“The idea of building a business selling sustainability without having a clearly articulated price competitiveness strategy is a recipe for failure.” That sentence from The Secret Green Sauce is “best practices #1” being used by companies that are making money going green. And it is issue number one for the solar industry. The good news [...]

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“95.6% of households are willing to change their energy consumption behavior to save money on their energy costs.” This finding comes from the 2009 Nielsen Energy Audit. “This survey strongly suggests the timing is right for utilities to engage their customers with green marketing initiatives,” explains Jonathan Drost, Nielsen Account Executive-Utilities. “The survey points to utility customers being driven by the desire to lower their costs and to have increased control of their energy costs.”

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In the mid-1990’s, while serving as the General Marketing Manager for Georgia Power, I had the honor of managing the team of exceptionally bright people that designed an industry-pioneering meter-linked, integrated real time pricing/demand side management program. Today, I understand this legacy system now bills $2 billion annually on the Southern Company system, a utility [...]

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Manufacturing in America has eroded over the decades to approximately 10% of our country’s annual Gross Domestic Product. The Bureau of Labor Statistics documents 3 million jobs lost in manufacturing between 1996 and 2006. At an average manufacturing hourly wage of $18.50 representing a loss of $115 billion in annual manufacturing wages. I witnessed this [...]

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Marketers’ jobs aren’t easy. They need to politely, but aggressively, get the word out about their products, and then get those products into as many pairs of hands as possible. And sometimes that works out a little too well, or in unexpected ways. A good case in point graces the cover of Newsweek this week. [...]

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“The faith community must be heard, now is the time for people of faith to take a moral stand to save our planet.” –Reverend Canon Sally G. Bingham, president of The Regeneration Project Interfaith Power & Light I was raised by a God-fearing mom with a strong affinity for fire and brimstone preaching that grounded [...]

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Solar panels now only account for approximately 40 percent of the cost of a solar power system. And most technology studies project the cost of panels to continue its drop as a percentage of plant cost with continued advancements in technology and manufacturing. While this lower cost curve for solar technology is important, terms and [...]

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PACE is a program where a city borrows money to lend to property owners for investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Loaned funds are paid back over 20 years through property tax payments. The program started in California and through the efforts of Hidary and the PaceNOW coalition it is now allowed in 15 states.

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By Matthew Madden In neo-classical economics, the paradox of thrift describes an economic scenario in which the more people save their own money, the worse off the overall economic situation becomes. As a result, the paradox of thrift states that what may be good for the individual may not be good for society. The consumption [...]

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Junk Mail. It’s a bad thing, all around, right? Forests worth of paper, tons of emissions delivering it, and 98%+ of the time, ignored. What good can possibly come from it? Hang on a minute. Dukky has something different to offer, which may just make junk, er, direct mail an increasingly efficient thing, for all [...]

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Effective sustainability strategies depend on many moving parts. Sustainability change experts reading this blog will tend to have more than a little experience with most of them! However, there’s one tool that we’ve seen chronically underutilized: social networking. These tools aren’t just for connected teenagers anymore – effective use of social networking can make all [...]

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It is both good news and bad news for green building businesses that more people are entering the marketplace. The growth of the sustainable or green building industry leaves many questions for business owners, namely, “How can we differentiate ourselves from one another?” and “How can we distinguish ourselves from the hype and greenwashing?”

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When I first saw the sign that a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market would be built in Lemoore, CA, a small town in the San Joaquin Valley, it sounded like a great concept, at least the “fresh” part of the name. The sign claimed it would sell locally sourced organic produce. Last week I stumbled [...]

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The time has come for companies to think differently about their environmental efforts. To be sure, it’s refreshing to see more and more companies stepping up to the plate and making significant changes to their operations and investing in infrastructure in an effort to gain environmental benefits. These are extremely important steps, and by no [...]

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It’s all “green this” or “ all natural that” these days, but according to Scott McDougall, president of TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, chances are it’s all a bunch of hooey. A 99% chance to be exact. McDougall’s TerraChoice conducted a study called “The Six Sins of Greenwashing” in which over a thousand common household products were randomly surveyed, [...]

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