Ecopreneurist

June 5th is United Nations World Environment Day.  The U.N. Environment Programme has setup a twitter campaign called ‘twitter for trees’.  All you have to do is ‘follow’ http://twitter.com/unepandyou and they will plant a tree.  The goal is to get 100,000 followers by June 5th.   That plants 100,000 trees, so lets get started!

If you’d like to promote the campaign, feel free to tweet:

Please RT: follow @UNEPandYou and a tree gets planted for free.  Plant extra trees for $1 via http://www.mokugift.com

Mokugift is an official partner of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Image source: United Nation Environment Programme

Last night Keilly Witman from EPA’s GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership, the program that attempts to get grocery stores to reduce ozone-killing refrigerant leaks, talked at EcoTuesday in DC. What I thought might not be our most exciting topic turned out to be one of the most interesting I’ve heard in the 8 months of co-hosting these events.

Ozone-depleting refrigerants are also potent greenhouse gases. One pound of the most commonly used HFC refrigerants has the same impact as about 4000 lbs of CO2. This is why Witman calls the reduction of refrigerant leaks the low-hanging-fruit of emissions control. There are 35,000 supermarkets in the US and each typically carries about 4000 lbs of refrigerant and leaks about 25% of that.  So, you do the math: 1000 lbs of high global warming gas from each of 35,000 supermarkets = 35,000,000 lbs leaked each year.  And its pretty simple and cheap to cut that number in half, which is where most GreenChill partner markets come in.

According to a 2008 GreenChill press release:

Compared to the rest of the supermarket industry, GreenChill partners are already emitting fewer ozone-depleting refrigerants and greenhouse gases than their competitors, and saving money at the same time. The partners’ savings in operating costs equal almost $13 million.

If every supermarket in the nation joined GreenChill and reduced their emissions to the current GreenChill average, the industry could prevent the release of 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent and 157 ozone-depleting potential tons annually.

GreenChill has about 30 supermarket partners.  Let’s start applying the Big Green Purse principle and ask: Is your market a Greenchill partner or should you shop elsewhere?

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Eleven government agencies participate in the Small Business Innovation Research program which makes grants to science and technology-based firms.  EPA and NSF just announced the open proposal window for applications “for small businesses to grow, add workers, and expand into new markets.”

Both programs will be accepting applications for Phase I funding. These are small grants: A total of $70,000 is available in funding for each EPA Phase I award. The NSF’s SBIR Phase I solicitation funding is $150,000 per award. One expert told me that it probably means 5 awards from EPA and 6 awards from NSF for grants ranging from $15k to $25k each.

Under Phase I, the scientific merit and technical feasibility of the proposed concept is investigated…Through this phased approach to SBIR funding, EPA can determine whether the research idea, often on high-risk advanced concepts, is technically feasible, whether the firm can do high-quality research, and whether sufficient progress has been made to justify a larger Phase II effort.

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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.”)

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One of the glaring absences in the discussion of how to use social media to achieve marketing goals is the lack of established marketing terms. Since green businesses are big users of Twitter, I think we need to have this conversation!

Traditional marketing terms are just words that have used for quite a long while to name different ways of accomplishing marketing goals.Though tactics may have changed from relying on newspapers to relying on television advertising to new interest in social media, the goals and what we want to accomplish in the end have remained the same. That’s why I find it odd that perfectly good words like “impressions” and “reach” are so often absent from the discussion on social media.

Let’s review.

In advertising terms, “impressions” means how many times a consumer sees your message. This is measured across media. A TV viewer may see your commercial 5 or more times before it registers or sparks their interest in your product. Media buyers calculate the number of times specific consumers see a commercial before making the buy.

“Reach” refers to the actual number of consumers who see your message once. Obviously the more of your target consumers you reach often, with lots of impressions, the greater the chances she’ll buy your product.

And, so I ask, why does this topic not come up in discussions of social media? Yes, people do talk about followers and friends and quality followers and friends and fans and number of followers on Twitter, Facebook, SU, Myspace, etc, etc. This does address the concept of “reach” – sort of.

But what about impressions? Especially on Twitter, we usually tweet a post or an interesting thought…once. And, of course, at least, I’d say 80-90% of our followers don’t even see the tweet…unless it is retweeted. Of course, that is often the goal, but, what about if we tweeted one message a number of times to ensure that all of our key target sees it? Would that be considered bad twettique? Is that abusing our followers? Would we rapidly have deluge of people “unfollowing”? 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.)

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George W. Bush sat just a few feet behind Barack Obama during the new President’s Inauguration address, delivered on a frigid yet sunny Washington, D.C. day.  The former President appeared warmly dressed but must have felt a distinct chill in the stern repudiation he was publicly receiving, however eloquently Mr. Obama delivered it.  CNN’s camera showed Bush, wearing his best poker face, flinch ever so slightly when Mr. Obama suggested, “We will restore science to its rightful place.”

It was not difficult to rebut the former President and his policies.  Indeed, many might attribute the Democrats’ sweeping victories last November to Bush’s final approval rating, which was worse than any outgoing President in history (22%, CBS/NYT Poll).  Obama chastised the former President’s policies, in no uncertain terms, on the Economy (”Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered”), Civil Liberties (”we [Americans] reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals”), Education (”our schools fail too many”), Foreign Policy (”each day brings further evidence that the way we use energy strengthen our adversaries…”), and the Environment (”…and threaten our planet.”).  He criticized Bush’s leadership (”a sapping of confidence across our land”), and his claim during the 2000 campaign to be a “uniter, not a divider” (”we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics”).

But what about looking forward?  Obama asked that when future generations look back, Read the rest of this entry »

This morning I found myself thinking about inaugurations past. In particular, John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address. That, along with meeting Auden Schendler Executive Director of Sustainability at Aspen Ski Company a few weeks ago, got me thinking about my ideas of greening small businesses.

What would happen if we reframed the issue: ask not what the country can do to green you; ask what you can do to green the country?

We all know that in order to be a green business we have to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk.  And, walking the walk needs to be more than greening your individual business. Changing your business practices is only one piece of the greening puzzle. Just because you can’t afford to install solar panels right now, doesn’t mean you can’t make a big difference. In fact, the time you invest in making a difference may be as valuable to environmental progress as installing CFLs. What if every small business owner in America got involved?  Joined a green business organization? Strengthened their green requirements for suppliers? Provided customers with greener alternatives?

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Stimulus packages and bailouts have dominated the economic headlines of late, but perhaps running a close second in terms of economic trends is that many governments across the world have made serious pushes for creating green jobs.  South Korea is the latest to join the fray, announcing this week a $32.7 billion program to create 1 million green jobs.

The spread of these kinds of initiatives is great news for aspiring ecopreneurs, as the market for green building, alternative energy, and other forms of green products and services becomes the ‘rising tide that lifts all ships’.  Well, at least the ships in the sustainable sector. 

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