3p Contributor: Scott Cooney
Recent Articles
Impact Investing Expands in Hawai’i
The field of impact investing, wherein investors put money into ventures with an explicit mission for triple bottom line returns of financial, social and environmental benefit, is growing at a phenomenal rate. An upcoming impact investment conference in Hawai’i scheduled for February 9th is the first of its kind on the island state, and demonstrates just how prolific the relatively new field has gotten.
177 venture funds now identify as impact investors. The field has grown 600% over the past four years and currently is estimated at about $500 Billion in assets, according to statistics cited at SOCAP 2011, perhaps Impact Investing’s premier conference and showcase.
Big Island of Hawai’i Latest to Ban Plastic Bags
In December, the Hawai’i County Council passed a bill banning the use of plastic bags on what is known as the “Big Island” of Hawai’i. Yesterday, Mayor Billy Kenoi signed the bill into law. Kenoi had the option to simply abstain and let the bill pass into law, but his signature adds political credibility to the increasing trend of plastic bag bans across the world.
The Big Island now joins the islands of Maui and Kauai in the ban of plastic bags. Honolulu County, which contains the island of Oahu, where the majority of the population of the state of Hawai’i lives, has struggled to pass similar legislation, though a new version of a bill that has not passed yet will come before the county council this year.
Can Corporate Sponsorship Make Organics Affordable to All?
For the most part, organic food is expensive. The main criticism of organic is that it’s an elitist movement and leaves poor people out of the mix.
Here’s a thought I’d never even considered…could organic food be “sponsored?” After all, the brilliant content you rely on from TriplePundit every day for your daily dose of sanity is free to you as a result of sponsorships, as is Google’s blazing fast search engine, YouTube’s hours of entertainment, Facebook’s endless stream of useless tibits of people’s lives, LinkedIn’s career connections, and all the free magazines you find at your local grocery store.
So could the corporate sponsorship model be used to help bring down the cost of organics? Could Kung Fu Panda, the movie, help bring organic tofu to the masses? Could advertising something at your farmer’s market booth help you lower the price you need to charge customers?
Solar’s Best Quarter Ever
For the third quarter of 2011, solar installations in the U.S. broke a record: 449 megawatts of new capacity in just three months, according to a report by the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA). The fourth quarter is expected to be even larger, with many end-of-year projects coming on line.
The report cited a strong residential market, utility-scale project completions, and effective policies, all combined with the decreasing costs of solar panels. It’s a 140% growth year-over-year, but SEIA warns that the blistering growth is threatened by the potential expiration of the Treasury Department’s 1603 Program.
How to Greenwash the Oil Industry Way
Big Oil is up to its usual tricks. The American Petroleum Institute (API), one of the oil industry’s main lobbying groups, was recently busted by a Greenpeace activist for some serious greenwashing. API has resisted climate change legislation, and has supported fracking and the Keystone pipeline development. Now, it seems, they’re building an advertising campaign that will run during CNN’s election coverage in 2012, in an attempt to influence the general public to vote for and support candidates and policies friendly to Big Oil.
The campaign, called “Vote 4 Energy,” with actors calling themselves “Energy Citizens,” provides speaking lines, makeup, and free stuff to regular citizens who line up in support of the oil industry under the guise of American energy independence. Punch it into YouTube and you’ll quickly realize the campaign has been going on for a while and shows no signs of stopping. Participants were told they’d be able to speak their mind, but why would that require a script generated by Big Oil? And what happens when one of those citizens doesn’t read the scripted line? According to a GreenPeace report, “any deviation from its script was refused.” Doesn’t exactly sound like citizens freely expressing their opinions, does it?
Here’s a video of one GreenPeace activist who infiltrated API’s mockery and refused to speak the lines given to him:
Top 4 Online Sustainable Marketplaces
For those of us that don’t live near a progressive urban center, having brick and mortar stores that focus on green items is not much more than a fantasy. There are a slew of online stores tailoring to the LOHAS consumer, so I thought it might be about time to get a conversation started here about peoples’ favorite online green stores that can deliver for conscientious last minute shoppers. Treehugger just ran a great post about the top ten compostable gifts, and given peoples’ proclivity for lists, here, I’d like to cover the top 3 online stores for green schwag.
In no particular order…
Solar Power and Public Institutions
The recent announcement of a partnership between Merrill Lynch, SolarCity and the Department of Defense to provide solar power for military housing is perhaps the biggest and most well-known public-private solar power development. But the economics of solar and innovative financing options are becoming increasingly attractive to public institutions across the nation. Despite budget crunches in a lot of states, the long-term rate of return for solar appears to have staying power and appeal beyond the environmental benefits alone. In San Diego County, a prison that is using solar panels to shade its parking lot is getting 14 percent of their power from the new installation.
One such innovative financing option, put forth by the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO), asks rate payers to chip in a few bucks extra per month on their electric bills to help pay for solar panels for cash-strapped public schools. When I got this promotion in my electric bill, I signed up to chip in $5 extra per month. Why not? Good cause, right? Well, maybe. The utility has been tasked with turning to clean, renewable energy for 70 percent of generation by 2050, the most aggressive such standard in the nation. So isn’t the responsibility for the financing of these projects that of HECO itself?
Department of Energy Business Plan Competition for Clean Tech Entrepreneurs
Have an innovative business idea that you think could make a difference? Just need the cash to make it happen? Calling all university students interested in low-carbon technologies and entrepreneurship! The new economy is largely dependent on clean energy technology and the US Department of Energy is hosting a premier opportunity to pitch your ideas: The Regional Clean Energy Business Plan Competition.
Six regional competitions across the US will serve as platforms for students to transform great clean energy ideas into great businesses. You have a chance to bring your clean technologies to the market through creative business solutions.
Sprawl and Depression: Is There a Link?
The American Dream of the suburban home with a white picket fence and 2.3 kids has been decried for having negative and far reaching environmental and public health implications. Besides the paving over of fertile agricultural lands, air pollution from longer commutes, increased need for infrastructure development, and subsequent increased tax load, there’s the thought that suburbia disconnects people from community in a way that is simply unhealthy for the psyche.
But does sprawl make people unhappy? And conversely, does living in a livable, walkable city improve people’s happiness?
A recent article in Men’s Health chronicled 100 American cities for happiness. They ranked the cities based on a few factors relating to psychological well-being. Variables included were the number of people who self-reported as being unhappy most of the time, the number of people regularly taking anti-depressants, suicide rates (from the CDC), and unemployment rates (from the Department of Labor).
I compared this list with a recent list in the Christian Science Monitor for cities with the most sprawl.
Plastics Make It Possible–The Latest Greenwashing from the American Chemistry Council
An ad on the sidebar of my Facebook profile caught my eye: “What do you recycle?” it innocently asks. The link underneath, www.PlasticsMakeItPossible.com, is enough to make the stomach churn, but I figured that by clicking, the worst that would happen is the company would pay Facebook for a clickthrough, so I went ahead and checked out their contest.
Funded by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an oil industry lobbying group, the Plastics Make It Possible campaign is a site that asks people how they’re recycling and what they’re recycling. The ACC allowed comments below the article, but they were clearly curated and carefully selected. Not one of them suggests that plastics are actually hard to recycle, which they are, and the well-intentioned people likely writing them may or may not understand the futility of recycling many plastics. And of course, my response was not published, making it clear that there’s some sort of filter at play, and that that filter didn’t appreciate my candidness.
The challenge is that plastics are artificial polymers that change in chemical composition when heated, making the process of turning them into another product more challenging.
Business Opportunities in Sustainable Food
In all the sustainable industries, none perhaps present such ubiquitous opportunities for entrepreneurs as sustainable food. Clean tech, green building and alternative transportation typically require massive investments and technical expertise, putting the fields out of reach for many aspiring green workers and entrepreneurs. Sustainable food is different in its scale, but it is also different in its appeal. People may argue against a solar or wind project for NIMBY reasons or against high speed rail for cost reasons, but few people oppose sustainable food, besides perhaps the Monsantos, ConAgras and Cargills of the world that profit from the conventional farming.
Sustainable food opportunities include farming, wholesale production and labeling, the service industry, and many more. Sustainable food has no lack of green business startup ideas. But how does this all translate into a transitioning economy? In a recent panel, the Hawai’i Venture Capital Association talked about whether this trend has translated into an agricultural renaissance for Hawai’i.
Voting with Our Advertising Dollars: Google’s Commitment to Green
Last month, Google announced plans to invest $5 billion in an undersea transmission cable that will give a tremendous boost to wind energy development along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Called the Atlantic Wind Connection, the cable, at roughly 350 miles long, will act as a energy highway, connecting wind farms (as they get developed) to cities like Philadelphia, New York, Washington, DC, and Boston. The potential coming with the cable is about 6,000 MW of wind energy. The cable will also help prevent NIMBY lawsuits, as wind farms may more easily be built farther out to sea (up to 15 miles, according to one estimate), making their obstruction of the view from shore negligible.
The investment (as well as Google’s other ventures in green technologies like alternative transportation) has drawn descriptions such as “kooky,” but who are we to think there’s anything that Google can’t handle? In addition, the company is garnering some tremendous PR. According to Seth Weintraub (Associated Press), “Projects like these aren’t just to make the electricity that Google needs more reliable and less expensive (and a return on their investment), it also helps foster an environmental image for Google which is much more valuable than any profits they’ll receive.”
Impact Investing from the VC Perspective
Impact investing has the potential to change the world. By driving more money and investments into green businesses, the field stands to facilitate the needed transition in the global economy to a more sustainable, regenerative one. Recently, I attended a talk by Murray Clay, of the Ulupono Initiative. Ulupono has been billed as the only impact investment venture capital firm in Hawai’i. Specifically, the Ulupono Initiative invests in companies that help the state grow its own food, reduce its waste, and use renewable energy.
So how does an entrepreneur approach an impact investing firm and solicit funding for a green project? What is the best strategy to effectively communicate with impact investors and help bring the project to life?
Socially Responsible Investing Expands Despite Shaky Economic Climate
Curious about the effect Occupy Wall Street has had on the socially responsible investing field, I recently spoke with Michael Kramer, Managing Partner of Natural Investments, a Socially Responsible Investing company. Kramer said that the current interest in the impact investing was truly inspiring. “Having done this for 20 years, it’s remarkable how exponential the growth in this field is,” he said.
Kramer cited that socially responsible investing is a $3 trillion marketplace. “We’re redefining what corporations are, and there are more and more assets flowing into this space,” said Kramer. “It’s because of scandal, but it’s also because of peoples’ concerns with the regulatory environment.” In other words, people fear that stronger regulations are coming and will negatively affect many businesses with substantial unaccounted for liabilities in public health and the environment. “What this whole field is doing is beyond sustainability. It’s helping to create a regenerative economy, and in reality, we need to be there. Sustaining what we have today is not enough.”
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