Ecopreneurist

How do you sell $2 CFL lightbulbs in Nicaragua, a country where the average monthly income is $60-$100? If you’re Llamadas Heladas, you do it by directly demonstrating the savings, and appealing to  their desire for reliable power. Let me back up. Nicaragua, especially in the rural areas, is a place that largely depends on generators for power. And it often goes out, due to various reasons, including too much power usage. People are quite price conscious there.

Putting those two together, Llamadas Heladas, a  company that offers among other things a phone booth on wheels, partnered up with TecnoSol, a local renewable energy company, to promote the use of CFLs during Earth Month. Yes month, they don’t mess around  down there. The joint campaign was called No Apagones. Basically, it’s reframing these lights to be a source of less blackouts, due to reduced energy use. They may cost four times a regular lightbulb, but they last 10 times as long, and use less energy, saving you both money and the headaches of power outages. A simple, compelling argument. Watch the video on their site. No Espanol needed, the message is clear. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the final post related to Strategies of Abundance for green business ecopreneurs. The first two addressed how banks have a stranglehold on our lives (Part 1). Part 2 addresses the KISS principle (keep it small stupid), relocalization movement, and thriving on natural capital.

Following are a few more strategies we’ve employed, like many other ecopreneurs.

Strategy # 5: Enough Is Enough

A key facet for many small business ecopreneurs is the recognition of living within our ecological and financial means. By exiting the rat race and crafting our own business at a level we can manage, we can commit ourselves to our Earth Mission. A key step, however, is to let go of the idea that we must own a new car or new stereo, go on lavish vacations or in myriad ways keep up with the fictional Joneses. Many Europeans have known this for years.

Strategy # 6: Be Creative and Innovative

“Of three precious resources in life — time, money and creativity — the only unlimited one is your creativity,” writes Ernie Zelinski in The Joy of Not Working. “Make creativity your number one resource, and time and money won’t be as scarce.” Ecopreneurs sometimes thrive in a service economy where there are not products or in a durable economy where there is no waste. After all, who really wants to “own” carpet. I, for one, will be the first in line for an affordable service contract for a computer (famous for their obsolescence in less than three years).

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This is the second post related to Strategies of Abundance for small business ecopreneurs. My first post addressed why paying the bank is often an unwise decision.

Strategy # 2: KISS Principle: Keep It Small Stupid

While the mantra today might be get big or get out, be a millionaire or — for the more socially responsible — “getting to scale” without losing the values the business was founded upon, we’ve discovered the more human-scaled our operations and practices, the more we can accomplish in terms of reaching our Earth Mission.

Size matters not. It’s what and how we operate. Do the best we can in whatever our priorities and live without regrets. It’s a qualitative measure of success, not a quantitative one. Not bigger, but better.

There’s a small mart revolution going on, proclaims Michael Shuman in The Small Mart Revolution. It echoes the “power of one” worldview; we are the world. We don’t underestimate what a nation of ecopreneurial proprietors might collectively accomplish. Perhaps that’s how we view scale: a nation of ecopreneurs. However, we also respect the decision of those ecopreneurs whose fire in their belly lead them to become household names or lead to the sustainable transformation of their communities.

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There’s been a lot of energy behind wind power these days, with talk of larger and more dramatic installations every week. But this may leave you wondering, what does it have to do with me? Would I ever want one of these giant towers in my backyard or on my business? Noble though the idea is, for many, this is not an appealing or feasible option, due to space limitations or code restrictions. But then you may wonder, would a micro turbine make a notable dent in my energy needs?

Last week while at the Green California Summit, I saw a beautiful and practical solution to this: Helix Wind. With its elegant, rippled white shape, and the ability to work with any wind greater then 4.5 mph, requiring only 14 feet in height, these turbines bring it all home, literally.

How much power do they bring? 1KW for personal, 2KW for businesses, enough to meet as much as half your energy needs. There’s no need to have a battery to store the power generated as in solar panels, as “net metering,” or power metering that accounts for energy put back into the grid as well as what’s used, can be used as credit towards your energy costs.

There are many micro turbines out there, but none has the unique undulating helix form of this. So? Beyond being aesthetically interesting, this enables it to catch air from any direction, more efficiently, with less needed. The unique shape apparently is also, they claim, completely safe for birds - one of the stumbling blocks to greater implementation of such devices. Silencing other critics is the fact that it’s, well, silent in operation.

Now what about cost, rebates? Read the rest of this entry »

The European Union’s heavy industry carbon dioxide emissions during 2007 reached around 1.914 billion metric tons according to data released Wednesday. The numbers were 93% complete, because some of the 10,500 companies registered on the Europe’s carbon trading platform had failed to meet the March 31 submission deadline. Prices on the secondary carbon market rallied on the news Wednesday. The price of benchmark European Union Allowances (EUAs) futures increased 88 cents, a 3.9% rise.

The numbers are important for traders on the European Climate Exchange, who take guidance from the level of actual carbon emissions to gauge what demand for offsets is likely to be.

The data indicate there’s been a 1.1% rise in CO2 emissions according to Oslo-based Point Carbon. The release of the data marks the start of the second phase of the European Trading Scheme, a market-based cap-and-trade system which has been going for three years already.

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All participants to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme ought to have submitted crucial data on their 2007 greenhouse gas emissions levels by 31 March. The greenhouse gas data would be sourced by around 10,500 companies involved in carbon trading and is an important factor influencing the market price of traded carbon.

But many of the parties failed to meet the deadline, which is why the EU authorities in charge of the information said they will release the data to the public at a later date.

Emissions data is of vital importance for market traders because it shows the level of demand for the instruments they trade. The data is seen as a benchmark number setting the appropriate carbon price.

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The British capital markets watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, has released a report warning that many emissions trading companies make false claims about their green credentials.

The FSA says that the integrity of the carbon trading market is under threat. The information that carbon emissions traders relay to clients often has a truth content that’s lower than you’d expect. In many cases there’s also no clarity over the regulations involved, a lack of credible data. Investors are also frequently offered climate change related products that are totally unsuitable for their goals. Read the rest of this entry »

Companies involved in offsetting their carbon footprint have access to over twenty tools to calculate their emissions, most of which have been launched in the last year. So far, the voluntary carbon offsetting market is dominated by European players. Reviews of their efforts have not been all too positive, so US companies following in their footsteps do best to avoid the pitfalls.

The main criticism centers on what’s left out of the equation. Companies embarking on greening up their business practices are faced with a daunting task and most go about it the “easy way” at first. There’s the option to simply offset carbons on the Chicago Climate Exchange, the European Climate Exchange or on the newly established NYMEX venture, the Green Exchange. Businesses have access to these exchanges if they wish to reduce their overall greenhouse gas emissions by as little as 1%.

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Uber heavy hitter John Macdonald, Chairman and CEO of the Vancouver-based solar energy company Day4 Energy, recipient of eight honourary degrees and former MIT professor, knows a thing or two about renewable energy.

He also readily admits, with a signature askew smile and hearty laugh, that “being an academic is possibly the worst possible preparation for the business world,” and endorses a strong marketing presence in any renewable energy start up because the engineers “can’t seem to understand why somebody wouldn’t want this marvelous invention!”

It’s 7:52pm Wednesday night at the venture capital-esque forum put on by the VEF on CEO War Stories.
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The Green Exchange was launched with bells and whistles a few months back. Last week the exchange traded for the first time and activity and volume it surpassed all expectations.

The Green Exchange is part of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). During its first week, the equivalent of 1.59 million tons of carbon was traded. That volume makes the Green Exchange “the most successful launch of exchange-traded carbon contracts,” according to a report in the SunHerald.

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