Brainstorm Green

Ted Roosevelt is lonely

June 6, 2011

I was headed out for a run one morning in April during FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference in Laguna Niguel, CA, when I spotted Theodore Roosevelt IV jogging on the beach. Having a good run? I asked him. Yes, he told me, and he’d been swimming, too, in the big waves that crash onto the beach and draw hordes of surfers every day.

Legacy matters, I guess. Ted Roosevelt, as he’s known, is the great-grandson of our 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, who was famous for his love of what he called “the strenuous life“—he boxed, rode horses, fought in the Spanish-American war, went big-game hunting and explored the Amazon. Ted Roosevelt, who is 68, played football at Groton, played ice hockey and rugby and rowed on the lightweight crew at Harvard; after graduation, he served two tours of duty as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam.

Like TR, Ted is a Republican, a conservationist and an independent thinker–which makes him part of a dying breed of moderate WASPy Republicans who are fiscally conservative and socially progressive.

Ted argues that environmental protection is good for America’s economic growth and strength. He describes climate change is “this century’s greatest challenge.” He believes that nature is worth preserving, not just because of its usefulness to humans but for its own sake. [click to continue…]

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Bumble Bee CEO: The end of cheap tuna?

April 12, 2011

Bumble Bee Foods is a survivor. Founded in 1899, Bumble Bee, which is headquartered in San Diego,  owns two of the last three canned tuna factories in the U.S. (in southern California and Puerto Rico) and one of the last two canned clams plants (in Cape May, N.J.). The company went bankrupt in the late 1990s but it has emerged stronger, and it’s now North America’s largest branded shelf-stable seafood company.

But Bumble Bee’s tuna business, which accounts for more than half of its revenues of close to $1 billion, has a new worry: If the world’s fisherman can’t agree to  intelligently manage capacity, tuna stocks could well be threatened.

Chris Lischewski

“We’re at maximum sustainable yield,” says Chris Lischewski, Bumble Bee’s president and CEO.

Bumble Bee itself doesn’t own fishing boats–it’s a processor and marketer of  seafood–but its future obviously depends on a reliable supply of fish.

I met Chris a week ago at FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference, where I led a panel on sustainable seafood. (Tomorrow, I’ll blog about Josh Goldman of Australis, who also spoke.) A former management consultant who has run Bumble Bee since 1999, Chris told me that he didn’t worry much about fish supplies until the mid-2000s when it became apparent to him that global efforts to regulate tuna fishing weren’t working.

In response, Bumble Bee with the World Wildlife Fund and industry rivals, including Starkist (a unit of Korean fishing conglomerate Dongwon) and Chicken of the Sea (now owned by a Thai parent), created the nonprofit International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) in 2009. Chris now chairs its board, and he has had to become an expert in fisheries management. [click to continue…]

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They said it at Brainstorm Green

April 6, 2011

Who says environmentalists are all gloom and doom? In terms of sheer fun, the 2011 edition of Brainstorm Green, FORTUNE’s conference about business and the environment, topped them all.

 

Chuck Leavell at Brainstorm Green

Along with  earnest talk about climate policy, nuclear power, investing in green and electric cars, there were early morning surfing lessons from Laird Hamilton, spectacular images from National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen, fabulous sustainable food from star chefs (including Rick Moonen of rmSeafood and Michel Nischan of Wholesome Wave) and even dancing to the music of a band put together by Chuck Leavell, the keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, tree farmer extraordinaire, author of a new book (Growing a Better America) and all-around good guy.

What we all learned can’t be condensed into one blog post, but here are a few of my notes and quotes from our jam-packed 48 hours in Laguna Beach:

The future of coal: Lively debate here, with Michael Morris, the straight-talking CEO of coal-burning utility American Electric Power saying that without new government policy, coal will continue to be burned in massive quantities, not just in the U.S. but around the world. [click to continue…]

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Will American consumers ever go “green”?

April 5, 2011

It’s been another action-packed day at FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference on business and the environment. Lively conversation about the future of coal (it’s not going away), sustainable seafood (about which more another day), geoengineering and marketing to the green consumer.

The “green consumer” panel featured SC Johnson’s CEO H. Fisk Johnson, Steve Wenc of UL Environment and marketing guru Suzanne Shelton. It was moderated by my friend and colleague Joel Makower, the founder and editor-in-chief of GreenBiz. They all agreed that much of corporate America has moved ahead of its customers when it comes to embracing green products.

Wait, it gets worse: Joel and Suzanne argued that consumers fool themselves about their green behavior. They buy a CFL bulb or green cleaning product or perhaps a Prius and then decide they’ve done their part for the planet. They tell pollsters that they consider sustainability factors in their purchasing decisions and describe themselves as “conscious consumers” but the reality is quite different. They’re greenwashing their own behavior, Joel noted.

Is this bottle necessary?

Fisk told a story that illustrates this sometimes-depressing reality. [click to continue…]

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Environmental Defense: living up to its name

April 4, 2011

Fred Krupp

What a different just a few years can make. Hard as it is to believe, there was a time not long ago when Congress appeared to be on the verge of a bipartisan agreement to regulate global warming pollution.

Republicans John McCain, John Warner, Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty all supported efforts to put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Gingrich and Pawlenty went so far as to appear in commercials with the Environmental Defense Fund supporting climate regulation. And now?  “It was a mistake, it was stupid, it was wrong,” Pawlenty says.

The radical shift in the political climate means that big NGOs like the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club now must fight merely to  preserve the status quo in Congress.

Environmental groups are playing defense rather than offense in Washington, said Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund,  during a panel today on climate policy that opened FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference.

He noted that House Republicans have voted to block funding not just for EPA’s efforts regulate carbon pollution (efforts that are required by a Supreme Court decision) but also for EPA efforts to control, on public health ground, mercury pollution from cement factories.

On climate issues, Fred said: “It’s hard to have a meaningful exchange of viewers, a serious conversation in Washington.”

That’s a big, big problem because, as he noted, every major piece of environmental legislation in the U.S has been enacted with bipartisan support. Fred himself was a leading advocate for the  late 1980s cap-and-trade system–to regulate sulfur dioxide pollution–that was put into place by President George Bush and his EPA chief, Bill Reilly. [click to continue…]

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So you want to work in solar?

April 4, 2011

To my surprise, I’ve become visible enough in the world of “green business” that students and young professionals  frequently approach me because they want to learn more about sustainability, corporate responsibility or clean energy. Unfortunately, I can’t take the time to speak with all of them, so we typically exchange a couple of emails, and that’s it.

Leo Xiao

Occasionally, though, the student is unusually persistent, which is how I found myself having breakfast this morning at 6:45 a.m. in Laguna Niguel, Ca., with Leo Xiao, a 30-year-old immigrant from China who is studying for an MBA at UCLA. I’m here for FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference, which begins later today, (Monday, April 4) and is available online here.

In any event, Leo Xiao learned that I would be in California for the event. He invited me to speak at UCLA. No thanks, I said. He offered to drive me from LAX to Laguna Niguel so we could talk. That won’t work either, I said. He offered to pay me $200 for a meeting, Absolutely not, I told him. But he was so relentless that I agreed to meet with him if he wanted to drive the 65 miles or so from LA to Laguna very early in the morning, which, not surprisingly, he did.

“Once I decide I want to learn something, I’m pretty committed,” he told me, unnecessarily. “I’m single minded.”

We had a good talk. Leo’s interested in the business of delivering and financing solar energy for homes, and he wanted to dig into issues surrounding the business model, management and risks associated with several start-ups that deliver solar to the home–Sun Run, Solar City and Sungevity. He asked a lot of good questions. It turns out that he’s working on his own iPhone app about solar for the home, but he couldn’t say much about it because he’s in “stealth mode.” Leo has a degree in computer science from UC Riverside, and he spent about a year and a half working at Zynga, the social gaming company the developed Farmville, before business school. He told me, proudly, that Zynga had used its platform to raise money for earthquake victims in Haiti. “Social games can be about more than killing time,” he said. “They can have a social benefit.”

I tell this story for a couple of reasons. First, I want to recognize Leo’s persistence, preparation and desire to learn. Second, I want to say that any immigration policy that makes it hard for people like Leo to work in the U.S. is nuts. He’s been educated here and would like to stay–”I love Silicon Valley,” he told me–and surely his brains and energy will add value to our economy. Free labor markets, like free trade, generate wealth and growth.

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Brainstorm Green: What a zoo!

April 14, 2010

headerThe unexamined life is not worth living, said Socrates.

“Leading an examined life in business is a pain in the ass,” said Yvon Chouinard.

Chouinard, the legendary founder of Patagonia, spoke yesterday at Brainstorm Green, FORTUNE’s conference about business and the environment.

He was talking about the challenge that companies will face as Wal-Mart and its partners in a broad-based sustainability consortium go forward with their sustainability index, a bold  effort to measure the environmental impact of tens of thousands of consumer products. It may not be easy for companies to track–and disclose–the pollution caused by their products, but it’s a vital step in the right direction.

Brainstorm Green is, in part, about the examined life: We try to take an honest look at the environmental impact of business, and see what progress if any we’re making towards a more sustainably economy. For three days this week in beautiful Laguna Niguel, CA., we brought a diverse group of business and environmental leaders together to talk about ways in which corporate America can help solve  environmental problems. We discussed electric cars, renewable energy, nuclear power, the smart grid, energy efficiency, water, sustainable supply chains, oceans, engaging employees around green, food and agriculture, green marketing, geoengineering and what sustainable consumption might look like.

We had a great lineup of speakers, more than 100 in all, including Chouinard, Bill Ford, Lee Scott of Wal-Mart,  Stewart Brand, the explorer Sylvia Earle, Lew Hay of FPL, NRG Energy’s David Crane, Bill Gross, Starbucks’ Cliff Burrows, Scott Griffith of Zipcar, Sally Jewell of REI, the leaders of the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club..

This year, we added a new, er, twist to the event, as you can see here.

For the first time, we featured animals at Brainstorm Green, thanks to the fabulous Julie Scardina of Sea World. She brought a menagerie—hawks, an eagle, a lemur, an adorable baby kangaroo, flamingos, and a 14-foot-long boa constrictor  that took a liking to FORTUNE’s managing editor, Andy Serwer.

Brad Markel_6557

Photo by Brad Markel

That was hilarious–you can see watch it unfold on video here–but not so funny were the reminders from Julie that climate change and habitat destruction are putting the squeeze on numerous species of animals that play valuable role in the earth’s ecological systems, particularly in the tropics. [click to continue…]

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Brainstorm Green: The Home Edition

April 11, 2010

FORTUNE’s third annual Brainstorm Green conference about business and the environment starts today (Monday), and one new twist this year is that you can play along at home.

BstormGreenHorizonta2B4F8FFor the next three days, many of the plenary sessions at the event, which is being held at the Ritz Carlton in Dana Point, Ca., will be shown on the web. People who sign up to attend online will be able to ask questions, I’m told. This is an experiment, an effort to see how a virtual conference will work and, of course, to expand FORTUNE’s business. (Hint: You can tune in for free this year, but that may not be the case in the future.)

As the co-chair and creator of Brainstorm Green, I’m obviously biased but I think we’ve got a great lineup again this year. I’m going to take a break from blogging for a few days to focus on the conference. Here are some  highlights:

Today (Monday) at 3:05 p.m. (all times are listed as Pacific Time, so this is  6:05 in the East), Lee Scott, the former CEO of Wal-Mart who is now chair of the executive committee of the Wal-Mart board, will talk about Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts with John Huey, the editor in chief of Time Inc. John is a great interviewer who once wrote a book about Sam Walton, so this session should be a treat.

Following that session, at about 3:50 p.m.,  I’ll be asking some of America’s most important environmental leaders: What Do Environmentalists Want? Joining me will be Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Mark Tercek of The Nature Conservancy, David Yarnold of the Environmental Defense Fund and Mike Brune, the new head of the Sierra Club. We’ll talk about the outlook for climate legislation in Washington, as well as such hot topics as nuclear power and geoengineering.

Later Monday, I’ll talk to Sally Jewell, the CEO of REI, about “sustainability as a team sport.” [click to continue…]

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Solazyme’s amazing algae

March 18, 2010

reef3216Algae are so good at producing oil from sunlight and carbon dioxide that there are, by some accounts, as many as 200 companies trying to make biofuels from algae. Some are obscure, little more than a couple of guys playing around with pond scum. Others are attention-grabbing, like Synthetic Genomics, the company led by pioneering scientist Craig Venter that  joined forces with ExxonMobil in a $300 million research program.

Solazyme, a private company based in South San Francisco, stands out from the algae crowd, for a number of reasons.

First, there’s the sheer variety of its products. Solazyme makes fuel for  the U.S. Navy. It makes a heart-healthy, vegetarian, protein-rich microalgae power that goes into Garden of Life supplements and vitamins sold at stores like Whole Foods. And it recently announced a deal with Unilever to use algal oil in renewable,  sustainable personal care products like soap. Its algae are multi-talented.

Then, there’s the fact that Solazyme, unlike other startups, is “producing large volumes of oils and fuels, and we have been for a while,” says its CEO, Jonathan Wolfson. What’s large volumes? An annual rate of tens of thousands of gallons, including a little over 20,000 gallons of shipboard fuel during the first half of this year for the Navy,  part of an $8.5 million contract signed last year.

Finally, Solazyme raised a Series C financing round of about $57 million during the credit crunch, much of it from existing investors including Braemar Energy Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, the Roda Group and Jerry Fiddler, the firm’s chairman–all of whom stuck by Solazyme through some  early stumbles. [click to continue…]

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Why Stewart Brand’s new book is a must-read

January 5, 2010

Many books shaped my thinking about business, economics and the environment during 2009. Last year was the year that I discovered Nassim Nicholas Taleb and The Black Swan, to my great delight, as well as the year that I began to explore behavioral economics by reading Daniel Ariely’s Predictably Irrational and Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. I enjoyed my friend Russell Roberts’ libertarian romance (yep) The Invisible Heart, and I learned a lot from The Myth of the Rational Market, a timely and readable history of the economics of markets by my ex-Fortune colleague Justin Fox.  The Good Soldiers by David Finkel is a searing up-close look at the surge in Iraq that should be read by any American citizen who wants to better understand the human costs of the wars being waged by our government.

SBjpg-filteredBut the book that I most want to recommend to readers of this blog is Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand. It’s brilliant, controversial, unconventional and lively. Nothing I read in 2009 changed my thinking more.

I’m not alone in my admiration for Stewart’s book. Paul Hawken calls it “likely one of the most original and important books of the century.…” Edward O. Wilson says it is “ominous and exhilirating.” Larry Brilliant says it is “an absolutely seminal work, extraordinarily well written, a tour de force of so many interconnected worlds and lives and studies.” Nice blurbs, no?

The praise is all the more remarkable because Whole Earth Discipline argues that we need nuclear power to combat global warming, that we need biotechnology to feed the world and that we need to take  geo-engineering seriously — ideas that are anathema to much, though not all, of the environmental movement that Stewart helped create roughly 40 years ago.

For those of you (younger readers) who aren’t familiar with his work, Stewart, who is a vigorous 72-year-old, is best known as the editor of Whole Earth Catalog, an influential compendium of all things countercultural, published in the late 1960s and 1970s, with a photo of the earth seen from space on its cover. After an LSD-induced experience that got him thinking about the curve of the earth, Stewart campaigned to have NASA release the picture. Later, he wrote:

It is no accident of history that the first Earth Day, in April 1970, came so soon after color photographs of the whole earth from space were made by homesick astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission to the moon in December 1968. Those riveting Earth photos reframed everything. For the first time humanity saw itself from outside… Humanity’s habitat looked tiny, fragile and rare. Suddenly humans had a planet to tend to.

Since then, Stewart has been a writer, a speaker, an organizer, a pioneer of online communities as a founder of the WELL (the “Whole Eart ‘Lectronic Link,” where I first discovered the power of the Internet), a consultant to companies and the owner of a tugboat in San Francisco where he lives with his wife, Ryan Phelan. He writes: [click to continue…]

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