By Paul Smith •
June 6, 2008
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Walking down the street today, it’s clear that summer is here. Which for many leads to thoughts of road trips, camping, and festivals. All of which likely will involve eating. And unless you’re an ace fire starter, you’ll likely use Sterno, that bright pink goo that you just don’t go there, as far as what it’s made of. What else are you going to use?
You might want to try Ecoflame. Their Warming Gel serves the same purpose, but is made from sugar cane derived ethanol, rather then coal or petroleum based as many conventional options are, and the packaging itself is recyclable, the label made from sugar cane. The first question that comes to my mind is, where does this sugarcane come from? Is it harvested sustainably? Yes it’s a renewable resource, but does it consume more then its fair share of resources to be made?
That said, it’s non toxic, and has no toxic emissions. The same cannot be said for the others, that require ventilation in order to not be damaging to you.
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 [...]
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.
By MC Milker •
May 29, 2008
A trendy friend of mine gave me one of her new business cards yesterday and I was immediately blown away. These tiny (1” x 2 -1/2”) alternatives to large bulky cards are chic, obviously eco friendly and so right for today’s entrepreneur.
If you, like me find yourself the proprietor of a business…or more frequently businesses that can get hard to cram into a traditional format you may like these tiny cards. Counter intuitively, the lack of space is freeing. Rather than having to decide which information is the most important, these cards leave space for little more than name, phone, URL and e-mail address, so no decision is necessary. (Though I did cheat and include some type on the photo I selected for the back.)
More importantly, the entrepreneurs responsible for developing these tiny cards saw the renewed interest in old fashioned calling cards. While years ago, calling cards were a standard accessory of the well mannered crowd, as more and more of the formerly jobless (older men and women, mothers, trust fund babies) went to work, the standard business card replaced the “calling card”.
By Paul Smith •
May 29, 2008
How do you sell $2 CFL lightbulbs in Nicaragua, a country where the average monthly income is $60-$100? If you’re Llamadas Heladas, you do it by directly demonstrating the savings, and appealing to their desire for reliable power. Let me back up. Nicaragua, especially in the rural areas, is a place that largely depends on generators for power. And it often goes out, due to various reasons, including too much power usage. People are quite price conscious there.
Putting those two together, Llamadas Heladas, a company that offers among other things a phone booth on wheels, partnered up with TecnoSol, a local renewable energy company, to promote the use of CFLs during Earth Month. Yes month, they don’t mess around down there. The joint campaign was called No Apagones. Basically, it’s reframing these lights to be a source of less blackouts, due to reduced energy use. They may cost four times a regular lightbulb, but they last 10 times as long, and use less energy, saving you both money and the headaches of power outages. A simple, compelling argument. Watch the video on their site. No Espanol needed, the message is clear.
By John Ivanko •
May 28, 2008
This is the final post related to Strategies of Abundance for green business ecopreneurs. The first two addressed how banks have a stranglehold on our lives (Part 1). Part 2 addresses the KISS principle (keep it small stupid), relocalization movement, and thriving on natural capital.
Following are a few more strategies we’ve employed, like many other ecopreneurs.
Strategy # 5: Enough Is Enough
A key facet for many small business ecopreneurs is the recognition of living within our ecological and financial means. By exiting the rat race and crafting our own business at a level we can manage, we can commit ourselves to our Earth Mission. A key step, however, is to let go of the idea that we must own a new car or new stereo, go on lavish vacations or in myriad ways keep up with the fictional Joneses. Many Europeans have known this for years.
Strategy # 6: Be Creative and Innovative
“Of three precious resources in life — time, money and creativity — the only unlimited one is your creativity,” writes Ernie Zelinski in The Joy of Not Working. “Make creativity your number one resource, and time and money won’t be as scarce.” Ecopreneurs sometimes thrive in a service economy where there are not products or in a durable economy where there is no waste. After all, who really wants to “own” carpet. I, for one, will be the first in line for an affordable service contract for a computer (famous for their obsolescence in less than three years).
By Paul Smith •
May 22, 2008
Terracycle is most known for their reuse of plastic soda bottles as packaging for their Worm Poop gardening products. While these initial products are definitely to be commended, it’s their recent move into office and school products in conjunction with Office Max that stands to make an even more profound impact.
Many people spend a great deal of time working in offices, and to have a mainstream supplier actively promoting awareness about the value of using green office products will likely lead to many people that may not have previously found relevance in their lives to consider more deeply what they choose to purchase for their office, and perhaps other parts of their lives.
Why Office Max?
Why exactly did Terracycle, the scrappy company (literally, reusing scrap production waste in some products) decide to partner with the massive Office Max? Listen up green startups, this is important: They are able to go beyond their youthful excitement about all things green, and hear from people with decades of experience what consumers are actually buying, where they want things to be greener, and where the most impact can be made. And, having a large, deeply ingrained distribution network, Office Max can also allow Terracycle to more confidently venture into making new products, with a sharply reduced time on the development cycle. This plus being able to produce larger numbers right away leads to being able to keep their prices at an everyday level, so that a broad segment of the population can and will try them.
Review of innovative green office products from Terracycle
So where does that lead Terracycle? It leads them to start with 7 new products, and have several more coming soon, including paper made from Mango leaves. More on that below. I had the pleasure of trying many of them out, and here’s what I found:
By MC Milker •
May 22, 2008
I saw this video by way of Environmental Leader . I know that many other counties and cities have started up programs to help entrepreneurs promote their green businesses. What has been your experience with programs of this type? How much help and how much hype?
By John Ivanko •
May 21, 2008
This is the second post related to Strategies of Abundance for small business ecopreneurs. My first post addressed why paying the bank is often an unwise decision.
Strategy # 2: KISS Principle: Keep It Small Stupid
While the mantra today might be get big or get out, be a millionaire or — for the more socially responsible — “getting to scale” without losing the values the business was founded upon, we’ve discovered the more human-scaled our operations and practices, the more we can accomplish in terms of reaching our Earth Mission.
Size matters not. It’s what and how we operate. Do the best we can in whatever our priorities and live without regrets. It’s a qualitative measure of success, not a quantitative one. Not bigger, but better.
There’s a small mart revolution going on, proclaims Michael Shuman in The Small Mart Revolution. It echoes the “power of one” worldview; we are the world. We don’t underestimate what a nation of ecopreneurial proprietors might collectively accomplish. Perhaps that’s how we view scale: a nation of ecopreneurs. However, we also respect the decision of those ecopreneurs whose fire in their belly lead them to become household names or lead to the sustainable transformation of their communities.
Take two professional women who are busy raising their families, a growing concern about the environment, and the need for a flexible business, and what do you get? Well, if you are Catherine Flanagan and Jane Holt, you launch a home energy auditing business called Green Homes.
Catherine, a lawyer, sought out a more flexible career after the birth of her fourth child. The she and her husband added an addition to her house, and she began to realize the impact that she could have helping others to make their homes as green as possible. “It was also important that we do something meaningful and challenging,” she said.
Living outside of the US for a while helped raise Jane’s awareness of the need to become more environmentally friendly. Jane has always hated waste, but while living in Mexico, Jane wrote a freelance story about garbage that really opened her eyes to how wasteful the American lifestyle can be. “As things became more Americanized, the amount of garbage became colossal,” she said.
By MC Milker •
May 20, 2008
The World Economic Forum, held this weekend in Egypt, featured speeches by luminaries like President Bush of the USA; President Mubarack of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan but, eco entrepreneurs shared the spotlight.
Young leaders from the Middle East have called on their business and government leaders to implement reforms immediately and transparently if they are to fulfill their potential by 2025. “We need faster change to keep pace with what’s happening in the rest of the world,” said Amira Abdel-Aziz, a masters student at Cairo University.
