Ecopreneurist

I just read about the People’s Stimulus Package and am impressed.  Started by an Alabama pharmacist who thought his little town need its own stimulus, he gave his employees $700 bucks each ($300 to part timers) in $2 bills.  All he asked is that they give 15% to a charity and to spend the rest locally in independent stores.  Now, Turman Commercial Painters has formalized the program and are hoping it spreads across the country.

I hope it does, but I would add one more requirement: Make the spending green.

Buying local is itself an excellent greening strategy, in part because of evidence that there are significant social, environmental, and economic benefits to creating local economies. Beyond that, a local green stimulus is a great opportunity to educate staff about what they can do with a few extra bucks.

Here are twelve easy, low-cost things you can do to stimulate the local economy green-ly:

1. Join the locavore movement and buy produce, bread, food stuffs and crafts made within your home town .
2. Buy some high efficiency bulbs. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: The is a guest contribution by Danny Kennedy, President of Sungevity. This is part of a series from the CEO’s of major solar companies. You can follow the complete series here.

Sometimes it is hard to contemplate what a good news story our industry – solar sales and installation – and the broader clean energy economy really represents. I was reminded on Monday at the graduation ceremony for the Oakland Green Collar Jobs Corps.

• » See also: Canvassers for solar energy and energy efficiency
• » Get Ecopreneurist by RSS or sign up by email.

In short, forty diverse, young and not-so-young people graduated from a tough, practical 30 week training course to be job-ready for work in the solar, weatherization and green construction sectors. 8 of them were not able to attend their own graduation, which had the Mayor and the great and good of the East Bay present because they already had jobs!

That is a big deal given that at this time something like 25 – 40% of union electricians in the area are going without work. It speaks to the excellence of their training, their own caliber, and the fact that green collar jobs are hot jobs even in a recession. And cities like Oakland are leading the way out of it with programs like this, which, at a very human level mean a lot to the people involved. They are also important for the whole economy.

Yesterday, I heard someone from the government-backed California Clean Energy Fund say that a clean energy company employs 4 – 5 people more than a non-green company, for every unit of production. And of those jobs created in solar, most are in the community – not short-term construction gigs or heartless factory jobs – but service positions selling systems, installing them on roofs, or maintaining them in other ways.

Obama, the Arnold Schwarzenegger, and everyone on down has been talking about green-collar jobs and workforce development, which is great. There’s a lot more they can do to support the kinds of job creation that are possible with the clean energy economy but I won’t try to tell you just what they should be doing in DC and Sacramento right now with various bills being debated.

But I do want to point out that at the end of the day, people are the limiting factor on the success of the solar industry. It is not just about the hardware. It’s about employees that sell, install and service the solar systems that will make our business’ succeed and grow and spread the sunshine of solar electricity. We have to train more of them for all the functions required to get this great technology onto the rooftops of middle America.

I look forward to the time when there are too many Green Collar Jobs cohorts coming out of various programs nationwide to go to them all. That’s when we’ll know we’re winning! Shine on!

Photo Courtesy greenforall.org via Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Editor’s Note: Jeff Wolfe is the co-founder and CEO of groSolar. This is the second post in a series from the CEO’s of major solar companies. The first post was by the CEO of SolarCity, Lyndon Rive. You can follow the complete series here.

groSolar operates in the downstream solar market. We are affected by all the US and global macro economic trends. I describe the current economic conditions as a Vortex. Heavy winds of the economy swirling downward, a huge updraft caused by declining raw material and finished goods prices, and sweeping cross-currents of over-supply and the failure of major banks to provide normal business services.

But within this maelstrom is a gentle wind of opportunity. Finding this breeze, like finding a thermal in a hang glider, can not only fuel a great ride, but can bring your company to new heights. This is more easily said than done!

• » Consumer solar aggregation project launched in San Diego
• » Get CleanTechnica by RSS or sign up by email.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Fourth Annual Sustainable Industries Economic Forum will feature ecopreneur Ray Anderson, founder and Chairman of Interface, a company specializing in sustainable carpets and other industrial products.  The event will showcase a panel discussion with rock stars of the green business world, representing a broad swath of green industries.  The timely discussion for this year’s event will focus on the current economic realities of the green business sphere.

Other speakers and panelists including Anup Jacob, founding partner of Virgin Green Fund, a consulting and venture capital firm affiliated with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Laura Rodormer, Division Manager of Green Construction for Read the rest of this entry »

There may be few occupations that have more opportunity to incorporate sustainable choices into their products, services, and day-to-day operations than architecture.  The market for green building has cooled down along with everything else, but it seems inevitable that it will replace its traditional counterpart faster than most other sustainable industries.  Organic foods, for example, grew 20% year after year for almost a decade before slowing to a 6% growth in overall sales last year, but no one believes that organic will completely replace traditional agriculture anytime soon. Green building, however, may be lined up to become mainstream.

It just makes sense.  Rising energy prices coupled with decreasing costs of many green building products and widespread acceptance of the many benefits of green building have produced a perfect storm that could realistically propel green building forward to mainstream acceptance.  The other major influence is the economic downturn, which is bringing liquid clarity to the costs of maintaining a traditional home, and the corresponding benefits to planning for energy efficiency.

Warren Lloyd, of Lloyd Architecture, says, “Things will be very different [when residential construction starts to heat up again after the downturn].  Green Building will just be how we do things.”  Lloyd, whose firm Read the rest of this entry »

The Middle Class Task Force held its first meeting in Philadelphia and the focus was on green jobs. VP Joe Biden headed the task force and was joined by several cabinet members and…Leo Gerard, president of United Steelworkers. But where was a green small business representative? I first noticed that organized labor had a big seat at the green jobs table at the Green Jobs National Conference last month in Washington, DC. The conference was organized by The Blue Green Alliance, “a strategic partnership between labor unions and environmental organizations created to expand the job-creating potential of the green economy.”

When I asked for a press pass, BGA’s National Communications Director, Kelly Schwinghammer, couldn’t have been nicer. However, I followed-up with two emails to discuss the tension between small business and labor on the green jobs issue and have yet to hear back.

Earlier this month, CNNMoney.com asked: ”Will a union-friendly Congress hurt small business?” Nowhere does this question apply more aptly than to green jobs, where much of the growth is expected to come from ecopreneurs. The problem with too much of organized labor is that when it has to do with green jobs is they are in it for the jobs part, not the green part. In fact, organized labor supports all sorts of not-very-good-for-the-environment jobs, like clean coal; we know that clean coal is a crock (or to quote Van Jones: “We could have clean coal and we could have unicorns pull our cars for us.”)

Read the rest of this entry »

A recession such as we’re in can be a rough road for entrepreneurs.  Conventional logic says to batten down the hatches and prepare for a long, cold winter.  Conventional logic, however, is for conventional thinkers.  You’re an eco-entrepreneur.  So ride the horse that got you here and think outside the box. 

In your pool of customers, there are big fish and little fish.  Enough little fish will keep you fed, clothed, and support your family.  Being a small business, you’ve always catered to the little fish, and figured one day, maybe, you’d land a big fish.  Whether it’s a large account, or just premium customers of the LOHAS demographic Read the rest of this entry »

A jolt for the green economy?  Perhaps ‘catalyst’ would be a better description for the economic stimulus package signed into law by Barack Obama.

Barack Obama won his first legislative battle with the Republican minority in congress and passed the Economic Stimulus package he feels is needed to jumpstart America’s economy. 

The package includes money for what many are calling the green economy.  Obama has committed $10 B annually to clean energy programs, including wind, solar, biofuels, energy efficiency, geothermal, and others.

What’s in it for the eco-entrepreneur?  Or, as many are now calling it, the ‘Obamapreneur’?

The quickest wins and lowest hanging fruit for the green economy and Obama’s plans lie in energy efficiency.  As the saying goes, the cleanest power plant is the one you don’t have to build, and with buildings accounting for 72% of all energy usage in the U.S., greening these buildings would provide good jobs, and freedom from high energy bills.  Robert Pollen, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, estimates there are $26 B worth of upgrades on public buildings alone in the U.S. that need to be done, with terrific return on investment for the government in terms of job creation and long term savings on energy.

Obama’s economic team has estimated that 5 million green jobs will be created by this $10B in annual investment, and that these jobs will be difficult to outsource or replace. Read the rest of this entry »

Today you can call your senators for free and tell them that a green recovery is important to you.

Yesterday, I posted about green jobs advocacy day on Capitol Hill and some of the ways in which a green recovery will benefit ecopreneurs. Thanks to 1Sky, the nonprofit with the single goal of seeing federal action that can reverse global warming, today (and actually tomorrow or the day after, etc…) you can quickly and easily call your Senator and tell them that you support green measures in the stimulus package.  All you have to do is click through to the 1sky site and the handy, dandy Click-to-Call webform asks for your email address, name, address and zip code as well as a 10 digit phone number where you can be reached so that they can connect you directly to your senator. Here’s the 1sky pitch:

Right now, the Senate is working on the economic recovery package passed by the House. This is a pivotal opportunity to invest in green projects like public transit and energy efficiency, which will jump-start our economy lay the foundations of a new, clean energy America. We’ve made it easy for you to call Washington–at no cost to you! Call your senators today and tell them to keep the economic recovery green!

Making that call couldn’t be easier. Whatcha waiting for?

Photo by Lusi at sxc.hu

The Green Jobs National Conference that starts today in Washington, DC, includes a Greens Job Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill.  Advocacy days like these are a time when labor, environmentalists, community activists, businesses and academics descend upon our elected officials. These disparate groups come from all over the country.  They will likely break into groups by state, perhaps congressional districts and get to know each other.  They will go to their elected officials to talk about an agreed upon set of issues. In other words everyone will be on message when they get face time with the representative or key staff people.

Today, people representing our interests—but who do not necessarily have paid lobbyists like big oil and the auto manufacturers—get to lobby in Washington, to make a difference.  And, ecopreneurs stand to be huge recipients of green jobs policies and legislation.  Many of the issues lobbied for today would mean more incentives, funding and support for you.

What are they going to talk about? According to the Advocacy Day Leave-Behind Document (that contains much more information about the specific recommendations), they are going to ask Congress and the administration to include policies that will create green jobs in the economic recovery package:

Energy efficiency and Infrastructure upgrades.

• Expand tax incentives for energy-efficient homes, commercial buildings and products;
• Increase funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program;
• Support a Clean Energy Corps;
• Fund the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant with a specific emphasis on large-scale, block-by-block retrofit projects;
• Invest in capital funding to repair and upgrade water, waste-water, and storm-water systems to ensure that we have safe, adequate water supplies for people and wildlife. (The American Public Works Association (APWA) estimates that every $1 billion invested in infrastructure generates about 35,000 jobs for engineers, construction workers, plumbers, architects, maintenance workers and many others.)

Read the rest of this entry »