Economic Nosedive Impact on Cleantech

A little more on the economic turmoil and cleantech over on my employer's blog: http://blog.bitepr.com/2008/11/economic-nosedive-impact-on-cleantech.html

Commitment to Green

With the economy nosedive, everyone's questioning the commitment to sustainability - both by businesses and consumers. A slew of research has come over the transome and the blogosphere is spreading it all over the place. RSS feeds lit up like Vegas on this topic in the past couple weeks.

It seems the market is still jittery about how real this shift to sustainability is - I haven't heard the "is green just a fad?" question lately, but there does seem to be fatigue in the media and general consumers about the topic. My stock answer about the cleantech category is that it's not going anywhere - it's as stable as biotech is - and the VC funding figures back that up. Q3 08 saw a billion dollars go into 73 deals. But this jitteriness can threaten marketing investments as CMOs get the axe out.

The sense of doubt about the longevity of sustainability is probably a hangover from being beaten over the head with political and Chamber rhetoric of the past several decades that "dirtier" technologies are the safe bet where all the jobs are, and that any move forward toward a new energy and sustainable business economy would drive the US lifestyle to the brink. Ironically, it turned out sticking to the old ways of thinking has driven Detroit to the taxpayer handout window and put the US behind the EU in wind and solar - big margin business with lots of jobs.

Here're a handful of links to some interesting stats:

Sustainable Life Media -
70% of IT Managers Say "Green" is Still Top Priority

IDC Touts Business Benefits of Green

Markets Chucking Green Campaigns as Economy Slows

Are Consumers Rethinking Their Commitment to Green?

Center for Media Research - Green not Consumers "Go" Button

Christian Science Monitor - Even as Economy Lags, Corporate "Green" Push May Advance

CIO Magazine - How CIOs are Responding in the Economic Downturn

Investment Tax Credits (ITC) as Pork

Very happy that the ITC extension made it into a bill and signed into law by the Prez. But bummed that it took a national implosion to get the other side to call mercy on this and accept it being grafted onto the bailout bill - which could almost be called pork.

Luckily, this government largess will create thousands of jobs and encourage continued investment in solar and wind projects - leading us further toward a healthier, more stable energy regime. More detail on the ITC is offered by SEIA.

As Heather Clancy of ZDNet points out, solar leaders have been "plowing ahead without waiting for the government," but this added support will certainly help (as incentives have done for oil, gas, coal and nuclear for years). She cites projects like the one announced this week by San Domenico School and Recurrent Energy (a client).

Working with folks in solar, I have a vested interest, but this is the type of incentive that I want my government spending my tax dollars on. Let's right-size this government, shifting funding from "dirty" energy to cleantech.

Global Shipping and Renewables

Globalization has resulted in huge growth in international shipping. Off-shoring manufacturing and shipping products to far-away markets makes economic sense when oil costs are cheap. The models appear to be breaking down a bit, as reported by the New York Times earlier this month (Aug. 2008). And from a climate change perspective, the shipping industry is apparently worse than air travel.

A couple of renewable energy options are floating out there...

Could ships be mobile solar power plants? The Japanese plan to harvest some solar energy to power engines and well as living quarters, as reported by Reuters. And with some additional investment, other renewables could work. I assume all waste is dumped overboard (contributing to other environmental issues, including the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). This could be an option for a waste gasification project (if technically possible/safe). Methane/biofuels could be harvested from waste, as well.

And from the "everything old is new again" department, we have a startup using wind to pull boats. KiteShip has a steady track record over the past couple of years chatting up it's innovative sail system - even grabbing a Guinness World Record for the largest kite ever.

I thought they started out with commercial marine applications, but it looks like they have equal emphasis on recreational marine and even plan to harness solar and Martian winds. I see talk of trials but no named customers.

Let's hope these high oil prices tip the scale in favor of renewable energy in global shipping.

EPEAT is Neat

EPEAT evaluates electronic products in relation to 51 total environmental criteria, about half are mandatory and half are voluntary. I don't remember seeing the logo ever, but it looks like a pretty solid program with checks-and-balances designed to keep it real and credible.

Like anything, people are bound to abuse the system, as it's valuable in winning big government and other procurement bids and to being seen as "green" by the market. But it's a great program to point procurement people to help them take the first step in sustainable businesses - vote with your dollars.

ZDNet notes that Dell tooted its horn about its newest EPEAT product - a cool-looking hybrid (the other king) desktop computer.

Other solid programs for sustainable purchasing include ENERGY STAR (which EPEAT includes), FEMP (Fed. Energy Mgmnt Program), and the NRDC Greening Advisor.

Green Pols and Ham

Some thoughts on political campaigns and sustainability, posted on my employer's blog (Bitemarks):

http://blog.bitepr.com/2008/08/green-pols-and.html

Next-Gen Solar

The next big thing in solar launched this week -- Enphase Energy's Micro-inverter System.

The multimedia press release has all the info, with great pictures.

The training video shows it in action.

And this video of the web app shows the level of insight you get when you have per-module info. Check out the time lapse!

Sustainability at Bite

Posted on my employer's blog on the stuff I'm doing around global sustainability there.

http://blog.bitepr.com/2008/04/walking-the-tal.html

Don't Forget to Follow Your Own Advice

I was laughing a bit yesterday at the Green Party. A colleague of mine posted about political conventions going green, using the Republicans as the example. Ironic.

I'm sure the Green Party has "green" events. But in forgetting to tell the world, they got scopped by the Republicans, and depositioned a bit. It's a bit like living in Scandinavia and being asked what you do that is "green." The government mandates a ton of stuff, so you might not even think of it as a green lifestyle practice, though you may be doing more than anyone.

It reminded me of my own choices (and communication to my netowrk about what I was doing to live green).

Last week I finally signed up from PG&E's ClimateSmart program, to offset my energy use through funding of forestry projects in California. Despite the real concerns about forestry as an offsets category, I'm comfortable with a symbolic gesture, at the least. And I do think that California is ahead of the game on standards and enforcement, so I feel confident that carbon sequestration is going to happen through my investment. And, being one guy in a sub-1,000 square foot apartment who likes things a bit cool, ClimateSmart is going to run me well under $5 a month.

And I've been sulking about my reliance on a car for my daily transportation. I got rid of my 4 liter Jeep 4X4 recently. Suprisingly, it got about 17 MPG in the city, and about 22 on highway. Not bad for an old SUV ('97). My buddy is letting me use his '07 Audi A3. I assumed that would be a big jump in efficiency. Wrong. It gets 20 MPG in the city, and about 26 MPG highway. With the benefit of ten years of technology and 2 liters less of engine displacement, very disappointing. Plus, it demands premium grade, which is more refining.

I tried MUNI again today (San Francisco's public transpo system). It took me an hour to go 8 miles. Driving takes 30-40 minutes. That adds up over a week. Time is precious to me, so I'm going to continue to drive daily.

So, today I bought an offset for 5,000 pounds of carbon from TerraPass. That's for about 6,000 miles/year for this car. TerraPass seem to be the easiest, most well-known brand, and they give a bumper sticker to help block some shame vibes. Of course, all of offsetting is done as a last resort. Energy efficiency and other lifestyle changes come first.

A bunch of carbon footprint calculators are out there; here are some:
Cool California
3Degrees
LiveNeutral
BP
SafeClimate

Shrinking Bottles

As I don't have TV, I get excited (sometimes) about commercials. This past week, I saw one from P&G touting it's shrinking bottles of detergent. Fun creative and great message.

Although this move to concentrated detergents is old news, as reported by the WSJ in May 2007, it is a nice notch in the sustainable business bedpost.

Back when I consulted with the Feds on ENERGY STAR, we worked with P&G on campaigns around Tide HE, trying to get the word out through partnerships with utilities and manufacturers. This was as early as 2003, and was focused on the front-loading washer boom that required a more concentrated detergent. Good to see the full group has embraced the LOHAS market, even if it's been pushed there by Wal-Mart and others driving waste out of their businesses through pressure on the supply chain.

Shrinking bottles of detergent ties into the bottled water debate, which is gaining momentum. Detergent is basically large bottles of mostly water. It doesn't add any value to ship more water across vast distances. No added value + extra plastic + more transportation costs = waste. BrandWeek had a nice piece back in February 2008 that shows that the big bev boys are concerned about bottled water backlash.

Good to see Unilever changing too, though darker green brands such as Method, Seventh Generation and others (I have a super concentrated detergent at home that I'll update this post with) having been doing it for years.

Green Mixers

Everyone's scrambling to capitalize on the swarm around cleantech. SF Green is a new one that's charging $15, and EcoTuesday starting charging $10 in advance and $20 at the door a couple months ago. There are several freebies too. Here's a quick collection of offline social networks in the Bay Area for cleantech/sustainability:

Green Drinks @ Varnish

EcoTuesday

Climatini

Green Drinks @ Elixir

SF Green

Sustainable Business Alliance Events

Please post any others that you know of, or feedback on these events to help people choose wisely.

Playing with Sustainability

Gaming has become a huge part of the modern lifestyle (though my last console was a Nintendo, as in NES). Many think it's wasted time.

Can we harness the raw manpower going into gaming (from players and creators) to drive the sustainability movement (and maybe even policy and behavior, both consumer and business) forward? Both serious games and alternate reality games may help.

Back in April 2007, World Without Oil opened my eyes to this concept. I dabbled in it a bit, blogging and being a passive spectator. My primary solution was to get rid of my four liter Jeep and take public transpo, buy more from the farmers market, support local businesses, and protest. But now that my social media chops are better, my participation (and many other's) would be richer. I hope to see more of these types of alternate reality games.

IBM just launched a virtual reality game called PowerUp. They used some nice social media elements too, check out the video news release.

There are a variety of other online sustainability games popping up, most based on the SIMS model, or simple boardgames. These don't capitalize on social networks, which is where the power is (as SETI knows), but it's an example of using games to solve societal problems and educate folks. They can be effective communication tools, but I'm more interested in an exponential jump in solutions and behavior change, which requires more freedom and user generated content. Here are some of the simpler ones:

Stop Disasters from the UN/ISDR.

Chevron's Energyville.

ElectroCity from Genesis Energy (New Zealand).

Consumer Consequences from American Public Media.

The Cloud Institute for Sustainability and Union of Concerned Scientists have very simple ones.

Greenwashing: How to Avoid It

Businesses are under increasing pressure to go green - from consumers, regulators and shareholders - and the threat of greenwashing is rising. Greenwashing is essentially when companies say they're green, but aren't - their communicatiosn don't map to their operational realities.

Bite Communications' Cleantech Practice (which I'm a part of) issued a whitepaper today that suggests that while the threats of being accused of greenwashing in today’s market are very real, so are the potential upsides from pursuing a corporate sustainability strategy. There's an executive summary over at Bitemarks blog.

In addition, Bite published a podcast with Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic, which explores the issues in the whitepaper, and how Virgin has found true competitive advantages with its green and sustainability efforts.

We issued a social media release, with links to the whitepaper, podcast, images, through Marketwire's new service.

I saved some good resources on greenwashing on Delicious.

Smarter solar power could revolutionize industry

I just love that headline from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat - and that fact that it's backed up by proof points.

Solar micro-inverters are officially here after a long struggle by by the entire industry to make them commercially viable.Enphase Energy completed CSA listing per UL1741 for its micro-inverters, which means that it passed difficult tests and can be sold in the US. This is a market first and signals the beginning of a shift in the solar industry from central/string inverters to micro-inverter solar energy systems.

Most of the investment in solar has been to tweak incremental efficiency out of PV cells or even to get economies of scale on the installation side (Solar City). Micro-inverters represent the potential for significantly increased ROI in solar systems. Enphase has a smart system, including communications hardware and software, web-based anlaytics and other technologies, that represent the best option to date. The product is in beta now and will be coming to market in Q2 2008.

More stories on this:

Earth2Tech
VentureBeat
CNET
Red Herring

Enphase Energy is a client of Bite Communications, where I work in the cleantech practice.



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The New Big Oil?

Cleantech industries should consider the sustainability of their entire business ecosystems, lest they be called out like The Other Big Oil (Palm Oil).

I have a complete posting over at the Bite Communications blog: http://blog.bitepr.com/2008/01/the-other-big-o.html

Cleantech Business Kudos

PR Week included Bite Communications (which I work for) in its Editor's Choice "Who to Watch in 2008" list, specifically for cleantech efforts.

Bite has had a cleantech practice for over a year, and currently works with companies such as 3Degrees, AMD, Applied Materials, Enphase Energy, Sun Microsystems, SunPower, Tiger Optics and Validus DC Systems. These are clients of the US business, and the UK and China offices also have cleantech efforts/clients.

It's been great to be able to combine my passion for technology, marketing, and sustainability at my current gig.

I did a similar post on the Bite blog at http://blog.bitepr.com/2008/01/bite-cleantech.html.