3p Contributor: Scott Cooney
Recent Articles
Impact Investing Goes Mainstream–Morgan Stanley Jumps on Board
Morgan Stanley, a global financial services firm with 1500 offices around the world, just announced they were offering a new set of investment options for clients interested in the triple bottom line. The “Investing with Impact Platform” is the first, to my knowledge, impact investment portfolio option for investors offered by one of the “too big to fail” banks that received a bailout from the U.S. government.
History Redux: The Political Campaign Against Sustainability
A recent Stanford University poll found that support for clean energy, vehicle emission standards, and energy efficiency programs is waning, particularly among Republicans. It’s the latest in a series of events that has some observers noting a distinct similarity between external happenings in Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and that of President Obama’s.
Michael Moore famously referred to President Jimmy Carter as “Debby Downer” in his documentary Capitalism: A love story. Carter was a Southern Baptist Preacher from Georgia who won the 1976 presidential election, only to face a global energy crisis and rising gas prices, as well as trouble in Iran. In the film, Carter appears in a public service announcement he famously made, asking Americans to conserve, to turn down their thermostats and wear a sweater, and to turn lights off when not necessary.
Beginning of the End for Big Box Dominance?
With the announcement of the closure of 50 big box retail outlets, Best Buy recently added more evidence to a growing suspicion about the demise of the big box store as the dominating force in retail. The electronics giant becomes the latest in a series of big box retailers that is shuttering large storefronts in some volume, following Circuit City, Borders, Sears, and several others.
It may be viewed as a sign of economic turbulence, the shift to online purchasing, or even a revitalized interest in buying local, but the trend is pretty clear. With large footprints, giant stores have huge tax, energy, water, and rent obligations, and drops in retail sales can become strong enough motivation for companies like Best Buy to jump ship.
One of the biggest challenges with big box stores is their footprint. Almost by definition, they create suburban sprawl and communities that are not walkable. And once they’re closed, all those tax incentives given by city councils to lure in the company become tax burdens to the local community with no benefits in job creation or opportunity. So…with all these stores closing up, the question shifts to what we do with them. Julia Christensen’s book, Big Box Reuse, offers some ideas.
Two Cool New Green Projects on IndieGogo
The Kalapana Organic Farm
I believe wholeheartedly in the power of community. For many startups, especially in this era of tight credit, getting a Kickstarter or IndieGogo campaign together and successfully launched can make the difference between launching a new product, expanding capacity, opening a new store….or not doing those things. The power of community to create green jobs in this way has never been stronger. And with crowdfunding websites, the community also benefits – it’s not a donation, it’s a contribution, for which you get some gifts from the company.
One great new project is an expansion of an organic cane juice business. Cane juice is a much healthier sweetener than processed white sugar sweetener, and Kalapana Organics is planning an expansion of their growing and processing operation to begin marketing their product coast to coast.
Kalapana is committed to organic agriculture and say in their video that they will help mentor other farmers in their area to help create more organic products and move agriculture away from chemically dependent production. According to the company, their juice has B-vitamins, electrolytes, and antioxidants, and, unlike most regular sweeteners, is very low in simple sugars and higher in complex carbs (meaning no crash, and you don’t need to knock back an energy drink just to make it through your workday).
For rewards, Kalapana is offering its juice, some instructions on how to create a great soil inoculant that will increase productivity of soil (it’s a mycorrhizae thing, for you biology nerds out there), and some of their turmeric hot sauce, all grown and made on the organic farm.
Dropping Solar Panel Costs and Grid Parity
Solar is, by any measure, a hot industry. Even with the reduction in subsidies from Germany and Italy, the world’s two largest solar markets, global spending on solar installations continues to be high. Analysts suggest that this year’s solar purchases will amount to roughly the same as last year’s, 27 GW globally, despite the reduction in subsidies in many parts of the world. Part of this growing demand is the reduction in costs. Solar’s installed cost has dropped 10 percent just in the last 4 months, as manufacturers are being forced to compete in a heavily commoditized market.
While solar sales continue to climb, the margins for solar manufacturers continue to drop. First Solar, the U.S.’s largest solar manufacturer, has seen its share prices drop 90 percent, to a low of $20.21 per share this week. Even in China, where solar manufacturers are subsidized and labor is inexpensive, manufacturers are struggling from heavy competition. And earlier this month, Q-Cells, a German manufacturer, filed for insolvency. Q-Cells was once the world’s largest solar manufacturer.
Amid Interstate Politicking, Feed-In Tariffs Come to Los Angeles
Last week, the Los Angeles City Council voted to approve the CLEAN LA Solar Program. It’s a small scale feed-in tariff trial, set to install about 10 MW of solar installations around the city of Los Angeles, but if it proves successful, the Council has authorized the program’s expansion, with an additional 65 MW of capacity this year and 75 more MW through 2016.
Los Angeles derives about 40 percent of its power from coal, and only 14 percent from renewables (mostly wind and small hydro). It gets 7 percent from large hydro, 26 percent from natural gas, and 9 percent from nuclear. In July 2009, Mayor Villaraigosa publicly declared that the city would break its addiction to coal by 2020, and L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti backed the mayor in a show of support for the program. The idea had national support from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, which successfully defeated 139 of the proposed 150 new coal-fired power plant developments proposed under the Bush Administration.
Is that the only reason for CLEAN LA received the green light?
In an interesting political twist, Mayor Villaraigosa publicly declared a boycott of all things Arizona back when Arizona passed what many view as the most unabashedly racist laws, Senate Bill 1070, signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer.
Bikes Double Their Mileage
In one of those, “Now why didn’t I think of that” moments, I came across a Kickstarter campaign for the Companion Bike Seat. It’s elegant and simple, allowing one bike to become, effectively, two. Or at least to carry an extra rider. Now, instead of 7 miles per organic banana, bikes effectively can get 14. Maybe a bit less because of the extra effort involved, but you get the idea.
The founders simply saw a need in the marketplace and weren’t able to spot a product to fill that need. Xtracycle makes something similar, a cargo-bike conversion kit, but it runs in the $300 range, for which, well, people could buy their own bikes.
One of the genius elements of this piece of equipment is that it not only carries an extra person but also has a lockable storage space under the seat. It’s like adding not only an extra seat but also a trunk! Is this the hipster’s version of growing up and getting a minivan? Well, not quite…the storage space, according to the founders, absolutely definitely positively fits a six pack and some ice. If that’s growing up, then all of a sudden growing up doesn’t seem so bad.
Volkswagen Bets on Greener Technologies
VW is the second largest automaker in the world and Europe’s biggest. So I was excited to read VW’s recent announcement that it is fundamentally restructuring its entire group, setting big hairy audacious goals to invest 2/3 of its $80+ billion of R&D money from now to 2016 on “more efficient vehicles, powertrains and technologies, as well as environmentally compatible production.”
As an advocate of biodiesel, I sought out a Volkswagen Jetta TDI when I moved from my car-free mecca San Francisco to the car-dependent Honolulu last year. It’s one of the few diesel options out there besides giant pickup trucks, which, even on biodiesel, are not very sustainable because they’re largely unnecessary and impractical for me (since I don’t own a landscaping company), and fairly wasteful as gas-guzzlers. The TDI also used to get 42 in the city and 49 on the highway, meaning better than average fuel economy.
Perversely, new VW TDI models get much worse gas mileage than the older models. The new TDI Jetta gets 30/42, whereas the model I settled on, a 2005, gets 38/46. Part of the equation is that VW revamped its diesel technology to make the engine run more cleanly. The reduced pollution came with a cost to efficiency, it appears, as the newer models claim 90% less sooty emissions than “diesel engines of old.”
Still, it’s tempting to view Volkswagen as a greener car. It’s German, and Germany has a Green Party President and is the world’s leader in solar power. Will the new R&D push clean things up?
Rebuild the Dream: Channeling Dr. Martin Luther King and Creating Green Jobs
See Van Jones live June 13th and 14th in Portland and Seattle! Click here for more information.
April 4th is the anniversary of one of the saddest moments in American history, the date on which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated for his work in creating social justice, civil rights and equality for all citizens. Sometimes in the day-to-day of our work, whether we work in sustainability or do it as a side-passion, it is easy to lose track of the bigger picture. There are large institutions at play that can help–or thwart–sustainability, economic justice, and green job creation in a powerful and systematic way.
When Barack Obama appointed Van Jones to be the Green Jobs Czar, many of us hoped this marked a turning point in the evolution of the Federal government in the direction of supporting sustainability in a systematic way. Mr. Jones was forced to resign due to his partisan style, but his message and his leadership were spot on, and exactly the kinds of policies that many of us believe we need as a country.
Students Challenged to Find Energy Waste in Their Schools
With support from the Alcoa Foundation and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), the “Make an impact: Change Our 2morrow (CO2) energy conservation competition challenged eight schools to engage their teachers, administration and students to find energy savings. The Alcoa Foundation gave prizes to winning schools totaling $9,000 in Connecticut, Michigan, Texas and Washington.
The bigger picture is that 9,000 participants committed to taking actions in their daily lives that would save upwards of 20 million pounds of CO2 emissions. “The enthusiasm shown by these students was really awe-inspiring,” said Katie Mandes, Director of the Change Our 2morrow program. Mandes indicated that there is obviously a need for individual action if we’re to slow or reverse climate change.
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