Green Options

We can’t shop our way out of climate change and peak oil, if only we consume “green” products and services.

Yesterday I received another email from small businesses asking for advice on where to get financing so I put together this list.  Three out of the four the resources are recycled Ecopreneurist.com posts.  I simply gathered them in one place:

How To Finance A Green Business by Leah Edwards is an excellent post that covers four potential sources of cash for green businesses: SBA loans, social-venture venture capital funds, Friends-and-Family financing and partnering with a nonprofit organization.

Recently, Leah also posted about Financing for Energy Efficiency Improvements. In that discussion she talked about how some private banks are starting to offer “green loans” for the financing of clean energy systems or energy efficiency improvements. These same banks may offer small business loans for green businesses. Community banks often favor green loans so after you read the post, if it seems like an option check with your community bank.

Editor’s note: John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist, the authors of Ecopreneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet Before Profits, are both contributors to sustainablog and other GO Media network blogs. Despite our relationship, I was excited about their new book, and agreed to write a review. I’ll try not to let me relationship with John and Lisa get in the way of a fair and impartial assessment.

Ditch high-paying (and high-stress) corporate careers for a Wisconsin farm house, a more sustainable lifestyle, a portfolio of small businesses, and much less money. Sound idyllic to some… and crazy to others. As I noted in my review of their earlier book, Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life, John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist made the jump from Chicago ad executives to rural bed and breakfast owners… and have never looked back. Their newest book, ECOpreneuring, focuses on how they continue to bring in income while creating a life centered on home, family, and environmental restoration, and provides guidance for others that want to recenter their careers and lifestyles around their environmental values.

Already, you should be able to tell that this is no ordinary business book — in fact, I’m not even sure I’d call it a “business book.” ECOpreneuring contains plenty of advice on starting a small, eco-conscious business, but the authors focus primarily on how entrepreneurial efforts can incorporate values and priorities beyond the bottom line. Lifestyle choices trump profit motives, but neither have to be sacrificed in order to create meaning and income.