Green Options

No matter who attends the BSR conference, we always seem to find a balance between the people who legitimately wish to improve sustainability, not just for their company but the planet, and those who set out to further their profits by subtle or blatant greenwashing.

During the Thursday morning breakfast, Zhang Yue, chairman and CEO of China-based Broad Air Conditioning woke the crowd up as he spoke through an interpreter. A few minutes before that, I found myself asking a colleague “Who is this guy?” After 10 minutes, I changed my mind. More people should listen to this guy. True, I haven’t done due diligence on his company but if his company does half the things that he says they do then I’m on board. Yue created China’s first “non-electric chiller” and insists on showing consumers how triple paned windows will reduce their need to use air conditioners. Consider that their business revolves around making air conditioners.

Even a year gone since the failure of Lehman, fundamental questions remain regarding the core underlying assumptions of our financial system. Though currently derivatives trading and black boxes appear out of favour, what will replace them in terms of helpful and productive uses of capital still has yet to be determined. This question was what the Conference on Social Capital Market’s, or SoCap09 tried to give some structure to; while the trend towards sustainable investments and long-term ROI seems to have taken the place of actively managed funds seeking 20x returns.

The keynote address of the social capital markets conference called SoCap was given today by Sonal Shah from the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. For the past few years, more and more people have been focused on combining social benefit with entrepreneurism, and this is the year of three-way collaboration.

Shah coordinates the domestic policy agenda to help government support both social entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations. She says the government has the ability to drive resources toward the most innovative solutions. There will be funds such as to support nonprofit organizations grow promising programs and help them spread across the country, but Shah emphasized the government’s goal to catalyze multi-sector partnerships addressing issues in education, health care and environment.

An example she gave was that Cisco is participating in workforce retraining initiatives, helping to develop a community college curriculum in health IT.

The concept behind the the HUB Bay Area is not easily grasped. Tangibly it is a workspace for small businesses interested in creating social change. In-tangibly the potential is much greater

A bridge is about to open up that will make things easier but safer for people who want make their investments consistent with their values.

Just like a bridge makes traveling between two islands easier, the new rating system to be unveiled at Socap09 will be like taking a train instead of having to paddle through choppy waters.

The bridge, called GIIRS, is being built for people who are trying to make sure their investments have a positive social and environmental impact while they also try to earn a financial return. It’s a tool that makes it easier, safer and clearer for those investors who want to make a difference.

The front pages in the UK this week are a-spread with the news of record profits at Barclays Bank, with accompanying bonuses for top bankers. This echoes last week’s story at Goldman Sachs. Given the recent bailouts and government support, the Economist is right to note that ‘such largesse looks cheeky at best’!

Although the two crises have little in common, this obstinate reminder of how little has changed in the financial sector prompts me to deeper pessimism in the environmental crisis.

Why? We’re perhaps only a year into, and most certainly nowhere near out of, the greatest economic crisis in living memory. Many people are still in the thick of it, as witnessed, for example, by record unemployment levels on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet it seems that we are incapable of learning, or changing in the face of significant crisis.

Ecopreneurist does a terrific job of educating the public about green business, especially startups.  My own personal blog, EcopreneursGuide, has a variety of pages that also address this topic, though with woefully less information and diversity, since it is only my blog, and doesn’t have the wealth of writers associated with Ecopreneurist.

But the interesting thing is that my blog gets a decent number of hits. Not, mind you, for any of the articles I write, but only for the resources I list.  The page that, overwhelmingly, gets the most attention, is the “Green Business Opportunities” page.  With Google Analytics, it is easy to see that most of the people who come to my blog do so because they are searching for this exact phrase. People want to change the world.  We need to make sure they have the resources to do so.

The founders from three bay area start-ups gathered in HUB’s first bay area home in front of a sold-out crowd to talk about their origins, give the audience - and each other - advice and insights on the “secret sauce” for creating impact.

Smart social entrepreneurs and their like-minded investors would be smart to think about the breadth of opportunities that a cell phone creates for citizens of emerging markets.

Yesterday the White House announced President Obama’s 2010 request to Congress for $50 million to set up a Social Innovation Fund with the goal of identifying the most promising results-oriented non-profit programs in order to expand their reach throughout the country.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  In the case of St. Thomas 7-Hot Pepper Sauce, it was definitely the chicken.  Without the chicken, there wouldn’t be the fertilizer to grow the hot peppers to make the hot sauce that the sent kids from the St. Thomas projects in New Orleans Lower Garden District off to college.

And without the chickens, Derek Hoeferlin and his architectural students from Washington University would not have had reason to take interest in this little community garden which has begun to harbor interest for it’s uniquely designed “urban chicken coop”, the story of its recovery post-Katrina and the sustainability recipe it holds for other communities across America.