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Joule Assets on June 18 announced that it is targeting an initial $90 million of an anticipated $270 million in funding for 10 U.S. energy efficiency and demand response contracting companies.

Opening up the mid-tier energy efficiency and demand response markets to accredited investors across the U.S., co-founders Mike Gordon and Dennis Quinn launched Joule Assets' Energy Reduction Assets (ERA) Fund in late January. The fund enables investors to earn a share of the returns generated by energy efficiency and demand response projects carried out among U.S. small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

“In a given year, a typical energy efficiency contractor may see $2 million to $3 million worth of projects stall due to a customer's budget constraints for upgrades. The lines of credit from Joule Assets enable those small-to-mid-sized contractors to offer financing options, radically shortening sales cycles and extending their project pipelines,” Joule Assets stated in a press release.

Boosting energy efficiency among SMBs

With Joule Assets' funding, energy and facilities information management systems and services provider NorthWrite expects to finance 50 to100 energy efficiency projects across “a spectrum of small commercial buildings, including schools, restaurants, national chains and offices” over the next 12 months, Joule Assets highlights. Said NorthWrite founder and CEO Patrick O'Neill:

“Joule Assets’ ability to offer conditional cash flows for projects is what sets it apart from standard financing options. In true partner fashion, the team at Joule helped us envision, create and work through the different financing scenarios available to us. They have a level of domain knowledge around conditional cash flows that others deeply discount or won’t even consider, which is what makes these projects possible.”

Added Joule Assets CEO Mike Gordon: “Our model, which places financing decisions in the hands of the vendors, not only empowers the small-to-midsized contractors, but it accelerates the adoption of energy reductions assets as a whole by reducing overall due diligence and transaction costs. We’re pleased to provide contractors with investment dollars that will enable them to significantly increase their deal closure rate and scale rapidly.”

Investing in "negawatts"

Apparently there is a good amount to go around by investing in energy efficiency and demand response projects and services. By monetizing the energy savings realized through contractors energy efficiency and demand response work, Joule Assets expects investors in its ERA Fund will realize investment returns of 6 to 10 percent.

Then there are additional “mezzanine returns of 5 to 15 percent and potential equity participation, totaling estimated average targeted returns of 18 percent.”

Those are some very attractive rates of return, particularly since these investments are considered relatively low risk. That may beg the question: Why aren't banks all over this?

Nevertheless, by investing in Joule Assets' ERA Fund, there's a big bonus: You'd be putting investment capital to work to boost energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the threats and costs of climate change at the same time.

Image credits: 1) Verrazano Narrows Bridge by Ecofriend; 2) Arrowhead Electric Cooperative

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on Oilprice.com.

By Nick Cunningham and James Stafford

Along with 3 billion other viewers around the world, I plan to tune in for the month-long World Cup to see whether the 22-year-old Neymar can withstand the colossal pressure that has been put upon his shoulders to deliver a win for team Brazil.

Every time I turn on my television set, I’m using World Cup-related energy. And that’s just the start. Flying in teams, trainers, equipment, World Cup personnel and the estimated 500,000-plus fans will use enormous volumes of jet fuel.

Add to that powering the stadiums on game days, moving millions of spectators around host-country Brazil, and transmitting the event to billions of viewers worldwide, and you end up with millions of tons of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

So while the 2014 World Cup is going to be bigger than ever -- it’s shaping up to be the most watched,most lucrative and expensive tournament in soccer history -- it’s also going to be one of the biggest energy-consuming, greenhouse gas-spewing World Cups in history.

Think about this as the music blasts through the stadium and the fans cheer and scream and the players race up and down the field chasing the ball: The 2014 World Cup tournament will burn through enough energy before it’s over to fuel almost every one of the 260 million cars and trucks in the United States for an entire day, or the equivalent of what 560,000 cars use in a year.

Estimating the total energy required to mount such a massive operation with any precision is a fool’s errand, but let’s take a look at some numbers to get a sense of scale.

FIFA did its own fascinating study of the carbon footprint that will be created by setting up and running its broadcast television operation. It found that the biggest contributor – 60 percent – is international flights for staff members. The other 40 percent comes from all the trucks needed to transport cables, cameras and furniture, and the energy required to operate all of the electronics.

All told, FIFA’s TV operations will contribute 24,670 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere – the same impact of burning 2.8 million gallons of gas, or 13,250 tons of coal.

FIFA also tried to estimate its carbon footprint for staging the tournament’s matches, which wraps in the electricity needed for stadiums, fan festivals, banquets, concession stands, training sites, travel for ticket holders, and team hotels. That number came to 2.72 million tons of CO2 equivalent. That’s like using up306 million gallons of gasoline or burning 1.46 million tons of coal.

What’s the point of the study? FIFA says to figure out where it can do better next time. Just a 10 percent decline in international staff, for example, reduces the carbon footprint by 6 percent.

TVs and Tea Kettles

None of these numbers include other sources of Cup-related energy use, like building new transportation infrastructure and stadiums.

And speaking of stadiums, while everyone would probably love to attend the final match in Rio de Janeiro’s famous Maracana stadium, the vast majority of us will be watching at home. Which means we’re contributing to the Cup’s carbon footprint, too.

A spike in energy use is likely to occur in places when millions of people turn on their TVs at the same time to watch a match. For example, in the United Kingdom, the record for an energy surge during a TV program occurred during the 1990 World Cup, when England went to a shootout against West Germany in the semi-final. (Incidentally, West Germany prevailed and went on to win the trophy. West Germany’s title run was led by Jurgen Klinsmann, who is now coaching the U.S. national team.)

During that match, the UK National Grid experienced a spike of 2,800 megawatts of demand, as people across England tuned in to watch the game’s climax. Other significant power surges in the UK occurred during England’s 2002 quarter-final match against Brazil (2,570 MW surge), and the 2011 royal weddingof Prince William and Kate Middleton (2,400 MW surge).

In fact, it’s relatively common for the UK to experience a spike in power demand during big soccer matches. National Grid operators have become accustomed to forecasting higher electricity demand during games, according to its operations manager, Jon Fenn. Not only does electricity consumption spike from millions of TV sets, a surge is felt most acutely during halftime or just after the final whistle, when everyone heads to the kitchen to turn on electric tea kettles or grab a snack from the fridge.

“It must be one of the few jobs where watching World Cup matches is essential to your work rather than a distraction, because we need to know to the second when half time and full time occur to be ready for the surges in demand,” Fenn told The Telegraph in an interview before the 2010 World Cup.

The 2014 World Cup will be transmitted to every country in the world and could potentially be the most watched sporting event in history.

Now we know it could set new records in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, too.

Image credit: Flickr/taigray

Graphic courtesy of Oilprice.com

Weedingtech, the herbicide-free weed management company, is challenging five major industry partners to test out its MW-Series and Foamstream weed control system to prove its performance against traditional weed control products.

The weed control challenge will be the largest programme of its kind ever undertaken in the UK and aims to showcase the viability of Weedingtech’s herbicide-free weed control alternative against a backdrop of growing concern about the use of glyphosate-based products. 

The challenge is being taken up by major players in the amenities, agricultural, environmental and recreational sectors: Yeo Valley Family Farm, South West Water, South West Lakes Trust, Quadron Services and G’s, Europe’s leading fresh produce company.  

Nick Mole, policy officer at the Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK), commented: “With the growing body of evidence showing that the use of glyphosate can potentially have harmful effects on human health and the environment PAN UK believes it is time that non chemical weed control techniques were at the forefront of people’s thinking. Weedingtech’s challenge is a clear sign that another way is possible.” 

 Weedingtech is a pioneering British company backed by a number of high-profile investors including Roman Abramovich’s Ervington Investments and Jon Moulton and family.

By Susan Jackson and Michele Kuruc

Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry brought together some of the world’s leading thinkers to chart a path for securing the future of our planet’s oceans and the communities and economies they support. Leaders from more than 80 countries delved into the most pressing issues facing our oceans, including marine pollution, climate change and unsustainable fisheries.

While the discussions were vibrant, one of the biggest announcements was made by President Barack Obama as he announced a new initiative to address illegal fishing. Through a government-led strategy, federal agencies -- along with industry, NGOs and other key stakeholders -- will work together to build a framework that ensures seafood products can be traced from “bait to plate.” This is a critical step by the U.S. to combat illegally caught fish from reaching U.S. markets and ending up on dinner tables and on store shelves across the country.

One common theme that was presented throughout the “Our Ocean” conference was the role of cooperation and the need to work together, across governments, industry and with NGOs to address this shared problem.

To this end, some industry leaders are already rising to meet this challenge. Companies working with the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, for example, have all made public commitments to combat illegal fishing by establishing best practices for monitoring, control and surveillance in tuna fisheries. ISSF requires that all participating processors, traders, and importers refrain from transactions with vessels that are not flagged to a country that is participating in the Regional Fishery Management Organization, do not have a unique, permanent identification number issued by the International Maritime Organization, or that are not on an authorized vessel list from a Regional Fishery Management Organization.  These companies are voluntarily taking this conservation measure to a critical next step by withdrawing their tuna from the marketplace upon the discovery that the tuna originated with an IUU-listed vessel.

These companies are also engaged in ongoing work with scientists, vessel companies, and coastal and flag states, that includes trials of electronic observer systems and electronic captain’s logbooks aboard tuna purse seine and long-line vessels. These pilot programs are helping to develop new ways to monitor fishing efforts and creating a set of best practices that can be expanded and scaled up across the industry.

Tackling illegal fishing and the host of impacts associated with it is no small feat, but this week’s conference builds on the momentum generated in recent months. Countries like the United States are embracing global efforts like the Port State Measures Agreement to ensure that all fish landed are legally caught.

While governments, NGOs and industry are taking positive steps to address illegal fishing, it’s clear that more action is needed – across sectors – to tackle this global challenge. More needs to be done by flag states to monitor and control the fishing vessels operating under their flags; by port states to ensure the products landed and traded through their ports are legal; and by market states to ensure that the products sold are of a legal origin. This means new measures and regulations for improved monitoring and enforcement to catch documentation, import controls and traceability.

The announcements by President Obama and the commitments made by the State Department are the type of actions, when taken in concert with continued strong commitments across sectors and nations, that will go a long way to ensuring the continued sustainability of global fisheries and food security.

Image credit: Max Speed/Flickr

Susan Jackson is President of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation and Michele Kuruc is Vice President for Marine Conservation for World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Image credit: © Peter Chadwick / WWF-Canon.

A core facet of Chancellor Merkel's historic “Energiewende” clean energy transition, Germany has led the world in driving adoption of solar energy technology and systems. Although it is now pulling back hard on incentives, the market momentum created by its precedent-setting solar energy feed-in tariff (FiT) persists.

Three national solar energy records were set in Germany over the past two weeks. According to the Fraunhofer ISE solar energy research institute:

• Solar met more than 50 percent of Germany's total electricity demand for the first time;


• A new solar peak power production record was set; and


• Weekly total solar power output hit new highs.

That's not all. With prospects for new, cheaper and more effective energy storage solutions improving, sales of solar power storage systems are “set to skyrocket in Germany,” according to German economic trade and development agency GermanyTrade & Invest. 

Solar records falling fast in Germany

Fraunhofer's latest analysis of solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity production showed that a record-high 24.24 gigawatts (GW) were generated between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday, June 6, and a total 1.26 terawatt-hours (TWh) over the entire week.

Solar power production peaked at 23.1 GW on June 9, a national holiday -- representing 50.1 percent of total electricity demand, another milestone, Germany Trade & Invest highlights.

Commenting on solar's record performance, Tobias Rothacher, a renewable energy expert at Germany's economic development agency stated:

"German solar demonstrated just what it is capable of in the first two weeks of June. "The large amounts of solar electricity being generated demonstrate clearly that Germany will need more energy storage capacity in the future. Already, the more than 1.4 million photovoltaic systems are producing a surplus, especially on sunny days around midday.”

The clean energy economy: A virtuous spiral

Evidence that clean energy policies can fuel the creation of a positive socioeconomic feedback loop, Germany's growing solar PV and renewable energy production is driving development of innovative energy storage solutions. As Rothacher pointed out:

"From now on, every new solar system that is installed in Germany increases the need for electricity storage solutions. The cost of storage systems is forecast to drop in the coming years and this means that storage is not only becoming more necessary - it is becoming more attractive from a financial point of view as well."

The German government and participants in the country's clean energy storage sector are taking their technology and the lessons they have learned overseas. Germany Trade & Invest experts are traveling to the Energy Storage China 2014 conference and exhibition, which is to take place in Beijing June 23-24, “to advise international investors about relevant opportunities in the German market.”

Solar energy's geopolitical ramifications

Solar energy's rapid rise in Germany has profound and far-reaching ramifications, and not only for Germany. Cleaner energy means cleaner air, cleaner water and healthier, more productive landscapes. It also makes for healthier people and a healthier, more vital economy and society. It helps conserve biodiversity and wilderness -- and all the ecological services and social, as well as economic, benefits they provide.

Germany's solar and renewable energy leadership can serve as a model for other nations and the international community as they head into the “home stretch” of negotiating a successor to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Kyoto Protocol.

The rapid rise in German solar energy capacity also brings to the fore the tremendous potential for solar, wind and other distributed renewable energy sources to reshape the geopolitical landscape for the better. Neuter the economic significance of oil and gas deposits in developing nations, and we might just able to do away with a host of ills that have plagued humanity for over a century.

Germany is not known for its abundance of sunshine. That makes solar energy's success there even more remarkable. Another thing that truly distinguishes solar energy's success in Germany is that it's so democratic in nature.

Germany's democratic solar PV growth

Here in the U.S., utility-scale solar capacity far outweighs what has been installed in the residential and commercial sectors. In Germany, residential and commercial rooftop PV installations far outnumber utility-scale PV plants.

Solar energy pundits have put the difference down to government policy. Germany instituted a sector-wide solar feed-in tariff (FiT) that requires utilities to pay more for solar-generated electricity wherever it is produced. That was the pivotal piece of legislation that has spurred the phenomenal rise in rooftop PV in the country.

Here in the U.S., the federal government has relied instead on investment and production tax credits to stimulate growth in the solar, wind and renewable energy sector.

Though the federal tax credits do play a big role in making investment in solar energy more attractive to homeowners, tax equity investments are the realm of large investor groups and corporations. It's been the recent advent of third-party solar leasing programs and the securitization of solar leases that have been accelerating adoption of solar PV on U.S. rooftops.

More successful in launching renewable energy incentive programs, state governments have supplemented the federal PTC and ITC with renewable or alternative portfolio standards (RPS and APS). Governments in 30 states plus the District of Columbia have passed an RPS or APS. Last week, Ohio became the first to freeze its APS, which was enacted in 2008.

Again, however, these standards mainly drive demand for solar and other renewable energy systems in the power utility sector, requiring them to purchase an increasingly high percentage from renewable sources over time.

The importance of social attitudes and national values

People's attitudes and values also undoubtedly play a big part in determining the rate and extent to which homeowners, businesses and utilities adopt solar energy systems. Here in the U.S., oil, gas and coal companies wield much more in the way of political and media power, and hence, public influence, than they do in Germany.

This difference in attitudes and values can be traced back to the role oil, gas and coal has played in Germany and America's socioeconomic development and growth. The U.S. was the birthplace of the multinational oil industry giants and remains their most important market. With the energy advantages of oil and natural gas made clear over the course of two world wars, oil -- and the interests of the oil and gas multinationals -- became central to the U.S. government's foreign and domestic policy, and vice versa.

Coal played a central role in Germany's industrialization, but that was over a century ago. With no substantial domestic oil and gas deposits to speak of, no counterpart to the Standard Oil Trust, or today's Exxon and Chevron, emerged in Germany, and that remains the case today.

Image credits: 1) Photovoltaik/Esamjadali via Flickr; 2, 3 & 4) Fraunhofer ISE

I don’t know if it was the cold winter or what, but we suddenly seem to be seeing mass defections from the climate denial bandwagon. Last week it was the former chairman of Shell U.K. This week it’s Henry Paulson, who served as Treasury Secretary during the George W. Bush administration. Paulson was instrumental in that administration’s response to the financial meltdown, a situation he draws as parallel to the climate crisis in a New York Times Op-ed entitled, "The Coming Climate Crash."

Speaking specifically about climate change, Paulson says: “This is a crisis we can’t afford to ignore. I feel as if I’m watching as we fly in slow motion on a collision course toward a giant mountain. We can see the crash coming, and yet we’re sitting on our hands rather than altering course.”

You would think that as a former Secretary of the Treasury, his call for a carbon tax would be enough to convince his fellow Republicans that not only is this the most effective way to address the issue, but also that the time for procrastination has passed. But Paul Krugman, writing in his response, says: “Every economist I know would start cheering wildly if Congress voted in a clean, across-the-board carbon tax. But that isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. A carbon tax may be the best thing we could do, but we won’t actually do it.”

Krugman says that the health care crisis is actually a better parallel to climate change than the financial crisis. Back in 2008, the administration held the specter of an imminent (and plausible) worldwide financial collapse potentially only days away with which to drive urgent and dramatic action. Climate change is very different as it has revealed  and will continue to reveal itself slowly, over a period of decades, at the end of which it will be far too late to do anything but brace for the impact.

Doing the right thing about climate change, by passing a carbon tax, would be like doing the right thing about health care by adopting a single-payer option. That didn’t happen because of the insurance industry and the dozens of politicians beholden to them for campaign contributions. The same will be true, says Krugman, of the carbon tax. Simply substitute the energy for health care.

So, there's good news and bad news: What we will get, says Krugman, will be a number of “second best” options, not unlike Obamacare, which despite being stripped of many of its most beneficial provisions on the way to political acceptability, is far better than nothing.

What are the second best options for climate change?

The list would include fuel efficiency standards, net metering provisions in the law and the EPA’s use of regulatory authority to control carbon emissions, all of which are already in place. Add to those, subsides and loan guarantees, of which some will fail (e.g. Solyndra) and looking to the states to develop their own cap and trade systems. Local governments and businesses, many of whom have been proactive, will continue to have a major impact.

Democracy is a messy business, and while it’s true that in a time of crisis we might be better off with an autocratic system, the quality of life advantages of democracy, despite its compromises, are overwhelming. Those compromises lead us to another adage: “The best is often the worst enemy of good enough.” But how do we know, with so much at stake, that "good enough" will be good enough?

Image credit: Dartmouth College: Flickr Creative Commons

RP Siegel, PE, is an author, inventor and consultant. He has written for numerous publications ranging from Huffington Post to Mechanical Engineering. He and Roger Saillant co-wrote the eco-thriller Vapor Trails. RP sees it as his mission to help articulate and clarify the problems and challenges confronting our planet at this time, as well as the steadily emerging  list of proposed solutions. His uniquely combined engineering and humanities background help to bring both global perspective and analytical detail to bear on the questions at hand.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

Target’s 2013 sustainability report says the ultimate definition of a sustainable business means investing in the “ongoing well-being” of its customers, team, shareholders and communities.

Even during a time of growth and challenges, that is the continuing priority, says John Mulligan, interim president and CEO, EVP and chief financial officer. “It’s not about ‘going green.’ It’s about making sure the partnerships we take, the processes we follow and the products we sell are helping us create long-term value that goes beyond Target and into the communities we serve.”

Worthy words indeed. How is Target doing?

-- Last year the company introduced the Target Sustainable Product Standard, which was developed over the last 2 years in partnership with industry experts, vendors and NGOs, according to Target. The standard “will help establish a common language, definition and process for qualifying what makes a product more sustainable.” Using GoodGuide’s UL Transparency Platform, Target will collect information from vendors and evaluate a product’s qualities against set criteria. Target also launched Simply Balanced, its “wellness grocery brand” to meet growing demand for more responsibly sourced, wellness-focused food.

-- Target began “leveraging” the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg Index to assess the sustainability of thousands of vendor partner facilities. In 2011, Target became a founding member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, a partnership with more than 80 footwear and apparel brands focused on reducing the environmental impact of the industry. “In 2012, we took our partnership a step further through the adoption of The Higg Index, an industry tool that creates a common approach for measuring and evaluating sustainability performance in the supply chain.” So far it has used the index to perform “self-assessments of more than 3,000 facilities that produce Target-sourced owned brand product,” says Scott Lercel, director of social responsibility and sustainability, Target Sourcing Services.

-- Clean by Design: In 2012, Target teams – including the Product Design & Development Global team, Fabric Sourcing and Target Sourcing Services Sustainability – joined with the Natural Resources Defense Council in a pilot called Clean by Design, to reduce water, energy and materials in its supply chain by as much as 12 percent. “It took more than a year and a half from the first facility evaluation to the final audit reports,” Ada Suneson, director of technical services for the Product Design & Development Global team. “But the small changes we made added up to some big savings for the company.” Target reported an annual environmental savings of more than 365,000 tons of water, more than 555,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, and an annual cost savings of about $1.5 million.

-- LEED certification for Canadian stores – As Target prepared to enter the Canadian market, it affirmed a commitment to achieve LEED certification for all 124 of the stores opening in Canada in 2013. “Other retailers in Canada take a case-by-case approach to LEED, so Target had a unique opportunity to show our commitment to smart development by going big on LEED certification,” says Vanessa Matiski, director of  architecture and property development. So far, 28 of the Canada stores have achieved the certification, with the rest scheduled to be certified later this year.

-- Target said it has adopted “clear labor and human rights policies that guide our business” with its nearly 3,300 factory vendors. The report says that last year Target focused its audits on factories considered to be at the highest risk for noncompliance with our standards. “As a result, we found more noncompliant factories and more severe violations of our standards than we did in 2012. We terminated our business relationships with the noncompliant factories according to our policy.” In 2014, the company said it is planning to audit factories before production begins. “This will enable us to avoid noncompliant factories and get a head start on any necessary improvements for factories that demonstrate commitment to our standards.” This includes steps to prevent unauthorized subcontracting and “saying no” to conflict minerals. According to Target’s 2012 Corporate Responsibility Report — as described in a Triple Pundit report on worker rights earlier this year — 40 percent of its supplier factories were found to have unacceptable human rights compliance practices, and critical violations were found in 20 percent of the factories. In China alone, working conditions in 50 percent of supplier factories were found unacceptable.

So there appears to be some progress on a number of sustainability fronts at Target, including international worker rights, but at the end of the day, this company is in the business of mass consumerism, which will always make true sustainability a challenge.

Image credit: Target Turns 50, 1962-2012 by Allen via Flickr

TriplePundit readers have long heard of the concept of "zero waste," but what does this term actually mean? It turns out there are a variety of ways the term "zero waste" is defined with the strictest being zero waste to landfill. On June 24th we hosted an online conversation with leaders in the field of zero waste.  We discussed why zero waste is such an important concept and got into the details of UL Environment's validation process.

About our panelists:

 

Scot Case – Director of Markets Development, UL Environment

A sustainability consultant since 1993, Scot Case is an internationally recognized expert in sustainable business strategy development, responsible purchasing, green supply chains, and environmental marketing. As Director of Markets Development for UL Environment, Scot helps connect retailers and consumers seeking environmentally and socially responsible products with the manufacturers supplying them.

 

Diane Scher -- Environmental Manager at Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations

Diane Scher specializes in waste management activities. A 17 year veteran of the company, Diane leads environmental compliance, performance and reputational programs at all Bridgestone Americas tire plants and distribution centers. Under Diane’s leadership, the Bridgestone passenger tire plant in Wilson, NC, achieved Zero Waste to Landfill status, and went on to be the first manufacturing facility of any kind to receive UL’s claim validation for Zero Waste to Landfill.

 

Raymond Randall -- Waste Management

Raymond oversees WM Sustainability Services' consulting engagements. With over twenty years of solid waste and energy consulting experience, he has provided a wide range of management consulting and project management services to a diverse set of clients ranging from Fortune 100, non-governmental organizations, non-profits, trade associations, and city, county and state government agencies. Projects include strategic planning, zero waste, competitive benchmarking, management efficiency studies, risk analyses, rate and financial analyses, and scenario modeling.

Martin Grohman -- GAF

Martin Grohman is GAF's Executive Director of Sustainability where he is responsible for communicating and developing sustainability for the entire $3B company.  He joined GAF with the purchase of Correct Building Products which he co-founded and grew to $30M in sales.  CorrectDeck was the first to produce polypropylene-based composite decking, and was often recognized for their environmentally friendly manufacturing processes and programs.  The company twice won the Governor’s Waste Reduction Award, and piloted innovative jobsite scrap recycling programs.

[RSVP LINK HERE]

By Victoria Kindred Keziah

Lately I’ve been swept up in the startup fever that has captured the imagination of my town and many like it, all hoping for a taste of what Silicon Valley is having.

These encounters beg the question of why innovation matters, here and now, in the current context of our ecological, social and economic reality.  For our innovations to truly matter, they will have to solve big, planetary problems and not just sell more stuff.  To that end, here are some guidelines that I think we innovators should consider if we wish to shed our short-termism and innovate for the long haul.

First of all, we’re the startup.  That’s right, we humanoids with the fancy eyewear and the opposable thumbs … We’ve only been at this upright thing for 200,000 years.  This seems like an exceedingly long time for someone in the venture world, but when you hold it up to the history of life on the planet (3.8 billion years), it’s like we just got here.  We’re a smart species, no question.  We have invented the airplane and the atom bomb and the Internet, but we could still afford to learn a few things from the photosynthesizers, the pollinators, the oxygen-makers and the carbon-absorbers.  It’s like we skipped to the cool design-thinking tutorial without learning the basics of the trade.  So the first step in forming meaningful startups is the realization that we’re still young, and we should approach innovation from a place of humility rather than hubris.

Second, the real startup mentors don’t have PhDs or country houses.   If we’re going to hang around to see the anthropocene through, we’ll need to take a few cues from the more established locals.  The ferns and the starlings and those prickly ones, the tennenbaums, they’re the ones who really get the whole clean energy thing; who didn’t know you could use chemistry that wasn’t green (don’t tell them); who have only ever eaten slow food; who know how to run a share economy.  And they’ve been perfecting it for a really, really long time in the R&D lab called “the woods behind your house.”  You want next-generation photovoltaics?  Spend some time with a leaf.  You want an Internet of Things?  Dig up some soil.  You curious about Big Data?  Stick your head in a beehive.  (Okay, don’t do that part.)

If we have the will to look, nature can teach us how to innovate for good.  Want to contribute to a future that works for the little guy?  Do like Etsy did, and use a sophisticated social platform to pare retail down to its most fundamental ingredients: Makers and buyers talking about stuff online, period.  No fancy retail concept, no franchise, no upselling or cross-selling by hovering sales associates.  Etsy exemplifies the kind of elegant simplicity that nature models for us when it manufactures and exchanges stuff in the ecological marketplace, where the main currency is oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen.  No synthetic distractions, just high-performing, essential elements interfacing for shared benefit.

You want to change the face of energy use?  Do like Nest did, and close the gap between signal and response, between “it’s hot in here ” and “somebody turn the heat down!”  Nobody bridges the feedback divide better than nature.  Take how a leaf expands as the sun emerges – not after the sun emerges, but at the same time.  More time to photosynthesize, more shade for the undergrowth, no rays of sun wasted!

You want to rent a room in your house to a perfect stranger named Sven?  Probably not … now, behave… Here’s the point: AirBnB realized that the only thing holding folks back from sharing that spare bedroom was a threshold of trust.  Now they’ve got guests and hosts reviewing and referring each other all over the globe, like one big happy traveling family.  Both guests and hosts are engaged in the kind of mutualism that exists between grass and grazers, between prey and predators, between plants and pollinators.  By facilitating the mutualism between guest and host, AirBnB has given the collaborative economy a new take on hospitality.

What’s more, these innovations are creating real value …  yes, the kind that grows on trees, literally and metaphorically.   Nest fetched a tidy $3.2 billion from Google after a whopping three years in business, all while training a new generation of homeowners to live lightly.  Founded in 2008, AirBnB has arrived in more than 34,000 cities, all without having to pave over paradise and put up another formula hotel.  And Etsy, which transacted over $1.3 billion last year, keeps hinting at an IPO, all while facilitating a sustainable income for thousands of artisans worldwide.  But despite their success, these start-ups just keep on innovating into new markets and new manifestations.  It’s as if they know it’s up to them to the change the rules of the game, which brings me to my last point:

We’ve got to get our eyes off the exit sign.  Why, I must ask, is the start-up community so enamored with quick and dirty exits?  Why all the talk of “seminal” ideas, “seed” capital, and “incubation,” without an equal amount of lip service to seeing the enterprise through to adulthood?  It seems like the start-up world is long on baby daddies but short on actual pay-for-the-wedding parentage.

As a mom and a nature nut and an entrepreneur, here’s my 2 cents: We innovators need to think as much about sticking around as we do about starting things up.  We’re actually really good at getting things going … all 7 billion of us, and our 14 billion opposable thumbs.  It’s in our nature to innovate and invent, but we also need to remember that ingenuity is only one small step in our evolutionary potential.  When Darwin talked about survival of the fittest, he said this:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives … It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Our true fitness test will be our ability to fit in on a grand scale, to truly internalize that we – the start-up species - are as connected to beehives as we are to business plans.

In the emerging economy, we won’t trade merely on our brawn, or even on our brains.  To reach go-to-market for the human enterprise, and for that enterprise to be regenerative, we’re going to have to take a much wider view than our spreadsheets will allow.

Image credit: Berteh, Open Clipart

Victoria Kindred Keziah is a Brand Strategist and Biomimicry Specialist at NetGenerative LLC.

By Sally Uren

At Forum for the Future, we believe all brands have the potential to be the solution, rather than the problem, when it comes to creating serious change. We also believe that brands could flourish in a sustainable economy.

Take Nike: Nike realized early on that by providing solutions to some key sustainability challenges, it could both do the right thing and secure its future prosperity.  Switching out carbon for nitrogen in some of its key materials, was the first step; then came Nike Better World, designed to take sustainability to the mainstream. Then the company joined forces with NASA on the Launch 2020 project, an open innovation competition to find game-changing solutions to sustainability challenges that can scale in 2 years.

I believe that brands, as shown by Nike, have the potential to shift entire systems, not just simply change small individual practices, to ensure a sustainable future. Here are three key ways brands can deliver solutions to sustainability issues and create real, enduring change:

1. First up, brands can create demand, when before there was none. Henry Ford famously said, "If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Brands have the ability to give people what they want before they know they want it. They also have the ability to normalize behaviors, expectations and desires. At Apple, this is a hallmark of the business philosophy; it demonstrates empathy with its consumers before a market has even been created to ensure its products can thrive in that new market.  In other words brads can lead the consumer, even in sustainability.  There was very little demand for sustainable cleaning materials in funky designer packaging, but Method has created that market and turned the cleaning category on its head.

1. Second, brands can bring research and development insights and innovations to life. Many businesses have an R&D pipeline, but bringing those future insights into the development of today’s products can be challenging. By asking, "How might my brand deliver these future innovations?" – in a way that resonates with my consumers’ (often anticipated) needs -- brands can act as the super-highway for product innovation. Take Unilever’s Pureit, a water purifier for domestic use in those countries where unsafe drinking water is still the norm. The innovation behind this simple device comes from Unilever’s R&D laboratory in Bangalore. The brand is the mechanism which brings this potentially life-saving device to market

1. Third, brands can create the conditions for wider change. This is an emerging area, and one which is potentially the most game changing. Nike’s business strategy is all about shifting to a closed loop business model. Such a model isn’t possible today: The infrastructure simply isn’t in place. How can Nike create the conditions to be able to make that shift over time? For one, its free Making app encourages designers to use the Nike Materials Sustainability Index Database, giving them the information they need to see the environmental impact of material choices. This is helping to drive demand for sustainable materials by empowering designers to make better choices.

Three strategies then: creating demand, bringing innovations to market, and influencing the system.  One planet.  For once, a ratio weighted in the right direction. One brand can adopt all three strategies, or switch between them depending on market and product. But a brand unwilling to experiment with any of these strategies, in my view, will become a brand from the past, not a brand that can last.

Sally Uren is CEO of Forum for the Future with overall responsibility for delivering the organization's mission to create a sustainable future.