June 2011

Who’s buying renewable energy?

June 30, 2011

Here are 10 companies that are putting real dollars behind their sustainability rhetoric:

Kohl’s, Whole Foods Market, TD Bank, Swiss Re, Nordea Bank, Adobe Systems, Vestas Wind, News Corp., CLP Holdings and Deutsche Bank.

They’re leaders in buying renewable energy, according to a new report from Vestas and Bloomberg New Energy Finance called the Corporate Renewable Energy Index (CREX) 2011. It’s available for download here.

Those companies are in the top 10, the study says, when ranked by the percentage of the electricity they use that comes from renewable energy. Kohl’s and Whole Foods, for example, buy 100% of their electricity from renewable energy sources. Most companies do this by buying renewable energy certificates (RECs). Here’s a table from the report; it’s much easier to read if you click on it to enlarge it: [click to continue…]

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Toyota: Streamlining nonprofits

June 29, 2011

Any company can give away money. Most don’t do it very well.

It’s harder, smarter and ultimately more valuable for companies to share their talent and expertise.

That’s what Toyota is doing with a program, announced today at the Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago, aimed at helping schools, hospitals and other nonprofits stretch their dollars further.

Toyota is famous for its lean, worker-friendly approach to manufacturing. Its Toyota Production System isn’t so much about efficiency–although that’s the end result–as it is about respecting workers, letting ideas bubble up from the shop floor and driving continuous improvement, or Kaizen. The Toyota system is “at its core a problem-solving method,” says Jim Wiseman, a group vice president and company spokesman who’s been with Toyota for 22 years.

Toyota will now share its expertise more widely. In a news release, the company says:

The company will be working with up to 20 community organizations across the United States in the first year to help improve performance, beginning with the St. Bernard Project, a New Orleans recovery organization that employs returning war veterans, AmeriCorps members and volunteers to rebuild homes devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Techniques pioneered on Toyota assembly lines have already helped local non-profits, mostly on an ad hoc basis. [click to continue…]

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Stewart Brand, Peter Kareiva and 21st century conservation

June 29, 2011

Stewart Brand

Several days ago, Stewart Brand, the longtime environmentalist and author–please read Whole Earth Discipline: An Eco-Pragmatist’s Manifesto if you haven’t–hosted a talk by Peter Kareiva, the chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, in San Francisco. It was called Conservation in the Real World, and Stewart summarized it on his blog. I liked Stewart’s account, so I asked him for permission to reprint it, which he kindly granted. Here goes:

Peter Kareiva began by recalling the environmental “golden decade” of 1965-75, set in motion by the scientist Rachel Carson.  In quick succession Congress created the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act—which passed the Senate unanimously.

Green influence has been dwindling ever since.  A series of polls in the US asked how many agreed with the statement, “Most environmentalists are extremists, not reasonable people.”  In 1996, 32% agreed.  In 2004, 43% agreed.  Now it’s over 50% who think environmentalists are unreasonable.

Kareiva noted that as the world is urbanizing, ever fewer people grow up in contact with nature—current college freshman have less than a tenth of the childhood experience of nature as previous generations.  And there’s a demographic shift toward multiethnicity, with whites already a minority in California and soon to be a minority in the whole country.  Asked to describe a typical environmentalist, current grade school students say it’s a girl, white, with money, preachy about recycling, nice but uptight, not sought as a friend.

In general, environmentalists have the reputation of being “misanthropic, anti-technology, anti-growth, dogmatic, purist, zealous, exclusive pastoralists.” [click to continue…]

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Google: Energy innovation will pay off but..

June 28, 2011

The folks at Google, not surprisingly, have enormous faith in the power of technology. So a group of them set out to see what technology breakthroughs in clean energy will mean to the economy, the environment and the typical American household.

They found good and bad news.

The good: Energy innovation could pay off big, benefiting GDP, jobs, energy security and reducing carbon emissions. It’ll even save homeowners money, over time.

Specifically, as Bill Weihl and Charles Baron write on the Google blog, here are the benefits of energy breakthroughs, when compared with a business as usual scenario. In their parentheses is even better news; those numbers reflect what clean energy technology can do when combined with stronger U.S. policy to promote clean energy and discourage the burning of fossil fuels:

  • Grow GDP by over $155 billion/year ($244 billion in our Clean Policy scenario)
  • Create over 1.1 million new full-time jobs/year (1.9 million with Clean Policy)
  • Reduce household energy costs by over $942/year ($995 with Clean Policy)
  • Reduce U.S. oil consumption by over 1.1 billion barrels/year
  • Reduce U.S. total carbon emissions by 13% in 2030 (21% with Clean Policy)

The not-so-good news is the last bullet: Reducing U.S. carbon emission by 13% by 2030, or even 21% under the more favorable clean policy scenario, won’t do much to reduce the threat of catastrophic climate change. The report also found that by  2050, innovation in the modeled technologies alone reduced CO2 emissions by 55% and by 63% when combined with policy. Those are under best-case assumptions.

But, while there’s lots of disagreement about all this, many reputable scientists, using respected climate models, say the world needs to reduce CO2 emissions by 70 to  80% by 2050, and that the U.S. share should be close to 80%. Here’s the argument, as articulated by the Union of Concerned Scientists. [click to continue…]

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Webinar: Nuclear power, after Fukushima

June 27, 2011

I hate to paraphrase a terrible sexist joke but when it comes to nuclear power, I sometimes feel like we can’t live with it and we can’t live without it.

There are lots of reasons to worry about nuclear power. No. 1 may be cost. As I noted last week,  a recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists tallied up the costs of government support for nuclear power from uranium mining to waste disposal, and it concluded that “subsidies to the nuclear fuel cycle have often exceeded the value of the power produced. This means that buying power on the open market and giving it away for free would have been less costly than subsidizing the construction and opera­tion of nuclear power plants.” Those costs, if anything, will only get higher because of the added scrutiny that the nuclear accident in Japan has brought to the industry.

And yet…without preserving and expanding nuclear power as an energy source, it’s extremely hard for me to see any path towards the low-carbon future that we need. As Robert Bryce, the author of Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy and the Real Ruels of the Future, once put it, “If you are anti-carbon dioxide and anti-nuclear, you are pro-blackout.”

These issues, and more, will be the topic of a live webcast on Wednesday June 29, 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT, presented by The Energy Collective, a website about energy and climate. I’ll be moderating. Registration is free and available here.

We’ll be talking about the following issues: [click to continue…]

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Biochar: Too good to be true?

June 26, 2011

Agricultural residents and converted biochar

Would you like to curb or even reverse global warming? Help feed the world? Generate renewable energy?

Biochar is the answer, say its most fervent advocates.

If only life were so simple.

Biochar, alas, isn’t ready yet to be a meaningful solution to the climate crisis, or a way to enhance agricultural productivity at scale. But it’s an intriguing substance that has been around for thousands of years, and the production of biochar may prove to be one of the  technologies that governments and business deploy to deal with the threat of climate change. As, potentially, a carbon negative technology, it’s worth a look.

Biochar, for those of you who haven’t heard of it, is a charcoal-like substance that is created today by pyrolysis of biomass. In layman’s terms, biochar is made by taking organic material, like agricultural waste, heating it to very high temperatures, and allowing it to decompose in the absence of oxygen.

Jonah Levine

To learn about biochar, I met recently in Boulder, Colorado, with Jonah Levine, who is a co-owner of his own small biochar business and, until recently, was an executive with a startup called Biochar Engineering.   Jonah, who is 30 and lives near Boulder, got involved with biochar when a friend asked him to organize a conference on the technology in 2009 at the University of Colorado. A passionate environmentalist, he had previously worked as a wildlife biologist and as an engineer advising utilities on how to incorporate renewable energy into the grid.

Now he’s bullish on biochar.

“I feel like like I’m watching the beginning of an industry,” Jonah says. “Within a  decade, I feel this will be a functional business space.” [click to continue…]

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Do we need energy subsidies?

June 23, 2011

What would happen if the government eliminated all subsidies for the energy industry?

It’s a radical notion, but an overwhelming vote by the Senate last week to eliminate billions of dollars in support for the U.S. ethanol industry sent a strong message that the era of big taxpayer support for biofuels is ending,. Reuters reported.

Given that about $1.3 trillion of this year’s $3.5 billion federal budget is being borrowed–and must ultimately be paid by future taxpayers–Congress may take a hard look at the vast array of tax breaks, tax credits, loan guarantees and liability protections that flow to virtually every segment of the energy industry.

As well it should.

Energy industry leaders howl every time anyone wants to take any of their subsidies away. But as Adam Smith once wrote (and I love this quote)…

The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

Figuring just how much energy subsidies are costing taxpayers, and who’s getting them, isn’t easy. Some subsidies are obvious. Buyers of electric cars–even a $100,000 Tesla—get a $7,500 tax credit. [click to continue…]

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Marks & Spencer: Sustainability, profits and a carbon-neutral bra

June 22, 2011

No company approaches sustainability more comprehensively—or more creatively—than the British retailer Marks & Spencer.

M&S is the UK’s largest clothing retailer and a big seller of food too (market share 3.9%). It operates about 1,000 stores and employs about 78,000 people. Its supply chain includes 2,000 factories and 20,000 farms. Some 21 million customers visit the stores each week, and revenues last year were £9.7 billion ($15.7 billion).

The company’s sustainability effort, which is called Plan A – because  there’s no plan B to protect the planet — touches executives, rank-and-file employees, customers and suppliers. Executive pay is based, in part, on meeting sustainability targets.  Store managers compete to save energy and waste. Factories and farmers that sell to M&S are rewarded for going “green.” Increasingly, customers invited to get involved, too.

“Plan A, at heart, is a change-management tool,” says Mike Barry, head of sustainable business for M&S.

I met Mike this week at M&S headquarters in London. M&S is making demonstrable short-term progress towards big long-term goals (about which, more below) but what stuck in my mind were these examples of how Plan A is changing the way the retailer does business:

Cleaning out the closet: M&S and Oxfam have teamed up to reward shoppers for recycling unwanted clothes bought at M&S. The clothes are donated to Oxfam, which raised about £3.3 million ($T.K million) by reselling them. Anyone donating an item of M&S clothing to Oxfam gets a £5 voucher to use on a purchase of £35 or more on clothing, homeware or beauty products at M&S. This develops brand loyalty, and points to the circular economy of the future, where stuff is recycled and make into something else instead of being thrown away. [click to continue…]

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Stoves, carbon credits, profits and the poor

June 19, 2011

Neil Bellefeuille

Neil Bellefeuille

Today’s guest post comes from Neil Bellefeuille, co-founder and CEO of The Paradigm Project, which describes itself as a “social enterprise working to create sustainable social, economic and environmental value within developing world communities.” Neil and his partners started the venture in 2007; before that, he was president of Bulldog Drummond, a branding consultancy. One of his clients, World Vision, the big global charity, asked him to go to Africa with them and, he says, “that was really the start of my taking a look at how I could apply my skills to…finding ways to give back and create positive outcomes for the developing world.” That led him to find partners and create The Paradigm Project. Here’s some of what he’s learned so far:

You want to change the world? You want to create jobs? End poverty?

Give the corporate powers that be a profit motive: Profit from the poor. Unlikely as it sounds; business is the most effective and efficient way to mobilize capital to solve problems in our world.

Partly that’s because capital flows to profit-making enterprises. In 2009, Americans gave away $300 billion to charity. Not bad. But in that same year, about $2.5 trillion – almost 10 times as much – was invested in private equity funds. Far more was invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds or banks, where most U.S. wealth resides. Imagine drawing even a small portion of that money into social enterprise in the developing world, to invest in businesses that create social outcomes AND a profit for investors.

We did. And we created The Paradigm Project to do just that. [click to continue…]

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On the VERGE of a “green” transformation

June 16, 2011

Next week brings a global conversation around a big idea being called  VERGE. The notion is that  energy, information, building, and vehicle technologies are converging, in ways that will make the planet radically more sustainable. The coinage comes from my friend and colleague Joel Makower, the chairman and executive editor of GreenBiz Group, the  producer of Greenbiz.com, where I’m a senior writer.

Like the Internet that makes it possible, VERGE will have a “deep and lasting impact,” Joel says. “It will change everything. Or, more accurately, it will focus and accelerate the changes already under way.”

We’ll be talking about VERGE at three high-level VERGE roundtables on June 21 and June 22 — one in San Francisco led by Joel and another in Shanghai led by Rob Watson, a  pioneer in the world of green buildings. I’ll be moderating the conversation in London, joined by executives from such companies as IBM, Cisco, Marks & Spencer, CH2MHill and Autodesk. Sustainability gurus John Elkington and Peter Madden will be there as well. You’ll be able to tune in live to all three events, culminating in a free, six-hour virtual event on June 22.

Here’s how Joel explains the VERGE in a recent story at GreenBiz:

Each of the four VERGE technologies is evolving quickly, with its own market, economic, policy, and technological dynamics.

  • Energy technology is becoming decentralized, cleaner, better managed, and easier to store.
  • Information technology is making every device, building, and vehicle smarter, able to connect into a vast Internet of things that can be addressed, monitored, controlled, and optimized.
  • Buildings are becoming more intelligent and efficient, better able to optimize energy and resource use and enhance human comfort and productivity, with the potential of becoming net-positive, from the standpoint of their environmental footprint.
  • Vehicles are getting smarter, too, able to communicate with their drivers, other vehicles, and their surroundings, becoming safer and more efficient while connecting passengers and fleet managers to a broader transportation and energy grid. [click to continue…]

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