The following is a post by Paul Hannam of Bright Green Leadership (a 3p sponsor) – offering internet marketing strategies for responsible businesses. This tips and observations in this series are aimed at green entrepreneurs looking to understand how internet technology can benefit them more.
For the last few weeks I have been writing about internet marketing and how green businesses should adopt best practices to sell more of their products online. In this post, I want to shift the focus to a broader and more topical subject. What does the Gulf Oil disaster mean for the practice of Green Branding and Green Marketing? What are the lessons for green businesses or corporations engaged in green marketing?
Even thinking about issues of green branding and green marketing might seem irrelevant, even trivial, considering the terrible human and environmental tragedy that we have watched unfold over the last three months. Yet the oil spill has raised significant and unavoidable concerns about the credibility of green marketing, green branding and corporate social responsibility.
There are 30-40 million American households without a bank account, according to the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a fact that could either be seen as a sad statistic – or a tremendous business opportunity.
The financial services company, launched in 2008, provides prepaid debit cards to customers through their website that can be used wherever regular debit cards are accepted. The cards are convenient for people who either do not qualify for a traditional bank account or chose not to use one. The company was started by brothers Roy and Bertrand Sosa, who pioneered the prepaid debit card business, and are backing Mango through their venture firm MPower.
Hot, hot, hot. It almost sounds too good to be true: Using solar power to create fuel. It’s called solar biomass gasification, a concept and process that’s been around for a while, mostly in university research and scientific circles. A relatively new company that has emerged from that university research environment, Sundrop Fuels Inc., apparently has the drop on making a commercial go of it.
CEO Wayne Simmons puts what the company is about quite succinctly: “We’re going to convert the Sun’s energy into liquid fuel using concentrated solar power to gasify biomass, then convert the resulting syngas into green gasoline or diesel.”
Update: Twicketer Founder A-Sun Truth commented that this service now works on all web enabled phones.
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Something interesting just happened. Reality met hype. For years now, event tickets have been from box offices and record shops, to online purchases. Eliminating the need to physically go to a ticket outlet is certainly a step forward. But there’s been a new problem:
For many of these services, the customer needs to print up their ticket. No printer? That’s a barrier. Have a printer? You’ve just used a sheet of paper for what would normally be around the size of a business card. And as an event host, verifying the validity of the ticket has meant either using a costly scanner or printing up a list of ticket holders and checking them one by one.
As it seems with everything these days, there is now a solution, courtesy your mobile phone: Twicketer.
This service is the first truly paperless ticketing option I’ve seen. Through a scam proof system developed by parent company Screenticket, each ticket holder is given a unique link that displays their ticket on their phone. All the ticket holder needs to do is tap it at the door.
They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but for now it seems to be working for the United Kingdom’s new government. Voters, fatigued by New Labor, changed the locks to Parliament and 10 Downing Street, and arranged a shotgun wedding between the Tories and the Liberal Democratic Party. The Liberal Democrats snared a few key cabinet ministries as a result of joining the ruling coalition, with one of them, Chris Huhne, taking the post heading energy and climate change.
Like many governments on both sides of the pond, the UK has ambitious renewable energy goals but is struggling trying to meet them. One issue is wind: Britain receives a good share of it, but has struggled building small-scale wind farms because local councils have resisted, choosing to keep the view (analogous to the dispute over whether offshore wind farms should be built off of Massachusetts’ Cape Cod). So Huhne’s deputy, Energy Minister Charles Hendry has attempted to change minds by working to repeal a law that prevented local governments from selling electrical power back to the national grid—which in turn would allow local town councils to raise revenues. Depending on your point of view, this is either increasing local control or bribery—local leaders may just choose to ignore those who do not want such installations near their backyard.
Stimulus or no stimulus, energy bill or new energy bill, the biofuel industry keeps evolving. The latest transaction involves an agreement between two Florida companies that will churn more grease into biodiesel.
Freedom Environmental Services of Orlando, Florida, has agreed to deliver as much as 12,000 gallons of yellow grease (you know, the byproduct of deep frying goodies like french fries, fried chicken, and apparently now, lattes) to Pristine BioDiesel, a new startup firm. Under the agreement, Pristine will pay Freedom $1.75 per gallon of grease, which in turn Pristine will refine into biodiesel.
Priscilla Burgess is presently one last fire-resistance test away from really putting the product that she’s developed over the past three years into motion. She’s already cleared the R-value and sound-resistance tests needed to certify that the building insulation her startup, Bellwether Materials, makes is ready for market.
Burgess, one of the 100 CleanTech Open semifinalists vying for the 18 regional finalist spots that will be awarded this fall, came upon her product idea—making insulation wholly from waste wool that is generated by the sheep ranching industry in the U.S.—by chance.
“I’d been talking to a sheep rancher, complaining about a potential partner [on another business venture] who had disappeared on me, and he said ‘You could always try using sheep wool for insulation,’” explains Burgess.
Zipcar, the shared car system great for running errands or escaping to the countryside without the hassle of owning or renting an automobile, has caught on in many large cities. Imagine a similar system at a more micro level: perhaps you have aspirations of being an “early adopter,” but do not have the cash or gumption to buy that new iPad, MP3 player, or smartphone. Or maybe you are handy at home repairs, but just do not have the space in your apartment nor budget to buy that expensive tool. It’s possible you have a small child and you want to take the little one for a walk in the Hummer of strollers, instead of the cheaper one you own that just got mangled after flying to the other coast to see the relatives.
Snapgoods, which recently caught on in New York, describes itself as the place “where good people meet, share, and put each other’s stuff to good use.” There are lots of cool products out there, but chances are that you just want to take them for a test run first. Or on the flip side, you own a cool bike or electronic contraption that you just do not use daily and you would like some help paying that credit card off.
I took a few days off last week to travel up to Maine to visit old friends, smell the ocean, eat fresh seafood and even fresher blueberries. Along the way, I was introduced to Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage, a work in progress with the intention of becoming “a model environmentally sustainable, affordable, multi-generational cohousing community.” The site, upon which construction is yet to begin, “is easily accessible to Belfast, includes land reserved for agricultural use and open space, and is an innovative housing option for rural Maine.”
Cohousing is a rapidly growing trend, showing up in both rural and urban areas. According to cohousing.org, “Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighborhoods. Cohousing residents are consciously committed to living as a community. The physical design encourages both social contact and individual space. Private homes contain all the features of conventional homes, but residents also have access to extensive common facilities such as open space, courtyards, a playground and a common house.”
Tourism is a major part of the economy along the Gulf coast. Take 2008, for example, a year when travelers to congressional districts along the Gulf coast spent over $34 billion, which sustained 400,000 jobs, according to a recent report by Oxford Economics. Consider also, the amount of jobs the tourism industry creates for the Gulf coast. Leisure and hospitality employment is almost 15 percent of total private employment for the counties along the Gulf shore, compared with 12 percent for the entire country. In Mississippi, 22 percent of private employment on the coast is in the leisure and hospitality sector.
The 18 congressional districts along the Gulf coast represent a significant share of each state’s total tourism economy. In Louisiana, almost 40 percent of its tourism employment is on the Gulf coast. The real estate sector and rental income are tied to the tourism industry. Over 459,000 homes along the Gulf are for recreational or seasonal use, representing seven percent of all homes.
The Plug-In 2010 Conference in San Jose was the site of major announcements by major auto manufacturers Nissan and General Motors. During their Tuesday morning speeches, both Nissan North America’s executive vice president, Carlos Tavares, and General Motors vice president of U.S. marketing, Joel Ewanick, announced that their much-anticipated products would be available in only a limited number of cities, at first, and that both companies will begin delivering cars by the end of the year.
Even though there are many similarities and differences, both Nissan and GM are betting that U.S. auto buyers will embrace the plug with open arms.
As the demand for groovy electronics like smartphones, MP3 players, and cellular phone have increase, more consumers are starting to inquire about the sources from which elements including tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold are extracted.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is the eye of the storm for these “conflict minerals.” The resource rich nation of 70 million people has already suffered decades of conflict, and the new riches have only exacerbated the problem for many of its citizens. Mines in Eastern Congo are often located in isolated regions, smack in the middle of armed guerillas who claim these areas as their turf. The results are brutal: rape and violence are far too common, and miners work up to 48 hours at a time at mines such as those at Bisie—many of them children, the miners risk mudslides and tunnel collapses in attempting to make a living.
It says something about our current state of affairs in business and government when someone in a position of responsibility makes news for telling the truth, but there you have it. But then Seventh Generation’s Jeffrey Hollender doesn’t just tell ordinary truths either. Jeffrey, the company’s Chief Inspired Protagonist (they don’t have a CEO) is the kind of guy who makes you realize that we will never run out of frontier, because as long as there are pioneers like him, there will always be new frontiers.
Jeffrey’s frontier has been sustainability for as long as I’ve known of him, and probably a lot longer than that, only he sometimes gives it different names, like the Eskimos do with snow. He spoke at the World Innovation Forum in NY last month and this segment of his talk was posted on YouTube, which by today’s definition makes it news. In this segment, he speaks of “radical transparency,” perhaps one of the less obvious names for sustainability, but the connection is there since life experience teaches us that the truth is far easier to sustain than a lie. Many of these issues are discussed in Hollender’s book The Responsibility Revolution.
Utility scale wind power plants have emerged as a global low cost renewable energy resource. In this second part of my video interview with Steve Fludder, Corporate VP for GE’s ecomagination, he outlines how GE grew its wind business in just 6 years into a $6 billion annual global revenue business .
And he candidly outlines China’s impressive commitment to growing wind power compared to the U.S. He concludes with public policy suggestions that will accelerate U.S. renewable energy growth.
SF Aug 10-11 Sustainable Agricultural Partnerships 2010: Creating partnerships with growers and suppliers to implement practical solutions on sustainable sustainable agricultural.
LA Sep 1-2 Women in Green Forum: Focused on environmental issues, including academic researchers, business experts, energy analysts, and technology developers.
LA Sep 22-24 Opportunity Green: Interact with celebrated business leaders, innovators and change-agents.
SF Oct 19-20 Greenbiz innovation Forum: Next-Gen Models, Methods, and Mindsets for Transforming Business
The following is a post by Paul Hannam of Bright Green Leadership (a 3p sponsor) – offering internet marketing strategies for responsible businesses. This tips and observations in this series are aimed at green entrepreneurs looking to understand how internet technology can benefit them more.
For the last few weeks I have been writing about internet marketing and how green businesses should adopt best practices to sell more of their products online. In this post, I want to shift the focus to a broader and more topical subject. What does the Gulf Oil disaster mean for the practice of Green Branding and Green Marketing? What are the lessons for green businesses or corporations engaged in green marketing?
There are 30-40 million American households without a bank account, according to the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a fact that could either be seen as a sad statistic – or a tremendous business opportunity.
Hot, hot, hot. It almost sounds too good to be true: Using solar power to create fuel. It’s called solar biomass gasification, a concept and process that’s been around for a while, mostly in university research and scientific circles. A relatively new company that has emerged from that university research environment,
They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but for now it seems to be working for the United Kingdom’s new government. Voters, fatigued by New Labor, changed the locks to Parliament and 10 Downing Street, and arranged a shotgun wedding between the Tories and the Liberal Democratic Party. The Liberal Democrats snared a few key cabinet ministries as a result of joining the ruling coalition, with one of them, Chris Huhne, taking the post heading energy and climate change.
Stimulus or no stimulus, energy bill or new energy bill, the biofuel industry keeps evolving. The latest transaction involves an agreement between two Florida companies that will churn more grease into biodiesel.
Zipcar, the shared car system great for running errands or escaping to the countryside without the hassle of owning or renting an automobile, has caught on in many large cities. Imagine a similar system at a more micro level: perhaps you have aspirations of being an “early adopter,” but do not have the cash or gumption to buy that new iPad, MP3 player, or smartphone. Or maybe you are handy at home repairs, but just do not have the space in your apartment nor budget to buy that expensive tool. It’s possible you have a small child and you want to take the little one for a walk in the Hummer of strollers, instead of the cheaper one you own that just got mangled after flying to the other coast to see the relatives.
I took a few days off last week to travel up to Maine to visit old friends, smell the ocean, eat fresh seafood and even fresher blueberries. Along the way, I was introduced to 
Tourism is a major part of the economy along the Gulf coast. Take 2008, for example, a year when travelers to congressional districts along the Gulf coast spent over $34 billion, which sustained 400,000 jobs, according to a recent 
Conflict minerals are the new diamonds.
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