Green Options

Whether they are “social” entrepreneurships or just plain entrepreneurships, it is clear that New Orleans is laying the right groundwork for a full-scale “and then some” recovery.

Bailout funds to fix the economy come at a higher cost to U.S. taxpayers.

If you have been asking yourself this question, you are not alone.

I’ve been fielding calls for two weeks from clients, friends, you name it. In my quest to come up with answers I cam upon the blog of Chad Moutray, the Chief Economist and Director of Economic Research for the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration. He posted about small business and the stimulus and provided a run-down of what’s in the stimulus package for small businesses:

* $720 million to help support a number of programs at the U.S. Small Business Administration (primarily reducing fees on 7(a) guaranteed loan guarantees);
* $400 million in other support to support economic development and entrepreneurship, particularly in distressed rural, urban, and low-income communities; and
* tax incentives for small businesses, including a continuation of section 179 expensing up to $250,000 on new capital investments, loss carry back for up to five years, a delay in the three percent withholding tax for businesses doing government procurement, and a reduced capital gains tax for small business investors holding stock for five years or more.

Moutray also pointed out that there will be “major investments in infrastructure, broadband, green technologies, home winterization incentives, etc., which will hopefully benefit large and small businesses alike.”

Being interested in small, green businesses, I checked out the two primary agencies that might have have some thing to say: The Environmental Protection Agency and The Department of Energy. It turns out, that according to Enesta Jones in the Press Office at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one reason its difficult to sort all this out is because agencies that are slated to receive money haven’t decided exactly how they will dispense it.  In other words, the programs that will dispense money have yet to be created. It appears that some chunk of the money will ultimately be dispersed as grants, some through loans and some through procurement (government spending). Additionally, some money will go to states to disperse through their sibling agencies and some with go through through the federal recovery efforts. It looks like we’ll all have to wait and see on the specifics of how exactly a business can obtain funds. But, every government agency that received funds to disperse has been required to issue a press release discussing how their stimulus funds will be spent. So, we have been told a few things:

The DOE press release states that there are 10 areas of funding through DoE:

The ‘green’ aspect of President Obama’s recovery plan has fallen short of expectations.

“Long ago, when tigers smoked long pipes… ” begin folk tales in South Korea. The stories recall a time at the farthest reaches of living memory when Korean tigers, the world’s largest cats, still prowled the Korean peninsula.

Korea’s national creation myth also tells of a tiger and a bear who asked the son of the ruler of Heaven if he would make them human. He agreed, but only if they could endure 100 days in a cave eating nothing but garlic and mugwort. The steadfast bear endured and became a beautiful woman, who gave birth to Tangun, the legendary father of Korea in 2333 BCE. But the tiger grew hungry and impatient. He left the cave early, unable cope with the hunger and waiting, and has been slinking through the Korean mountains ever since.

That is, until the last century when hunting and habitat loss pushed the Korean tiger over the brink of extinction in the wild in South Korea. With it went an important symbol of Korea’s identity.

My dear friend Cindy has been telling me about this friend of hers who helped create an organization called, Suppers for Sobriety. Her name is Cindy also.  Cindy number 1 (my friend) gently and persistently reminded me about Suppers for Sobriety for over a year. Cindy 1 is not an alcoholic, but in case you haven’t figured it out yet, the reason she pestered me for over a year about Suppers for Sobriety is because she knows I have been a recovering alcoholic for many years (19 as of August to be precise) and she also knows I’m a foodie.

I met Cindy 2 at Cindy 1’s wedding this summer - finally. She apparently had heard about me too. She was very enthusiastic about Suppers for Sobriety of course and pitched hard to get me to attend a dinner.

This past Sunday I and the Cindys went to a monthly dinner held at the other founder’s home in Princeton, New Jersey.

What exactly is Suppers for Sobriety?

Editor’s Note: This post was provided by one of our paid sponsors, Ecomugs, a company that offers lead-free mugs as a green alternative to disposable cups, while at the same time providing a healthy work environment and support system for recovering alcoholics.

Here is good news for offices taking steps towards going green - a blossoming company in California makes eco-friendly coffee mugs featuring your logo and employee name. There’s no minimum order required, so even the smallest startups can take advantage of Ecomugs handy dual purpose - the mugs are valuable promotional tools that also serve as a highly effective way to let your customers know that you are doing your part for the environment.

Styrofoam - Alarming Statistics

Did you know that over 25,000,000 styrofoam cups go into landfills every year? Styrofoam makes up 25% of our landfill space and is not recyclable, so any cup you use today will still be around 500 years from now. Incinerating styrofoam is not an acceptable alternative to burying the impervious material, as it gives off over 90 different hazardous chemicals, including styrene vapors and dioxin.

Two years ago Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and brought enormous devestation to the city and the region. Since then, numerous agencies and programs have been working on projects to rebuild and revitalize this region. An architect and online friend of mine wrote an excellent article about the recently publicized pictures for Global Green’s proposed Holy Cross development for the redevelopment of New Orleans.

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