It was at Sustainable Brands, a conference I always make a point to attend, that I first heard market researchers discuss cost less, mean more as a key product design for winning customers. Cost less, mean more “Cost less, mean more” struck home for me because it aligns with economic theory which defines consumer procurement [...]

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Bill Roth sits down with Andrea Thomas, Walmart’s Senior Vice President of Sustainability, to discuss how Walmart is evolving an enterprise-scale business process for incorporating sustainability into Walmart’s operations and product offerings.

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Staples and HP are implementing a FREE e-waste recycling program. Their program is a great answer that local businesses and communities have been seeking to address the challenge where up to 80 percent of America’s annual ewaste is not recycled representing approximately 300 million electric devices being dumped into landfills.

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The Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Consortium provides excellent resources for hotels that are looking to get a little bit greener.

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$10 billion. That is the annual dollar size of the proposal-flow for roof top solar systems being created by Clean Power Finance’s national network of 1,550 installers.

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The U.S. military is the world’s largest fuel consumer. The DOD and DOE have set their performance goal to have 30 Net Zero Energy facilities by 2030.

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As painful as pump prices are this is great news over the long term for America. Price competitive sustainable product solutions are emerging. Today’s higher price for gasoline is accelerating our economy’s potential for implementing sustainable solutions that will create American manufacturing jobs and restore our environment.

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The following outlines six best practices that enabled DuPont’s success in achieving zero landfill waste stream results

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Apple announced that it sold 37 million iPhones during the last quarter of 2011. That is equal to everyone living in California buying an iPhone during the holiday season. The Pew Research Center reports that during this same time period tablet (iPad) and e-reader ownership doubled, resulting in one out of three of us now owning this type [...]

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“Our business revenues are directly tied to winning competitive bids,” explains Elizabeth Barry, Chief Sustainability Officer of Marsh & McLennan Companies. “Over the last couple of years an increasing number of our customers are inserting into their bid packages questions that seek documentation of our company’s sustainability commitment.” Barry’s comments reflect the growth of the [...]

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The greening of the supply chain is one of the economic engines of the global, $1 trillion revenue growth opportunity for companies selling sustainable products and services. KPMG reports that 95 percent of the world’s largest 250 companies now publish metrics on their environmental and social performance. This metrics-based focus upon environmental performance by the [...]

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The smart phone app is exploding in use with over 25 million apps downloaded just on Christmas Day. The Apple App Store is estimated to have shattered all previous records achieving 11 billion app downloads during 2011 and Android achieved 10 billion cumulative app downloads by year-end 2011. Apps have gone green enabled by the QR [...]

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Monterey Abalone Company is the first of four companies I will be profiling that have pioneered best practices for making money selling into the green supply chain. The other three profiled companies are large international companies. I wanted to begin this four-part article series with a small business to demonstrate that the opportunity for selling [...]

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2012 will be the milestone year that the US economy demonstrates sustained economic growth through adoption of 21st century’s sustainable solutions. Earth 2017‘s economic model estimates that sustainable product solutions have now achieved the breakthrough trillion dollars per year in global annual revenues level and is on the path toward achieving $10 trillion of annual [...]

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Bottleneck was the word of the day at the recently held Distributed Solar Summit. The good news is that solar panel prices are at historically low levels. The increasing price competitiveness of solar is attracting a growing number of customers. However, the potential for explosive growth in solar installations is bottlenecked by regulation, rule-making and [...]

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A common comment I have heard in working with hundreds of business owners across America this year is, “I would like to eat organic food but it is too expensive.” At first I tried to address these concerns intellectually by comparing value and values. Then in one city a business owner confronted me with this [...]

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Imagine being next to a Mercedes at an urban red traffic light while test driving the all electric Nissan Leaf. You are sitting there wondering, “Is this going to be embarrassing? Will the car behind me honk at me for being too slow in moving forward when the light turns green?” Now imagine your satisfying [...]

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If your daily roundtrip commute to work is around 40 miles then you are spending approximately $2,000 per year on fuel.  AAA estimates that the hidden costs of car insurance, oil changes, annual depreciation on your car purchase, etc. add a whooping $3,000 more to your annual costs. In addition, you are pumping approximately 20 pounds [...]

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Today, October 31, 2011, the world will have “officially” grown to 7 billion in population. Among those 7 billion, approximately one billion are malnourished. Even in America, a bread basket for the world, there is emerging awareness of “urban food deserts” where people face limited healthy food options. The 21st Century’s farming challenge is to: [...]

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Buy Local is an emerging American mega-trend driven by consumers discovering how their purchasing power can create local jobs and community solutions. The farmer’s market is the tip of the spear of the Buy Local movement. The USDA reports that the number of farmer markets has exploded from less than 2,000 in 1994 to over [...]

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Care2 is “the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.” When I interviewed Care2’s President/CEO Randy Paynter in August 2011, the website had approximately 16.5 million members. In only one month, Care2 grew by 500,000 new members to over 17 million. During the day I wrote this article the site’s membership grew [...]

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This award winning winery became the first winery in Napa Valley to provide an electric recharging station.

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America is searching for a path that will restore jobs, the economy and our environment. The Green Builds Business program created by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation with funding from Walmart is doing just that. As the Green Builds Business implementation-coach, I have worked this summer with business owners in Milwaukee, Irving Texas, [...]

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You know Coca-Cola. But do you? What consumer doesn’t recognize the distinctive red and white Coca-Cola logo as the most popular soft drink in the world? Would you be surprised to know that Pepsi is no longer number two, having been displaced by Diet Coke? Would you be further surprised to learn that Coca-Cola sells [...]

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A Green Economic Revolution is accelerating among American consumers. No less than 73% of now say “it is important to buy from green companies.” This is one of many new findings from the recent Cohn & Wolfe 2011 consumer perception survey. The survey is one of the year’s most important studies on how consumers perceive [...]

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This post is part of a series on Stakeholder Engagement sponsored by Jurat Software. Deloitte’s CFO Signals report summarizes the issues that CFOs are increasingly confronting with 4 words: Major Change Initiatives Stress. 56% of CFOs cite this stress with more than half placing it as a top three stress. One of the “Change Initiatives” confronting [...]

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The worldwide transportation of goods within the global supply chain has a carbon footprint of around 2,800 mega- tonnes CO2e (see PDF). Weight is a major factor in transportation fuel consumption and green house gas (GHG) emissions. Less weight means the potential for lower fuel consumption and lower GHG emissions. A ubiquitous component of the [...]

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According to Shelton Group, “a tipping point in American consumer interest in green products has occurred with 70% of consumers in our surveys saying they are searching for green products where green is defined as more energy efficient, natural, sustainable, etc.” Specifically, a few of Shelton Group’s market research findings in support of this green tipping [...]

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The key to raising money is building investor trust. There is a formula for doing so. The entrepreneurs that succeed in raising capital for their business know the formula for crafting a compelling story that earns the trust and investment of angel investors. James Magowan is an angel investor I met at an Investors Circle [...]

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A technology revolution is taking place in lighting that will be as dramatic as the displacement of rotary dialed phones with smart phones. The impacts of this lighting revolution will be lower electric bills, reduced emissions, smart buildings that automatically respond to human activity and most critically, American jobs! Today, 22% of America’s electricity bill [...]

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