble aspect is ill-informed investors chasing pipe-dream technology. For example, there are hundreds of firms competing for the next generation of technology in solar panels but it won’t necessarily be the best technology that wins.”

Links on Parade: Life before AC, yet another Green Digg launched, Harry Reid says no new coal, and the US Secretary of Transportation says bicycles are not a form of transportation

Noelle dEstries — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:02:58 +0000

I’ve got a whole mess o’ links for you today, most green, a few non thrown in for kicks. Enjoy!

• Life Before Air Conditioning

• Canada is our biggest trade partner, not China

• Man Exchanges Missile Launcher for Shoes

• Alaskan hunters experience global warming first hand

• NH farmers savor bumper harvest

• Can a Fractional Be Green?

• AboutMyPlanet.com luanches “GROW” User News Service

• The $40 hidden inside a 12V battery

• US Transportation Secretary: “Bikes Not Transportation”

Read more of this story »

A shout-out to the Lazy Environmentalist Josh Dorfman

Noelle dEstries — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:15:38 +0000

Green Options has an interview done by the Ecogeek with my favorite green radio host and eco-entrepreneur Josh Dorfman that’s worth a click. Here’s a quick bit, swing over to Green Options for the full read:

EcoGeek: What is a Lazy Environmentalist?

Josh Dorfman: Lazy Environmentalists are people who want to be environmentally conscious, and will be, provided the choices are convenient and fit the way they want to live. Deep inside there’s probably a lazy environmentalist in just about all of us. After all, we live in the culture of convenience. The expectation of convenience seems like it has become hardwired into our DNA

EG: What do you say to the “America Can’t Buy Its Way to Sustainability” argument?

JD: I’d say that I agree. But that doesn’t mean we ought to disregard all the really cool green solutions presently available to us to get us moving in a significantly greener direction. To really solve climate change and other serious environmental challenges, we’re going to need a joint and massive effort from business, government, non-profit organizations, and consumer-citizens. We are all responsible for our situation, and we all have a role to play in achieving solutions.

EG: What, if anything, scares your pants off?

JD: The mindset that still thinks Hummers and McMansions are a good idea. That and snakes.

Read more of this story »

Reason #42 why Planetsave.com is better than your website: We make Micro-loans to Third World Entrepreneurs

Noelle dEstries — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 11:19:11 +0000

Did you know that we take a portion of our profits every week and make microloans to entrepreneurs in third world countries? We have an account at Kiva.org, a great website that handles everything in between you loaning out and the entrepreneur paying back.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of micro-loans, allow me to give you the quick rundown. Micro-loans is the act of giving small loans to entrepreneurs in the third world. The loans can be small, hence the name micro, as little as $50, and are used by entrepreneurs in places like Nigeria, Mexico, Peru, Indonesia, and East St. Louis (zing!) to start and expand businesses. We’ve made loans to shop owners, building contractors, seamstresses, natural medicines stores, and restaurants. Each fund at Kiva.org is in the $700 - $1,300 range and our average contribution per entrepreneur is $50-75. Each loan is built using funds from multiple lenders and are paid back, interest free, in 6-9 months. We have 24 Entrepreneurs in our Portfolio and we make new loans every week or two, all paid back loans go right back to new entrepreneurs.

Micro-finance has been shown to be an amazingly effective boost to people, families, and communities. It seeds a better quality of living and is truly giving people a helping hand up rather than a stream of ‘aid’ to become dependent on. The whole teach a man to fish thing. Kiva.org has a ridiculously low default rate of .02% on $886,385 in loans, so it’s a rock solidly safe investment.

I’m as die-hard an entrepreneur as you can get, so one of the first things I thought about when the idea of redesigning and retooling Planetsave was to bring micro-loans into the picture. Jan has been saving rain forest with the site since 1999 and he was glad to have the additional resources that are available to grow out the concept to include micro-loans and buying wind credits from Renewable Choice Energy (disclosure: I was a founder of RCE).

You can visit our Lender page on Kiva to see all the amazing people we’ve invested some of our profits into. You can read more and sign up yourself at Kiva.

That’s why Planetsave is better than your website. We just fucking care more.

Defying conventional wisdom and a green ethic saved this broken down farm

Noelle dEstries — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:37:35 +0000

I found this over at Unusual Business Ideas That Work (a must read for entrepreneurs)

IN 1961, William and Lucille Salatin moved their young family to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, purchasing the most worn-out, eroded, abused farm in the area near Staunton. Using nature as a pattern, they and their children began the healing and innovation that now supports three generations.

Disregarding conventional wisdom, the Salatins planted trees, built huge compost piles, dug ponds, moved cows daily with portable electric fencing, and invented portable sheltering systems to produce all their animals on perennial prairie polycultures.

Today the farm arguably represents America’s premier non-industrial food production oasis. Believing that the Creator’s design is still the best pattern for the biological world, the Salatin family invites like-minded folks to join in the farm’s mission: to develop emotionally, economically, environmentally enhancing agricultural enterprises and facilitate their duplication throughout the world.

The Salatins continue to refine their models to push environmentally-friendly farming practices toward new levels of expertise.

Small farms typically offer quiet pastoral scenes of rolling pastures, grazing animals, weathered barns, and a chicken coop or two.

Polyface Farm, a 550-acre spread in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, is different. The rolling pastures are there all right—but quiet they’re not. Each day, men move fences, roll portable henhouses, and redirect cattle from one area to another for grazing. Trees are cut down for lumber and pigs set loose to roll in wood chips and cow manure to create compost.

Check out the Polyface Farms website for more info.

Read more of this story »

Must have for the tunes loving greenie: crank powered MP3 player

Noelle dEstries — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:34:02 +0000

I’m putting this on my Christmas Wish List.Via Ecofriend via Coolest Gadgets, a crank powered MP3 Player ($340) that gives you 40 minutes of listening time for every minute cranked…

The inventor of the Free Play Wind up radio, Travor Baylis is back again and this time with a much better earth-friendly gadget. The device known as the Eco Media Player requires you to wind it up to play music, watch videos, listen to radio, view photo albums and even read eBooks and all that will not require you to pay for electricity.

The player supports media and data of all types on its 2GB internal memory or via SD cards. The media player is so robust that it does not require you to sync it with a computer as when connected to a PC or a Mac it’s seen as an external drive which allows for easy “drag and drop” of all media files.

The device can also function as its own record and tape ripper to capture a large record collection into portable MP3s, it also comes with a microphone for recording voice memos. Another great feature of this device is that it can also act as a cellphone charger.

Read more of this story »

Eco Hypocrits, Green Business, and how to make a bazillion dollars

Noelle dEstries — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:35:03 +0000

I’m an eco-entrepreneur, the publisher and editor of this fine site, founder of Green Options and Renewable Choice Energy, and I eat meat. I also drive a big van (made by GM at that) and I love jetskis and four wheelers. I’m an Eco Hypocrite.

So are you. So are most of the people I work with. There are very few people living a modern American life who are truly environmentally benign. I’m talking about an actual eco-even-steven life- eating only local organic fair trade small scale in season food, powering 100% of your energy needs (both electrical and transportation) with renewable, local fair trade energy, wearing and consuming things that are local, fair trade organic socially responsible LEED certified. Living in a house you made yourself using materials you extract yourself from the earth, building around the trees. Not breathing much.

Earth2Tech has news of a poll commissioned by Sun Microsystems that shows 73% of U.S. workers want their employers to be green but don’t actually do anything to chip in.

I could have told you that for $50. People are lazy and it’s kind of hard to go green. It took us 25 years to get recycling in peoples heads, now we’re throwing CFLs and hybrids and fair trade and organic and carbon neutral on top of lowering the thermostat and putting on a sweater.

It’s a damn wonder Green is getting any traction at all. Its getting way better of course. The past few years has seen an explosion of Green awareness and media attention. Al Gore has been at the top pushing his very simple message of hopeful action on Climate Change. Companies like Green Options are coming on the scene with the goal of making Green easy for the average person. And of course, the recent acquisition of Treehugger by the Discovery Channel for a cool $10-15M validates the green blog/news space which shows there is an audience for green info.

Right now we’re in an exciting place for green business and media. I read the poll as an outright opportunity for smart eco-entrepreneurs to make a lot of money and help change the world for the greener. There’s a whole lot of people who want to go green, but don’t. That’s a huge opportunity.

It’s good to be green.

Happy Birthday Treehugger!

Noelle dEstries — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 10:50:38 +0000

I started reading Treehugger in 2005, not too long after they launched and when I was first discovering blogs. I’ve been a daily reader ever since- it’s hard not to. They have some of the best writers on the web- a lot of of my favorite green bloggers are Treehuggers - and I’m a very big fan of founder Graham Hill. His vision has driven Treehugger into the top 25 blogs on the web (out of like… a gazillion and three) and has turned it into a very ‘nigh-ce littil earner‘ for him, his partners, and investors. They have Nick Aster (my hero), the smart and savvy Michael Graham Richard, and the queen of green TV Simran Sethi. It’s been a big influence on me and I’m looking forward to thirty more years of the coolest green site this side of the Raz.

Happy birthday Treehugger!

Huzzah!

Junk Mail Killers Green Dimes raises $20.5M in funding

Noelle dEstries — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:08:12 +0000

Congrats to the good folks over at Green Dimes for raising a big ol’ round of funding. There’s nothing like an eight figure investment to kick your company to the next level.

Most people hate junk mail — how many are willing to pay to stop it? Palo Alto-based startup GreenDimes is betting a lot will, and according to PEHub has raised a whopping $20.5 million in a first round of funding, led by Tudor Investment Corporation.

GreenDime’s site says it has “tens of thousands of members” and the annual fee is $36 per year (a dime a day). For that price the company says it will reduce your junk mail by a 75% to 90% and plant one tree a month. GreenDimes was founded by entrepreneur Pankaj Shah, who also founded 4INFO and MetroFi.

Read more of this story »