Ecopreneurist

Part 2 in a series where Krates Ng (co-founder of Mokugift environmental rewards) interviews fellow ecopreneurs.  Today, Krates interviews Linda Lannon of PeopleTowels.

1) Why did you start PeopleTowels?

My business partner, Mary Wallace and I started PeopleTowels, because we believe that every person can have a positive impact on the environment by making small lifestyle changes.  PeopleTowels is one of those small sustainable acts with a big environmental impact.

2) Is there a story about the name?

Actually my son came up with the name.  We liked PeopleTowels because it’s a wake-up call that paper towels are a mindless convenience that are not eco-friendly.  The name also empowers every person to have a sustainable choice rather than be forced to use paper towels or air dryers when they’re out and about.

3) What was the toughest challenge in getting your company started and how you got over that?

Our business is only 3 months old. Our biggest challenge is awareness.  We are a new category in sustainability and we need to get the word out about our product and it’s environmental benefits.  When people realize that by switching from paper towels to PeopleTowels in public restrooms, in one year they will save ¼ of a tree, decrease landfill by 23 lbs and conserve 250 gallons of water, they “get it.”  Almost everyone we meet wants to do the right for the environment – something within their control that doesn’t cost a lot, yet has a positive environmental impact.  Cloth grocery bags, coffee mugs at work, reusable water bottles and now PeopleTowels are part of that eco-friendly lifestyle.  These small changes multiplied by millions really have an impact.

4) Can you describe the moment when you knew that PeopleTowels hit full stride as a business?

After 3 months, we have a ways to go before we hit full stride. However, I believe full stride for PeopleTowels will be similar to reusable water bottles—when PeopleTowels are widely adopted by individuals and businesses and the corresponding environmental benefits of saved trees, reduced landfill and water conservation are realized.

5) If you had to pick one product in your lineup, which one would you showcase and why?

While we’ve had nothing but a positive reaction to all of the eco-chic designs in our inaugural product line, the best-selling PeopleTowel is ‘This Is Not A Tree’.  It says it all- with a funky all-over tree design and the words – This is not a tree.  It’s really fun and our customers love it.

6) How is PeopleTowels going to grow in 2010? And how can other ecopreneurs help?

PeopleTowels will grow in 2010 in several ways.  For the B2C aspect of our business we are using all the social media channels to spread the word about our new product.  We are currently sponsoring our first annual Earth Day design contest.  After the online voting for the best design we’ll manufacture the winner’s design on a PeopleTowel and sell it online. 2010 will be a strong year for the B2B side of the business as we develop and grow relationships with retail partners and businesses.

My fellow ecopreneurs can help in the same way I can help them— by creating awareness through their social media networks; be it blogs, Facebook or Twitter for PeopleTowels.  At PeopleTowels we are constantly looking for eco-solutions, innovations and companies with whom we can partner or write about.  I hope other ecopreneurs  reading this blog will get in touch with me.   I’ve meet some phenomenal ecopreneurs and  though we have different approaches, different ideas;  I believe we all have the same motivation for starting our new businesses—reducing our environmental impact and leaving the planet a better place for future generations.

Part 1 in a series where Krates Ng (co-founder of Mokugift environmental rewards) interviews fellow ecopreneurs.  Today, Krates interviews Brendan Gill of PlentyWays.

1) Why did you start PlentyWays?

We’ve always wanted to create an environmentally focused organization and its really our first opportunity to do that.  At school and college we learned about the climate change issue and it became obvious that this issue is going to form a backdrop to our entire lives.  Its already a crucial matter, but it is only going to grow more and more important over the coming decades.  We wanted to be involved with this issue and to do our bit to help.

2) Is there a story about the name ‘PlentyWays’?

These days its very hard to come up with a name.  Finding something short, simple and with an available web address is difficult so when we finally came up with PlentyWays, we were really satisfied.  The idea behind it is that there are plenty of ways to make a difference.  That’s really our guiding philosophy: through the products we make available, the tips we provide, the services we review, we are trying to show people all the ways in which they can do their bit.

3) What was the toughest challenge in getting your company started and how you got over that?

There was a combination of challenges at the beginning.  It took us a long time to come up with our name, we even tried crowd sourcing it and put up a bounty of $200 we were so stumped, but even that proved fruitless.  The second big challenge was picking out the right products to offer our customers.  There are a lot of green products out there now and the number is increasing by the day.  We had to do a lot of research into what we thought were the most popular ones and would be most useful to our users.  Its a lot of work to then build relationships with the companies that make these products as well, which we are still working on.

4) If you had to pick one company in your lineup, which one would you showcase and why?

When people ask me what they can do to go green, the very first thing I ask them is if they have switched from incandescent bulbs to CFLs.  This is the most simple straightforward thing someone can do which is guaranteed to save both energy and money.  Sometimes it can be a challenge to convince people of a more expensive option that is more ecological, but using CFL bulbs is a complete no brainier.  Also people who are waiting for their current incandescent supply to run out before switching to CFLs – a quick calculation will show you that in almost all situations you should switch straight away.

5) How is PlentyWays going to grow in 2010? And how can other ecopreneurs help?

PlentyWays has huge plans!… We are working extremely hard on our blog, which we are going to focus on helping people to go green.  We will keep our ears to the ground on all the latest environmental apps, services and products and review them on our blog making it easy for budding ecopreneurs to take advantage of them.  We also want to provide some apps of our own.  The first we made was a very simple tool to stay on top of the latest green news, which pulls in news from some of the most popular green-focused websites out there e.g. TreeHugger and NY Times Environment.  We also want to work on a system that can monitor the energy and monetary savings people can make with various green goods.  For example, if someone purchases a few CFL bulbs from us, we would like to use the date they purchased to automatically calculate how much energy savings that has resulted in and the effect on their wallet.  It will probably use an average energy cost and an average figure for daily light usage as default, but would allow people to customize the calculation to their situation by entering their cost per KWHr and average light usage.  Stay tuned to our blog for details on all new features.

I had the pleasure of being the guest on a (the?) twitter #SmallBizChat last night.  The brain child of up and coming small biz powerhouse Melinda Emerson (a.k.a. @smallbizlady), #SmallBizChat happens every Wednesday night from 8-9PM EST.  Melinda, along with her co-host Cathy Larkin (@CathyWebSavvyPR) run a great event that is worth checking into as a listener/participant but also as a guest.  The whole evening is topped off with a PDF transcript of the event made available within in minutes courtesy of Sonia Schenker (@yourjobmyoffice).

Last night’s topic was, obviously, greening your small business.  I had prepared a dozen questions and answers and was expecting to field additional questions. But what happened, and here’s the beauty of Twitter and why this kind of event is Twitter at its best, is that a real dialogue occurred.  I didn’t have much chance to interject, mostly because several people had perfectly good answers that came from their day to day operations. For example, when question #2 was posted:

I, as planned, posted my 140 character response:

Its a perfectly fine answer, but the chat took off and many other terrific “definitions” kept popping up. Read the rest of this entry »

All this talk about going green, do we really know what exactly it means?  Companies invest millions in trying to segment the green market. There’s the BBMG Conscious Consumer Report.  The Roper Green Gauge. The Landor ImagePower Green Brands Survey.  And on and on..(..so many segments, so little time!) Maybe more importantly: When we talk about green are we talking about the same thing?  Apparently not.

This week I spoke with Jamie Wimberly whose firm, EcoAlign, just came out with a report called “Green Gap Redux: Green Words Gone Wrong”. Wimberly is CEO of Distributed Energy Financial Group (DEFG), a company in the clean tech space that includes EcoAlign. Jamie has nearly 20 years of experience in the energy and environment space, previously having served as the Vice President of the Consumer Energy Council of America (CECA), the President of the Center for the Advancement of Energy Markets (CAEM) and a Director on Boards of technology companies. He is a published author, frequent speaker and the Executive Producer of the award-winning Day In The Life Of (DILO) video.

Q: Hi Jamie.  Before we talk about the “Green Gap Redux” report, can you talk about how your focus on energy makes EcoAlign different from other green marketing agencies?
A. I was attracted to the energy sector because it impacts so many of the big issues of our day, including the environment, and is integral to modern society in all aspects.  The relationship between energy and environment is a symbiotic one, meaning that we won’t be able to clean up our environment and manage climate change without a transformation on how we produce, deliver and consume energy.  Our deep expertise in energy (the partners alone have over 50 years of collective experience in the sector) means that we can go beyond your usual agency engagement and truly discuss all aspects of strategy – operational, financial, marketing, etc.  As such, we are able to elevate the discussion of such things as messaging/ communications, product development, customer engagement, campaign design, channels and metrics, and other marketing-related activities to the C-level suite of our clients.  Finally, I would note that “sustainability” is evolving into a complete management model.  For that transition to be effective, you need to have a lot of skill sets and a strategic perspective that only comes from a deep understanding of all the moving pieces of a company. The end goal is for sustainability to become a business and economic driver to enhance profitably. Read the rest of this entry »

Corporations are huge and they dominate our business landscape.  Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations and only 49 are countries.

Corporate critics like Douglas Rushkoff would add that not only is our world dominated by corporations, but as individuals, we have all internalized the worst corporate values, becoming disconnected, profit-driven and absolutely “me” focused in everything we do.

That’s a pretty bleak picture.  After reading Rushkoff’s book (and even writing a long review about it) I thought about the legions of people (like me) working in companies.  Sure, there are a lot of narcissistic corporate drone types that fit the description above…but there are also a lot of other folks willing to shake things up.  Lets call them purpose driven corporatists. Read the rest of this entry »

American Express, in partnership with NBC Universal, is holding a competition to “Shine A Light” on an “inspiring” small business.

I find so many of you inspiring, I’m thinking: Could it be you?

They are looking for small businesses that are:

• Innovative
• Give back to the community
• Demonstrate a “customer first” mentality.

If so, they want to hear your story and you might win a $100K grant in cash and marketing support from American Express. Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago a reggae/rock band called Slightly Stoopid invited us to have a booth on the Blazed & Confused concert tour.  They were headlining with legendary rapper Snoop Dogg.  This was a perfect extension of our Artists & Athletes program that we started a few months back.

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Meet up with the mokugift team and other environmentally concious techies, fashionistas and fun people at the Green Software Unconference or at Digital Summer on Aug 19th.

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The Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec), a subsidiary of ECOtality, Inc. and Nissan North America win a $99.8M grant from the Department of Energy to support the largest deployment of electrical vehicles (EVs) and charging infrastructure in U.S. history.

The project will use Nissan’s LEAF, an early stage zero-emission EV to study and develop the logistics and necessary scale behind the implementation of a national charging infrastructure, that will in turn, support large-scale EV deployment.  Initial stages of the project include the deployment of 5,000 EVs and EV charging stations in Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.  Don Karner, President of eTec, sums up the industry e-coup:

By studying lessons learned from electric vehicle operations and the infrastructure supporting these first 5,000 vehicles, the Project enables the streamlined deployment of the next 5,000,000 electric vehicles…Nissan and over 40 government and industry partners, will enable this Project to successfully pave the way for electric transportation nationwide. Read the rest of this entry »

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming recently heard from a panel of leading edge scientists and industry executives on the state of existing U.S. clean technology and the lack of funding for developing and scaling the technology into commercially viable products and services.

The primary technologies discussed were solar and carbon capture technologies. Dr. Brent Constantz, CEO of Calera Corporation, which focuses on a transformational technology that converts CO2 into green building materials such as cement and aggregate, argues that this process is better than traditional CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage or Sequestration), as it represents a permanent CO2 conversion from gas to solid material.

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