Net Operating Working Capital

From the sustainability dictionary: A traditional measure of a company’s liquidity and potential for growth. Net operating working capital is defined as non-interest bearing current assets minus non-interest charging liabilities:

Net operating working capital = current assets – current liabilities

Generally, net operating working capital is equal to cash, accounts receivables, and inventories less accounts payable and accruals. Currently, the traditaional definition does not include either natural or human capital in its calculation, which enables companies to bypass these measures when assessing their performance. This makes it easy for corporations to ignore the lack of efficiency in their use of natural of human resources.



Can We Put a Price on Solving Climate Change?

Earlier this week, Lisa Zelljadt from Point Carbon wrote of her company’s new “Carbon 2010” report, which is a worthy attempt at covering the complex set of variables involved in creating and sustaining markets for carbon allowances. The report quantifies the responses from their proprietary data and marketing survey of approximately 1,500 carbon professionals who [...]

Read On »

8 Steps for Building a Triple Bottom Line Business You Can Sell

By John Warrilow When it comes to creating a business worth selling, a values-based business is just like any other- it needs to serve a demonstrated need and have a strong financial foundation, to boot. Here are eight steps to put your triple bottom line business on the market and find a willing buyer. 1. [...]

Read On »

A123 Systems’ IPO: Will Clean Tech Pave the Way for the Next Stock Market Bubble?

Emerging lithium ion battery developer and manufacturer A123 Systems made a big splash on Wall Street yesterday with an IPO that soared 50% above its offering price. Is this a sign that yet another long wave of irrational exuberance is building or a stepping stone towards building a cleaner, low consumption and low carbon future?

Read On »

Should Renewable Energy Equipment Be Made in the US?

Last week, the U.S. Energy and Treasury Departments launched a tax credit program for renewable energy equipment manufacturing. The $2.3 billion for the program comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), better known as the stimulus. The tax credits will offset 30 percent of the cost of setting up factories domestically. There are [...]

Read On »

How Can We Make Impact Investing Mainstream?

Impact investing, or investing for social and/or environmental impact as well as financial return, has become more and more popular, and will hopefully become the norm rather than the exception. At the Investors’ Circle conference, a panel of experts discussed impact investing. Amit Bouri, of the Monitor Institute, explained the findings of a recent report, [...]

Read On »

Everything Is Connected to Everything Else: Economic and Ecological Bubbles

Denis Hayes, President and CEO of the Bullitt Foundation, kicked off today’s Ceres Conference in San Francisco with a reminder that no nation can solve climate problems on its own – we must come together as a species because everything is connected. North African dust has been correlated to hurricanes. We have all breathed an [...]

Read On »

Market Reality Bites Biofuel Companies

The sour economy, low oil prices, the collapse of the commodity market and flight from food-based biofuel sourcing merged into in a deadly mix. Not that long ago ethanol and related first generation biofuels were the next big thing in alternative energy. Now this segment is in danger of becoming the next big bust. In [...]

Read On »