3p Contributor: Nick Aster
Recent Articles
Are Texas Oil Companies Funding Initiative to Roll Back AB32?
In 2006, the State of California passed a landmark piece of legislation known as AB32. The bill requires California to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020. With California’s prominence as a major economy in its own right, the bill has had national and international repercussions and attention.
Now, one opposition group is attempting to repeal AB32 before it kicks in by means of a ballot measure proposed for this fall’s election – an effort they call the “California Jobs Initiative.” The measure would suspend AB32 until California’s recession-rattled unemployment rate dips to 5.5 percent, however long that takes. But something funny was revealed today: The New York Times reports that, as of now, the only financial backers of the initiative are very likely Texas-based oil companies Valero and Tesoro.
Hilariously, I just got done talking to a group of students at USC about mis-information campaigns in the media and politics and left feeling rather optimistic about their decline. I may have been wrong.
3p & University of Kansas to Tweet Green Jobs
The idea of “Green Jobs” is a favorite subject around here, especially in tough economic times. The idea is that, however you define the term, “Green Jobs” are going to be a cornerstone of economic recovery and indeed a larger re-tooling of the economy to be based on efficiency, clean energy, better, healthier products, services, and so on…
We’ve teamed up with my old colleague Simran Sethi’s Journalism class at the University of Kansas to do an experiment of sorts on the subject. The class is entitled “Green Reporting, Green Building, Green Justice” and as the name implies is a multifaceted course incorporating elements of Architecture, Journalism, Business, and Social Studies.
Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box Public Relations Coup d’Etat
Bloom Energy’s remarkable fuel cell energy server, the so called “Bloom Box“, has garnered more interest than almost anything else we’ve written about in months. By the sheer volume of traffic to this site you’d think the holy grail itself had been found. The bloom box does seem to hold a legitimate promise to improve the efficiency and ease of electricity generation and just might be a little bit greener. It still produces emissions, though very few people are talking about that. It seems, as we suggested last week, that the biggest efficiencies the bloom box provides will come from the elimination of transmission costs – bringing more electricity to the end user without losing it along the powerlines and other bottlenecks that usually get in the way.
There are dozens of other companies, however, who are working on similar fuel cell technologies. Some critics even pointed out that even Bloom’s proprietary technology is hardly unique. Sam Jaffe points out four more potential pitfalls with the product: That it may in fact be less efficient, more expensive, and even dirtier than competing forms of electricity generation – all while missing some of the technology’s biggest advantages (generating heat,and energy storage).
But that hasn’t dampened what has to the biggest cleantech PR coup of the year so far.
Quiznos Introduces Better, “Greener” Packaging
Remember when McDonald’s switched from styrofoam containers to the paper(ish) wraps they have today? That was a big deal back in 1990. Since then there has been limited but steady improvement in fast food packaging, driven mostly by local legislation and consumer pressure. To make matters more complicated, the question of “paper vs plastic” or even whether to bring your own container isn’t entirely cut and dry in terms of environmental impact. That’s one of many reasons I put the word “green” in quotes or avoid it altogether.
Nonetheless, effort is effort, and Quiznos sandwich chain has made what looks like decent progress on many of their different types of packaging. Being a critical optimist, I’m happy to see the new effort, but want to raise a few questions as well.
Eat Toasty, Be Green: Here are the bulletpoints from their press release, including some extra parenthetical notes by me. The new types of packaging will include:
Happy 5th Anniversary, Triple Pundit
Around this date in 2005, I launched this site as an effort to put a new dialogue online. Barely realizing it until now, Triple Pundit is now an astonishing FIVE years old. (Don’t you love my cheesy banner?)
At the time, the idea of business people talking to environmentalists and social activists was still seen as wishful thinking. The idea that someone might be able to think, simultaneously, about the social, environmental, and financial implications of one’s business just wasn’t mainstream. In 2005, having just started an MBA degree at the newfangled Presidio Graduate School, I was riveted by the potential of this new dialogue and troubled at its lack of widespread acknowledgment.
So I took the conversation to a place I knew best — the Internet. Triple Pundit originally started as a personal project to describe and track my experiences moving through a “sustainable” MBA program, but it quickly became a group project, and over the years turned into a real enterprise in its own right, thanks to the outstanding work of our many contributors and the enthusiasm and input of our readers.
Is Bloom Energy’s Fuel Cell Miracle For Real
UPDATE 3: click here to read our thoughts on the hype – even if Bloom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, they’ve set something good in motion
UPDATE 2: click here to read our breaking report from Wednesday’s standing room only press briefing on the Bloom Box
UPDATE: We’re still short on the real details (stay tuned till Wednesday to find those out), but scroll down to the bottom to watch the 60 minutes clip which gives a decent introduction. Leave a comment if there’s something specific you want asked.
The interwebs are aflutter with excitement over Bloom Energy’s top secret “Bloom Box” fuel cell system finally revealing itself. For those who haven’t already checked it out (the website is still just a marquee), the company boasts that their systems could literally replace the electricity grid with dispersed, clean, and easy to maintain fuel cell boxes running on a variety of fuels, water, and oxygen, with no combustion at all. Sound like hype? Their PR team has certainly been working in overdrive…
The scoop has been leaking for a day now on the CBS website, and on others including Fortune and GreenTechMedia. However, Sunday night will be your first chance to hear real details about the Bloom Box when 60 Minutes airs a segment that with either knock your socks off, raise a lot of eyebrows, or both.
Bloom has already listed almost two dozen large companies who have been stealth testers of the mysterious device including eBay, who claim to have already saved $100,000 and such perennial sustainability favorites as Google and WalMart.
Exactly how it works is among the surprises we’re supposed to get on Sunday. (edit – looks like we’re waiting till Wednesday) Hank Green suggests that the device could be installed in homes, generating both electricity and heat, which would result in big efficiency gains. Commenters on Reddit point out that the real savings may lie in avoiding transmission and maintenance costs with a machine that’s much simpler to handle than a full fledged power plant. Although the boxes cost a lot (up to $800K), the amount of power they allegedly put out more than makes up for it.
Why is this a big deal? How do they differ from existing fuel cell backup systems already in place? Has the internet been duped by one of the more successful publicity campaigns in recent memory? It’s all TBA in the next few days…
Check out 60 Minutes on Sunday night for the sneak preview, then leave your questions here. On Wednesday morning, 3p’s Jim Witkin will attend the official unveiling in San Jose along with General Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, big shots from Kleiner Perkins and more. We’ll be able to ask some key questions and will publish the juicy details as soon as we’ve got ‘em.
Interview: Brilliant Earth
I’ve always thought of the diamond industry as only slightly less destructive than the cocaine industry in terms of ecological and societal impact. I realize that’s a slight exaggeration, but anyone who’s seen Blood Diamond or watched some of these painfully manipulative advertisements knows where I’m coming from.
Diamonds may not be forever, but they’re not going out of style any time soon, and neither are the jobs and communities that depend on the industry. The reality is that some folks in the diamond industry are trying their hand at cleaning up their act – avoiding diamonds that fund wars, reducing the impact of mining, and re-investing in the impoverished communities from which diamonds often come. We’ve heard from our friends at the Clarity Project a few times on 3p, and thought it only fitting to give some space to another diamond retailer, Brilliant Earth.
I interviewed Brilliant Earth’s co-founder Eric Grossberg and he and his team had quite a lot to say about their history and how they’re working to make diamonds a more sustainable proposition – in their own words:
3p: Tell me a little about Brilliant Earth, in your own words. Why was it founded?
Sweet Water Organics: Entrepreneurs Find Silver Lining in Great Lakes’ Peril
With Asian Carp knocking on the door and following decades of ecosystemic collapse, the Great Lakes’ once thriving fishery business is a shadow of its former glory. The Friday Night Fish Fry, a Wisconsin tradition, is now more often imported cod rather than the lake perch or other local varieties that made it famous.
Though it may take a hundred years before some kind of stability returns to the lakes (who knows, maybe the carp will become a new local delicacy), local entrepreneurs can still see an opportunity to satisfy demand and tradition while practicing restorative techniques on both economy and ecology. Sweet Water Organics operates out of a massive dis-used industrial facility on the south side of Milwaukee and produces both fish and vegetables in a “three-tiered, aquaponic, bio-intensive fish-vegetable garden.” The company is the first commercial extension of Growing Power founder Will Allen’s urban farming concepts.
Here’s a quick video that will tell you more than I can write….
Heinz Redesigns Ketchup Package. Landfills Groan.
In case you’ve been under a rock, the big news on the street is the incredible new Heinz Ketchup Packet which will apparently revolutionize french fry enjoyment for the 21st century. The packet contains a larger amount of ketchup than the traditional sachet and opens in two ways – the traditional “squeeze” and the newfangled “dip.” Blogs and other media are aflutter with excitement, and Heinz’s corporate communications department is no doubt popping the champagne at a veritable coup d’etat of publicity.
And why not? Love it or hate it, the Heinz Ketchup packet is an established piece of Americana, globally ubiquitous, and depending on your taste for high fructose corn syrup, quite tasty. Successfully re-designing it will cause as much of a ruckus as introducing the New Coke, except it might actually work. Trouble is, the new ketchup packet, like the old one, is still a wasteful mishmash of un-recyclable material symbolic of yesteryear’s “disposable” culture.
You can see where this is going….
KPMG: Looking back at Copenhagen
A quick post today: KPMG has been no stranger to climate change issues and has offered some interesting commentary in the past, particularly during the COP15 conference in December.
The following is a great COP15 wrap up conversation I though was worth sharing. It features Alan Buckle, KPMG’s Global Head of Advisory, and Barend van Bergen, associate partner with KPMG in the Netherlands. Enjoy….
Holy Job Creation: Bring on High Speed Rail
Say what you will about the stimulus package and government spending in general, there are some things that work well with government investment, and massive infrastructure projects are high on that list. Like Eisenhower in the 1950s, who kicked off the interstate highway system, last week’s (albeit 25 years late) investment of $8 billion in high speed rail will usher in a new era of efficient transportation, economic development, and a huge number of jobs.
The United States’ dependence on cars for transportation (face it, in much of the ex-urban US you would literally starve to death without a car) costs the economy billions and billions of dollars every year in lost productivity and unneeded spending. NBC News says the average American loses an entire work week annually due to congestion, adding up to $78 billion in lost productivity and 3 billion wasted gallons of gas.
Audi’s Green Police Ads. Hilarious, But What About Audi?
I have to hand it to Audi. Their upcoming “green police” advertisements (destined for the super bowl) are absolutely hilarious. This could be the first big environmental meme of 2010 – the perfect mix of “Reno 911″ style comedy and enough subtle cynicism to actually get people to think. If you haven’t seen them yet, just watch. I can’t stop laughing at this one:
The only problem, what does this have to do with Audi?
And The Top Ten Most “Sustainable” CEOs Are…
Thanks to everyone who voted and nominated during our Top Ten Sustainable CEOs Survey. The results are in and posted below. (You can see the entire list at the bottom of the original post, as well as the great conversations the nomination process produced).
Before we get too excited about the ranking, I want to emphasize that there was nothing scientific about this process and its real purpose was as much to provoke conversation as it was to give recognition to some of our most enlightened business leaders.
It was also about challenging readers and leaders alike to ask themselves what the definition of “sustainable leadership” really is. In some cases these leaders have helped create products and services with positive environmental or social impact, in others they have helped build a corporate culture that rewards and nourishes employees and stakeholders in new ways. Some are well known, others more humble. As you think about the “winners” keep in mind the very loose and changing definition of the word “sustainable” and leave some comments as to what it means to you.
Finally – we plan to do a lot of following up as much as possible in our upcoming leadership series including interviewing as many of these folks as we can. Please contact us if you, or your company, is interested in being profiled in the upcoming series.
Without further ado, the folks with the most votes were as follows:
WalMart’s “Sustainability 2.0″ Video Worth a Watch
Walmart remains the company many love to hate for a lot of reasons, some sound, some irrational. But regular readers know we’ve been generally excited by the myriad changes that have come out of Bentonville in the last few years. With the help of visionaries like Adam Werbach, WalMart has evolved considerably from the days when pondering the nuances of slapping up a big box in a parking lot were about as deeply as Wal Mart considered things.
Though many challenges remain, Walmart has made an honest effort toward reducing waste and becoming a vastly more efficient operation. Not only that, but it has used its clout to force its suppliers and vendors to follow suit. Through the Personal Sustainability Projects program, Walmart has introduced every one of its employees to the basic principals of sustainability and seems to have genuinely affected many in a positive way.
Although financial savings is still the main driver behind most of Walmart’s efforts, there seems to have been a real awakening of consciousness at some levels in the company. How much exactly I’ll leave you to judge, but former CEO Lee Scott says, sustainability represents “the greatest opportunity for the next generation.” Personally, I’d say the current generation has a lot to gain from it too, but the recognition of sustainability as an opportunity makes me feel optimistic. Whoever can help people understand the world more deeply in a time of potential conflict and resource stress is doing something right.
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