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By Geri Stengel

Women who start and grow thriving businesses have an interesting characteristic in common.

No, it isn’t an MBA or having a business plan. And they are not all in women-centric industries.

The commonality is that they care about their communities. They do this in a number of ways, as I found out when researching the Forget the Glass Ceiling: Build Your Business Without One report, commissioned by Dell.

Social responsibility is built into their DNA

For Erika Bliss of Qliance, Mandy Cabot of Dansko, Kara Goldin of Hint Inc. and Danae Ringelmann of Indiegogo, community is fundamental. Qliance provides high quality healthcare at an affordable price; Dansko is a B Corp (a certification that the company upholds certain social and environmental standards). Hint is helping people drink more water because it’s good for them, while Indiegogo is democratizing the way ideas get funded and become reality. All are part of a variety of social good organizations including Social Venture Network.

Giving and volunteering benefits both nonprofits and your business

Some, like Cabot, Lili Hall if KNOCK Inc. and Nina Vaca of Pinnacle , serve on nonprofit boards. It’s rewarding to contribute to their communities, but they also believe it makes them more effective professionally. Decision-making on nonprofit boards requires building consensus, a very different skill from influencing someone who reports to you. Building consensus is very useful when you form an alliance, joint venture or partnership with another company.

 

Service on a nonprofit board builds connections with peers, as a mentor or mentee, with role models and, yes, sometimes even leads to business relationships.

Other women, like Liz Elting of TransPerfect and Kourtney Ratliff of Loop Capital, attend charity galas. They also make business connections at these events.

Women help other women achieve

Women may not have the power they deserve, but they have enough to help each other.  Bliss, Luan Cox of Crowdnetic, Goldin, Hall, Ringelmann, and  Vaca are involved in women’s organizations. The percentage of women-led companies that break through the glass ceiling to more than $1 million in revenue is less than a third the rate of companies led by men due, in part, to funding challenges and lack of self-confidence.

 

The greater challenges women face in the business world bond them to each other. “Only other women can understand the challenges I face,” said Cox. “It really helps to get their perspective.”

“One of the biggest hurdles, I think, is self-doubt, and I think women probably suffer from that a heck of a lot more than men,” said Bliss. “Just meeting and seeing other women in very powerful positions reminds you that it’s possible and you can become that, too."

The women profiled in Forget the Glass Ceiling are part of organizations such as:

• At the Table, an online and in-person networking community of Latina entrepreneurs, led by the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation


• Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network (DWEN), a community of women entrepreneurs from more than 11 countries who collaborate to grow their businesses


• Ellevate (formerly 85 Broads), which connects women across industries and generations to help each other succeed.


• EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women, an executive leadership program that helps women scale their businesses


• Springboard Enterprises, an accelerator for women-led businesses seeking equity financing


• TheLi.st., a private membership community for women committed to helping each other advance


• Watermark, a community of high level executives who advocate for the advancement of women in the workplace


• Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and other organizations that certify women-owned businesses


• Women 2.0, a community of women starting or aspiring to start technology-based businesses

Business is more than just making profits to women

Successful women are more likely than successful men to own a business so they can pursue a personal passion and to make a positive impact on the world, according to the 2013 U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth report. These women are also far less likely than than their male counterparts to take actions that undermine employees, such as moving the company to another state, eliminating staff or reducing employee benefits in response to an increased tax burden.

 

For women entrepreneurs, it’s not just about just about innovation and profit. It’s about making a difference.

Image credit: Forget the Glass Ceiling: Build Your Business Without One report

Geri Stengel is the president of Ventureneer a content marketing and market research company that helps corporations reach small businesses through thought leadership. She is the author of Forget the Glass Ceiling: Build Your Business Without One. Read the e-version of the book for free.

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a serious condition that affects about 1 in 100 children, and is caused by alcohol exposure during the mother’s pregnancy. Alaska is taking an innovative approach to reducing FAS: A $400,000 University of Alaska project will put free pregnancy tests in the bathrooms of 20 bars and restaurants across the state, starting in December. For more than 12 months, at least 50,000 tests will be distributed, the University Herald reports. Alaska has the highest rate of FAS among all states.

Nationwide, half of all pregnancies are unplanned, and 59 percent of women in the U.S. between the ages of 18 to 44 report drinking alcohol. Binge drinkers have a much higher rate of unplanned pregnancies and binge drinking is more prevalent in cold climates.

The researchers will place the pregnancy tests in three cities and rural hubs with messages about preventing FAS on both the dispensers and tests. Other cities in Alaska will display framed messages on the walls of bar restrooms but will not have free pregnancy tests. First proposed by Sen. Pete Kelly (R-Alaska) in March, the project will help to determine if posters warning pregnant women not to drink or pregnancy test dispensers are more effective. Bar customers and staff will be interviewed by researchers.

"That's probably a relatively small percentage of women who will see the test kit dispenser and will actually use it," said David Driscoll, director for the University Of Alaska Anchorage Institute Of Circumpolar Health Studies, who is leading the study.

Jody Allen Crowe is the founder of a Minnesota nonprofit called Healthy Brains for Children that has installed test dispensers in bars. “This is not a strategy for the chronic alcoholic who is drinking regardless of whatever message they see," Crowe told Anchorage Daily News. "This is really focused on the 50 percent of unexpected pregnancies, to find out they are pregnant as early as possible." Crowe added, "The Alaska effort is going to be very important to see empirical evidence.”

Crowe started a similar project two years ago in a bar in Mankato, Minnesota. A pregnancy test dispenser was installed in the women’s restroom in the bar. Women could use their credit cards to purchase the tests for $3.

The Alaska project is supported by the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS) as a “promising public health strategy for preventing FAS,” which affects an estimated one in 100 children. “The Alaska project is a potentially important part of an overall, comprehensive approach to FAS prevention,” NOFAS stated in a press release.

The blood alcohol level of a pregnant women increases quickly after one drink and starts to decrease in 45 minutes, according to a brochure for Alaskan residents by Healthy Brains for Children. However, the festus gets rid of the alcohol through urine into the amniotic fluid and then drinks the alcohol-laced amniotic fluid. Alcohol can remain in the amniotic fluid for up to twice as long as in the bloodstream of the mother, some studies show.

Image credit: TipsTimesAdmin

By Robert Fenn

First published in 1996, the ISO 14001 standard has grown to become the best known framework for environmental management. Developed by global consensus, it provides a best practice benchmark for organizations of any size, in any sector. Used in supply chains throughout the world, the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) review their standards on an ongoing basis to ensure they are still relevant and effective in a rapidly evolving world.

In 2013, ISO conducted the ‘ISO 14001 Continual Improvement Survey,' the results of which helped form the basis of a draft of the new, updated standard. Garnering feedback from thousands across 110 countries, ISO’s desired outcomes were to find out what value users got from the standard, together with the areas that ISO 14001 needed to strengthen in order to meet future challenges. Below, we look at the expected changes which will finally result in ISO 14001:2015.

What are the expected changes?

The certain change of ISO 14001 is that it will be aligned with other management systems, and will use the Annex SL structure. The emerging changes that we’ve seen in the Committee Draft (CD) include:

Strategic environmental management

There is an increased prominence of environmental management within the organization’s strategic planning processes. A new requirement to understand the organization’s context has been incorporated to identify and leverage environmentally-related organizational risks, including opportunities, for the benefit of both the organization and the environment.

Particular focus is on issues or changing circumstances related to the needs and expectations of interested parties (including regulatory requirements) and local, regional or global environmental conditions that can affect, or be affected by, the organisation. Once identified as critical, actions to mitigate adverse risk or exploit beneficial opportunities are integrated in the operational planning of the environmental management system.

Leadership

In order to ensure the success of the system, there is a renewed emphasis on leadership in the new standard, in-line with ISO 9001:2015. A new clause has been added that assigns specific responsibilities for those in leadership roles to promote environmental management within the organization.

Protecting the environment

The expectation on organizations has been expanded to commit to proactive initiatives to protect the environment consistent with the context of the organization.

The revised text does not define ‘protect the environment’ but it notes that it can include sustainable resource use, climate change mitigation and adaptation, protection of biodiversity and ecosystems, etc.

Environmental performance

There is a shift in emphasis with regard to continual improvement from improving the management system to improving environmental performance. Consistent with the organization’s policy commitments, the organization would, as applicable, reduce emissions, effluents and waste to levels set by the organization.

Lifecycle thinking

In addition to the current requirement to manage environmental aspects associated with procured goods and service, organizations will need to extend their control and influence to the environmental impacts associated with product use and end-of-life treatment or disposal. This does not imply a requirement to do a life cycle assessment.

Communication

The development of a communications strategy with equal emphasis on external and internal communications has been added. This includes requirements on the quality of information communicated and mechanisms to make suggestions on improving the environmental management system by persons working for or on behalf of the organization. The decision to communicate externally is retained by the organization but the decision needs to take into account information reporting required by regulatory agencies and the expectations of other interested parties.

Documentation

Reflecting the evolution of computer and cloud based systems for running management systems, the revision incorporates  the term ‘documented information’, instead of ‘documents’ and ‘records.' To align with ISO 9001, the organization will retain the flexibility to determine when ‘procedures’ are needed to ensure effective process control.

What are the timescales for the revised standard?

The Technical Committee responsible is called TC 207/SC1. In a recent meeting in Italy, there were concerns that the Committee Draft of the new standard was too bureaucratic and has vastly increased the need for documentation, which will be a challenge particularly to smaller businesses.

The next step is the development of the Draft International Standard (DIS), which will be open for public comment for a period of 5 months. Currently, this is expected to be available in mid-2014.

Once the balloting period is over, comments will then be grouped and adjustments made for the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), which tends to be little different from official, final revision. Assuming things stay on track, the standard should be available in mid-2015. Certainly, with ISO 14001 certification being linked to demonstrating competitive edge recently, the popularity of the standard looks to continue unabated.

Is ISO 14001 missing something? Should it be changing at all? Join the conversation in the comments below, or via Twitter @TriplePundit.

Companies could become more sustainable by improving the way they measure, manage and report the amount of plastic they use in their business operations and supply chains, according to ground-breaking new research by the Plastic Disclosure Project, the UN Environment Programme and natural capital analysts Trucost.

The report, entitled Valuing plastic: the business case for measuring, managing and disclosing plastic use in the consumer goods industry, was published at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya.

The research is the first-ever assessment of the environmental costs of plastic in business. It calculates the amount of plastic used by stock exchange listed companies in sixteen consumer goods sectors and assesses levels of corporate disclosure on plastic. Its aim is to help companies understand the risks and opportunities of plastic and build a business case for improving its management.

Trucost calculates the total natural capital cost of plastic in the consumer goods industry to be more than US$75 billion per year. The cost comes from a range of environmental impacts including the harm done by plastic litter to wildlife in the ocean and the loss of valuable resources when plastic waste is sent to landfill rather than being recycled.

Plastic use in the food sector has the largest impact in absolute terms, responsible for almost a quarter of the total natural capital cost. The toy sector has the largest natural capital intensity, as the natural capital cost of its plastic use is equivalent to 3.9% of its annual revenue.

The most significant downstream impact of plastic use by the consumer goods sector is marine pollution, which has a natural capital cost of at least $13bn. This is likely to be an underestimate due to the need for further scientific research, for example, on the impact of small particles of plastic known as microplastic. The most significant upstream impact is greenhouse gas emissions released from producing plastic feedstock, which is responsible for almost a third of the total natural capital cost.
The impacts of plastic vary around the world. Companies face higher natural capital costs if they purchase or dispose of plastic in Asia compared to North America, Europe or Oceania due to the higher pollution intensity of manufacturing in Asia and its lack of adequate waste management facilities.

At present, levels of disclosure are poor with only half of the 100 consumer goods companies assessed reporting at least one item of data on plastic use. Disclosure rates vary widely, with no companies in the athletic goods and footwear sectors reporting any usable data compared to almost 90% of firms in the durable household goods sector.

Andrew Russell, director of the Plastic Disclosure Project, commented: “The research unveils the need for companies to consider their plastic footprint just as they do for carbon, water and forestry. By measuring, managing and reporting plastic use and disposal through the PDP, companies can mitigate the risks, maximize the opportunities, and become more successful and sustainable businesses.”

 

Picture credit: © Jiri Vaclavek | Dreamstime.com
 

With a busy week behind you and the weekend within reach, there’s no shame in taking things a bit easy on Friday afternoon. With this in mind, every Friday TriplePundit will give you a fun, easy read on a topic you care about. So, take a break from those endless email threads, and spend five minutes catching up on the latest trends in sustainability and business.

It's easy to start losing your faith in humanity once Friday rolls around. To give you a bit of a mental boost this afternoon, we rounded up seven industry-leading companies that make employee volunteering a priority while still turning a profit. 

1. Timberland

Timberland is well known as a leader in the social good space, and the company recently surpassed 1 million employee volunteer hours served. This milestone has been in the making since the brand launched its Path of Service program in 1992.

As part of this program, each Timberland employee is given up to 40 paid hours per year to dedicate to service. Timberland volunteers have initiated nearly 4,000 service projects in 32 countries since 2010, when project-specific metrics started being tracked, according to the company.

2. Patagonia

Not to be outdone by its fellow outdoor brand, Patagonia has become a frontrunner in employee giving in its own right. From an environmental internship program, to an annual 'bike-to-work week' and Salmon Run, the company offers an industry-leading assortment of ways for employees to get involved.

3. Boeing

Boeing offers one of the most comprehensive employee giving programs out there. Employees receive $250 grants for every 25 hours volunteered and $100 grants per fundraising walk, run or bike ride. All totaled, each employee can receive up to $6,000 in matching funds annually to donate to their charities of choice, as Triple Pundit reported in a 2012 series.

4. Microsoft

Microsoft’s annual Employee Giving Campaign takes place in the U.S. throughout the year. A special push every October brings more than 300 activities to the company's corporate campus, including a 5K Run, an online auction and other special events.

Microsoft also matches employee nonprofit donations and volunteering year round up to $15,000 per employee. Today, more than 39,000 employees participate in the campaign, which is approximately 65 percent of Microsoft’s total U.S. workforce, and employees have donated more than $1 billion, inclusive of the company's $1-to-$1 match, since the program began in 1983.

5. SAP

SAP partners with several different NGOs to spur employee volunteering in the United States. The company's signature volunteering initiative is its annual Month of Service held in October, where more than 150 projects are executed across the country.

Thousands of SAP employees in the U.S. participate in the Month of Service, along with several partners and customers in some cities, according to the company. The company also matches up to $2,500 in charitable donations per employe, per year and offers hardware and software donations through a nonprofit partnership with Techsoup.

6. PwC

In a recent interview at the 2014 Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego, Clinton Moloney and Amy Longsworth of PwC said volunteering programs are at the heart of the consultancy's strategy for employee engagement and retention.

In its most recent move to bolster employee engagement while doing social good, PwC made a $160 million commitment over five years to drive up volunteerism in the company. The program, called Earn Your Future, allows PwC employees to increase financial literacy in children and teens by creating lesson plans for students of all ages.

“What we’ve seen is the leaders of our 20-something offices compete on how many hours they can get volunteered to deliver the Earn Your Future program, so it’s actually a core success metric for our most senior partners,” Moloney told Triple Pundit.

7. Panera Bread

Social good is at the heart of Panera Bread's business model. Since launching its first pay-what-you-can Panera Cares Cafe back in 2010, the company has served up millions of meals to those in need.

To get employees involved, the recently company rallied associates, managers and MyPanera members across the country at 12 different food banks to volunteer their time together for National Volunteer Month in April.

Based in Philadelphia, Mary Mazzoni is a senior editor at TriplePundit. She is also a freelance journalist who frequently writes about sustainability, corporate social responsibility and clean tech. Her work has appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News, the Huffington Post, Sustainable Brands, Earth911 and the Daily Meal. You can follow her on Twitter @mary_mazzoni.

Three years after taking over the leadership of Apple, Tim Cook is still struggling to make his own mark in the company. A profile article in the New York Times published last week described the challenges Cook faces while trying to lead a company, living in the shadow of Steve Jobs and “making Apple his own.”

According to the article, there are still many people -- including some of Apple’s shareholders -- wondering if Cook can fill Jobs’ shoes and maintain the company’s position as an innovation powerhouse and the most valuable company in the world.

One issue where Jobs’ shoes aren’t too big to fill is corporate social responsibility (CSR): In his day, Apple was famous for its reactive CSR strategy, low level of transparency, little commitment to stakeholder engagement and a generally dated approach to what responsibility in business means.

Cook -- who had to address some of the issues that were the result of Jobs’ approach, such as the working conditions at Foxconn -- seems to be more open-minded about CSR, promoting an agenda focusing on climate change, human rights and philanthropy.

The interesting question is whether this is enough to build Cook’s own legacy and make Apple not just his own, but also more sustainable? I believe the answer is no. And the reason is not what is in his agenda, but what is missing from it.

Right now, Cook’s approach puts him somewhere between what Prof. Michael Porter describes as the first and the second phases in the evolution of the role of business in society. Examples include philanthropy (Cook established a program to match employee charitable contributions) and good citizenship/sustainability (supporting proposed federal legislation protecting LGBT workers, using 100 percent renewable energy sources in Apple’s data centers, publishing an annual list of Apple’s major suppliers, and so on).

These are all important steps, and we definitely need more CEOs that are not afraid to tell shareholders to sell their stocks if they don’t like policies on issues like climate change.  At the same time it’s too little given our sustainability challenges in general and Apple’s challenges in particular. At best it will put Apple and Cook in the middle of the pack, with little chance to become the new Paul Polman or help him build his own ethos.

So, what can Cook do? Here’s one idea he might want to consider: Forget about philanthropy and good citizenship/sustainability and start thinking about designing the new phase in corporate responsibility: The responsible economy.

It all starts with the fact that interestingly the biggest challenge Cook is facing now is also is the biggest opportunity has to make his mark. What we’re talking about? In one word: growth.

As the New York Times article describes many Apple investors “worry that it can’t continue to match the growth that brought it from $65 billion in sales in the 2010 fiscal year to $171 billion in 2013. In fiscal 2013, sales grew a mere 9 percent, far below an average just shy of 40 percent a year from 2004 to 2013.”

The problem Toni Sacconaghi, a financial analyst at Bernstein Research, explains is that Apple won’t be able to show this sort of phenomenal growth “unless it comes up with a gigantic hit on the order of the iPhone.”

Apple’s challenge in a way reflects some of the ills of our economic system, where companies are expected to show continuous growth and can’t really get off the growth treadmill or reduce their growth rate without being punished by the markets. The result many times is short-termism, or in other words making decisions that favor the next quarter over the next decade just to make investors happy.

So what can Cook do about it? He can try looking for the next hits, hoping that somehow he can win the law of large numbers time and again, or at least until his term is over and it becomes someone else’s problem. Yet, his chances are rather slim – as Sacconaghi explains in the article even if Apple sells 10 million units of iWatch in the first year, “it would add a mere 50 cents to its earnings per share, barely a single percentage point.”

The other option he has is to revolt against the system, and say NO to unreasonable growth expectations. Instead he can offer shareholders and stakeholders his own version of what Patagonia calls “The Responsible Economy,” i.e. “an economy that does not rely on insatiable consumerism as its engine, an economy that stops harmful practices and replaces them with either new, more efficient practices or older practices that worked just fine.”

I know it might sound a bit crazy – after all, Apple is not Patagonia, so the sort of discussions and questions about consumerism, responsibility in business and sustainability that might be a perfect fit for Patagonia just doesn’t work for Apple. But at the same time isn’t it crazier to believe that a company with $171 billion in sales will continue growing in double-digit figures forever and ever?

Well, I believe the opposite is true. Apple is actually very close to a point where these questions will become essential to its future. It will have to decide very soon if it continues to focus on growth and planned obsolescence or start thinking in terms of long-term economic stability, responsible design and sustainability.

Now, this doesn’t mean that Apple will stop being innovative or developing new ideas – it will just need to think differently about innovation. It will require leadership, determination and creativity and it won’t be easy, but it can also be a very rewarding process, eventually ensuring that Cook’s legacy will be beyond the next iGadget. So now it’s up to you, Tim!

Image credit: Mike Deerkoski, Flickr Creative Commons

Raz Godelnik is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons The New School of Design. You can follow Raz on Twitter.

The 2014 Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego prompted discussions about a host of sustainability issues, from climate resilience to consumer engagement. But in a nation where waste recovery rates have hovered below 35 percent for the past decade, it was tough not to talk about recycling as well.

In a panel discussion hosted by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, leaders in the textile recycling space spoke about lessons learned that can be applied to the apparel industry, which is a key area of focus for the institute. One of the more surprising additions to the panel, entitled “Optimizing Building Blocks: Cradle to Cradle Materials for Textiles," was Paul Murray, vice president of sustainability and environmental affairs at Shaw Industries, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer.

Believe it or not, there's actually a great deal the apparel industry can learn from carpet-makers about closed loop recycling. Shaw, for example, has been producing Cradle to Cradle certified products for more than a decade, and they now make up 64 percent of the company’s sales. I sat down with Murray after the panel to find out more about how the carpet industry's success with closed loop recycling can be applied to your favorite fashions and lessons that translate across the textile industry.

1. Design with the end use in mind

The most obvious aspects of closed loop recycling happen in the collection and re-processing phases, but Murray noted that the process starts much earlier -- in the design phase. When recovering textiles for recycling, it's vitally important that the material components are nontoxic, safe for recycling workers and safe for the end consumer.

"It was early that we looked at [closed loop] as a system to prevent bad chemistry," Shaw said, noting that the materials assessment for Cradle to Cradle certification is much tougher than EPA standards. "Federal law makes us disclose everything up to 1 percent; Cradle to Cradle makes you look at that chemistry down to 100 parts per million, or one thousandth of a percent. So, it's 1,000 times stronger than the EPA would require of an apparel industry, but it makes things a lot safer for the general public."

Materials assessments look at everything from dyes and glues to the fabric itself. Beyond ensuring products are nontoxic, nuts-and-bolts design decisions, such as the construction of the product, also play a key role in making sure the product can be re-purposed at end-of-life.

"We want to make sure that those materials have a second life," Murray said of Shaw's carpeting. "So, we actually try to then manufacture the products so that they can come apart in one shape or form or another.

"The apparel industry has several issues that we have to deal with in a different way. One is how do you take a piece of, let's say, jeans and get the rivets and the zipper out so that the fabric could actually be used."

2. Take a branding approach to closed loop

Achieving Cradle to Cradle certification for a product is no easy feat, but that's only the beginning, Murray explained. To make a closed loop product successful, he said, companies need to make their customers aware of its value. To achieve this, he suggested a branding approach with which most companies are already familiar.

"Cradle to cradle is a concept, a process and a label," Murray said. "If nobody knows about that label, then you don't have brand recognition. People won't look for [the Cradle to Cradle certified label] on a piece of carpet if they don't know about it. So that's what I would call 'brand recognition' for the certification itself.

"As the apparel industry looks to cradle to cradle as a solution, they need to be thinking about what they [can] do to help that brand recognition," he continued. "How do we get to that partnership of building the Cradle to Cradle brand? I think it's important for all cradle to cradle companies to work together for that branding."

A select few apparel companies, such as Puma, have already started to build branding around their Cradle to Cradle certified products, while others, like Levi Strauss & Co., focus on branding around recycling through their own processes. But most would agree there's still much more to be done in this area.

3. Never stop looking for new technologies

When we spoke with global, end‐to‐end textile solutions provider I:CO last month, Jennifer Gilbert, the company's chief marketing officer, likened fabric recycling to paper in the sense that fibers shorten and degrade when they are recycled. Although the company has managed to devise end uses for several textile categories, Gilbert noted that the degradation of fabric fibers poses significant challenges, and she's right -- at least for now.

With most processes used today, recycled textiles must be combined with virgin feedstocks to compensate for fiber shortening, but cutting-edge techniques are under development across the country, Murray noted. Shaw, for example, uses a high-tech depolymerization process to turn grimy used carpeting into a brand new product. Since fibers are broken down at the polymer level, the result is essentially new fiber that is just as strong -- if not stronger -- than the original tossed carpeting.

"I think the technology will really change over time," Murray predicted, pointing to a fledgling effort in Seattle that devised a process to grind cotton so fine it can be extruded as new fiber -- much like the process used to make rayon back in the 1980s.

"There's going to be a lot of different developments in all sectors, whether it be carpet or apparel," he continued. "Even the carpet industry today: When you look at a piece of carpet it's glued together. The methodology to take that apart, we continually work on. So, that's an example of an industry where we have to work collaboratively to come up with methods to take things back."

Staying open to new technologies and supporting them financially when possible is key to moving the closed loop process forward, Murray said. Shaw, for example, partners with roughly 50 entrepreneurial recyclers across the country to recover its carpeting, while I:CO works with literally hundreds of partners from around the world to develop new recovery processes.

4. Be patient with infrastructure

"Everybody that talks about cradle to cradle makes this point: It really has to start somewhere," Murray said.

It's true that the infrastructure for textile recovery is growing, and companies like I:CO are a big part of that, but it can be easy for brands to become frustrated with the lack of take-back options or end uses for their products. This frustration, however, is no reason for companies not to pursue closed loop options and think about them in design.

"You really don't start with the infrastructure to take things back," Murray said. "You start with making sure that what you're producing is as safe and environmentally friendly as possible ... That's really where the apparel industry has to get strong."

As methods evolve for producing products that are safer to recycle and reuse, as well as for the re-processing itself, the infrastructure will slowly start to catch up -- especially if consumers are engaged and asking for closed loop products, Murray said.

To engage its own consumers, Shaw recently sent out the below video to its online mailing list, which details how Shaw uses closed loop processes and efficiently sums up the five basic tenants of Closed Loop certification.

Image credit: Flickr/bluehillranch

Human beings are very clever -- clever enough to remake much of the world in the image of what lies in our collective imagination. We are also clever enough to forget, perhaps for generations, that we are still a part of nature. But part of our cleverness also involves learning from our mistakes.

People are beginning to wake up to the fact that even our wildest excursions of creativity and talent must be grounded in and informed by the lessons of nature. Nature, being the ultimate master of the subject, can teach us how to survive. Nature wastes nothing. The very idea of waste does not exist in nature. Leaves fall from trees and decompose, turning back into food for the trees and the millions of organisms employed in that industry.

People recycle, too. Aluminum cans become car frames or more cans. Yesterday’s front page becomes tomorrow’s sports section. We are saving lots of energy and resources in the process and feeding those employed in that industry.  But food waste, despite the tremendous biochemical value contained within it, has been slow to follow. Food is wet and sloppy. It smells bad, and it rots -- providing a potential haven for microbial bad guys. It must be picked up and disposed of promptly, and unlike aluminum or paper, it contains a lot of water, which makes it heavy.

So, other than the few of us who compost, most of the food waste goes into the landfill. According to the EPA, close to 50 percent of what goes into landfills is organic material. Some of that is recovered as landfill gas, but we could do much better, especially considering that a great deal of that methane, a dangerously potent greenhouse gas, escapes into the atmosphere. But, beyond avoiding methane release, there is tremendous value that can be recouped from this material.

The EPA has developed a food recovery hierarchy that provides guidelines for extracting the maximum value from food waste. The suggested hierarchy, going from most preferred to least preferred is:

• Source reduction (don’t create the waste in the first place)


• Feed hungry people (donate excess usable food to the hungry and homeless)


• Feed animals


• Industrial uses


• Produce compost


• Incinerate or landfill

As you can see, the hierarchy is arranged in order of the amount of value that can be extracted. Another great source of information on this subject is the Food Waste Reduction Alliance who just published a toolkit for those ready to start their own food recovery operation.

A number of companies are currently in the business of food recovery:

• Turning Earth takes in food and yard waste and then processes it in an anaerobic digester, producing biogas. Solid material is converted into compost. Waste heat from both the anaerobic digester and the composting operation is used to keep greenhouses warm during the winter, providing year-round food production, which in turn produces more waste that can be fed back into the system.


• Missouri Organic has a program they call Food Residual Environmental Diversion (FRED) that turns food waste into compost, keeping it out of landfills. Last year, they successfully diverted 32 million pounds of organic material.


• Quest Recycling starts from the waste management portion of the cycle. They provide a variety of waste recovery services including working with restaurants and hotels to recover value from food waste. In 2012, they recovered over 850 million pounds of food waste, which was converted into bio-diesel, animal feed, and other alternative fuels.

Considering the value creation potential here, it’s clear that the surface is only just being scratched. Consider Fiberight of Catonsville, Md. They are a waste disposal/energy company that uses compressed natural gas generated from the collected municipal solid waste to power their trash haulers. They also convert fibrous materials such as cardboard and packaging material and convert them into cellulosic ethanol. At the end of their process, 80 to 85 percent of everything they collect is put to use, thereby avoiding the landfill. The company is currently expanding into two large scale facilities in Iowa.

As good as that is, technology demonstrated by Epiphergy, in Rochester, N.Y., can utilize better than 99 percent of all the food waste they collect. A single process takes in all the waste and in five days, after a certain amount of pumping, mixing and incubating with a proprietary mixture of what founder Graham Fennie calls “herbs and spices,” converts it into a liquid from which both ethanol and a highly nutritious animal feed can be produced. The residual solid material is converted into organic compost.  Fennie, who has several patents pending on the process, calls it “upcycling waste.” He is currently looking for partners to help scale up the process.

If you think about it, these guys are acting as manufacturers, with the notable difference that instead of buying their raw materials, or growing them, or extracting them from the Earth, they are being paid to take them by people who want to get rid of them.

These are potentially disruptive changes, and they will take time for our society to get its collective head around. But as we continue the journey towards a sustainable economy, we find that there is really no facet of our world that cannot benefit by following the lessons being taught every day by nature.

Image credit: Epiphergy animal feed from food waste by RP Siegel; Graph courtesy of EPA

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.

Editor's note: This is the second post in a two-part series on building a national fleet of electric vehicle charging stations. In case you missed it, you can read the first post here.

With SolarCity and Tesla, Elon Musk and team have crafted a template for a triple bottom line business that melds the production of solar electricity and its use in transportation, residential, commercial and industrial settings. Tesla's Supercharger fleet of electric vehicle charging stations is a key facet of this vertically integrated, solar-powered energy “ecosystem.”

As 3p reported in part one of this series, Tesla isn't the only one looking to build out a nationwide fleet of EV charging stations. Miami's Car Charging Group, Inc. is working to assimilate and revive the EV charging station assets it acquired during a recent string of acquisitions. Furthermore, a recent executive hire points out the longer term direction the company may be heading, one that could capitalize on the same sort of business symbiosis inherent in the Solar City-Tesla combination.

A nationwide EV charging network: A historical parallel

Mutual interest brought oil company majors, U.S. auto manufacturers and the federal government together to produce the fuels and build the roads, highways and vehicles that have come to define American life in the post-World War II era. Oil companies produced the gasoline and diesel cars and trucks needed, and they seized the opportunity to integrate vertically and control the supply of petroleum fuels from wellhead to vehicle owner.

The largest, most successful commercial enterprises of the era, the oil industry's “Seven Sisters,” bankrolled and built out a nationwide network of gasoline and diesel filling stations over the first half of the 20th century. To date, no large industry backer – electric utility or otherwise – has fully committed to doing so for EVs. That has left the field largely open to ambitious entrepreneurs and start-ups.

That said, there has been some interest among EV manufacturers -- which at this point includes nearly all the world's multinational auto manufacturers -- and it's growing. In May 2013, Nissan, the manufacturer of the Leaf EV, partnered with Car Charging Group to build out 48 fast-charge DC EV stations in California and “strategic places on the East Coast.”

Just this past week, news broke that Tesla, Nissan and BMW are talking about collaborating to develop standards for EV car charging and technology.

The reincarnation of EVs

In 1908, at the dawn of the petroleum era, some 28 percent of automobiles in the U.S. were powered by electricity. This initial generation of EVs was almost completely eradicated with the advent of abundant supplies of crude oil and refined petroleum products, the advent – with Mr. Ford – of scientific research-driven mass production methods and technology, and the business tactics of the Standard Oil companies.

Today, EVs represent less than 1 percent of U.S. auto sales. The beginnings of a resurgence is apparent, however. Extensive networks of charging stations will have to be built if EVs and the vision of a clean, renewable and distributed energy infrastructure is to truly take root and clean, renewable electricity become the predominant form of energy for transportation, as well as residential, commercial and industrial use.

The challenges faced by budding EV infrastructure players such as CarCharging Group and Tesla are similar to those faced by the oil majors a century ago when they undertook the challenge of building out gasoline and diesel filling stations, as well as those faced today by wind and solar power developers.

Innovative, opportunistic businesses gravitated toward and built out from local and state markets where government and public support were highest. At first, markets were small and fragmented. Businesses failed, some amid public scandal. Nonetheless, a nationwide network eventually emerged.

Faced with similar challenges, CarCharging is at present focused on integrating and reviving the EV charging station assets and business of the four acquisitions it made over the course of 2013.

Management also seems to be casting an eye further out on into the future. The recent hire of David Cohen as Chief Strategy Officer may point the strategic direction CarCharging sees itself heading.

Of EVs and solar microgrids

In a recent presentation given at a solar/distributed energy technology conference in New York City, Cohen reviewed the progress being made around the U.S. with regard to development and management of solar microgrids. He also went into some detail regarding the technical aspects of these local scale, solar-powered microgrids, and how EV charging fleets fit into an overall clean energy ecosystem.

Drawing load when charging, a large population of EVs poses problems for electricity grids and their operators. R&D to reverse the flow of electricity and make it bi-directional – electric vehicles supplying, as well as drawing, energy from the grid – is underway. Dubbed "EV2Grid," the concept has yet to be proven at commercial scale.

Cohen's expertise lies in developing software and systems that can balance electricity supply and demand in an intelligent way, integrating solar PV and hybrid generation assets with energy storage solutions and EV charging stations, as well as smart grid demand response (DR) and automated metering infrastructure (AMI). The result is a localized and distributed, yet vertically integrated, clean energy ecosystem.

Ford has incorporated solar PV arrays and EV charging stations into a microgrids that supplies electricity to one of its auto manufacturing facilities in much smarter, cleaner, more efficient fashion. What may be the biggest solar-hybrid energy microgrid in the U.S. has been up and running at the University of California San Diego for two years.

Cohen and other microgrid experts' vision of distributed solar and hybrid energy microgrids parallels the path the oil majors took in diversifying and integrating supplemental technology, products, services and business lines. Theirs differs in a big, fundamental way, however: Rather than extracting oil, coal and natural gas from deep beneath the earth's surface, they envision electricity produced from renewable energy sources as the fuel for both power generation and transportation.

Making such a vision reality would enable the U.S., and possibly many other countries, realize huge reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in a short period of time. That, in turn, would significantly reduce the economic, social and ecosystems threats and costs posed by ongoing increases in fossil fuel production and use.

To top things off, building out, operating and maintaining solar and hybrid renewable energy microgrids -- along with EVs, EV charging stations and energy storage systems -- could power the U.S. economy well into, if not throughout, the 21st century.

Image credits: 1) Avinash Kaushik from Flickr; 2) & 3) Ford; 4) GTM Research

When building a new home, design and material selection greatly impact the operating costs for decades. Investing in triple-pane windows and doors, generous insulation, and air sealing can greatly reduce your heating and cooling costs, while also boosting comfort. Is it financially savvy to construct a super efficient home over a code-built home because of the reduction in operating costs?

The simple answer is yes, but the more detailed answer is that it depends. Some energy efficient upgrades have a lot of bang for your buck, while others don’t. Your local climate is another variable.

Tessa Smith, co-owner of the Artisan Group in Olympia, Washington says the payback period of upgrading a home to an ultra-energy-efficient home over a code-built house can be a mere five years or less in the Pacific Northwest, with the upfront construction costs being four to six percent higher. Super-efficient homes require an investment in different materials and mechanical systems, some increasing and others decreasing the construction costs. Mechanical ventilation, more efficient hot water heating, upgraded windows and doors, and more insulation add to the cost, while money is saved on the heating and cooling system, according to Smith.

Super efficient homes with air sealing require mechanical ventilation to circulate outside air, bringing in a fresh stream of filtered air and preventing mold issues. Such homes typically don’t use combustion fuels, such as natural gas furnaces and propane stoves, because the byproducts contaminate the indoor air quality. Airtight homes with air sealing allow very little air into the home, thus fresh air is brought in with a ventilation system that recycles heat.

All 36 homes at Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage (BCE) in Midcoast Maine have Zehnder heat recovery ventilation (HRV) systems, that transfer 90 percent of the heat from the exhaust air to the intake air before it exits the home. Stale air is removed from the kitchen and bathrooms and fresh air is supplied to the bedrooms.

“Air sealing a building prevents the air you have paid to condition from leaving the building -- but it also prevents air that may be filled with contaminants from entering uncontrollably,” says Adam Romano, Director of Training Operations at the Association for Energy Affordability. “Combining air sealing with proper ventilation, such as Heat Recovery or Enthalpy Recovery Ventilation systems (HRV/ERV) will provide control over where you extract the contaminants produced in your home, how you treat incoming air to remove external contaminants, and how you optimally distribute this fresh air into living spaces.”

Although a high-efficiency HRV system for a house may cost more than exhaust-only ventilation, it is a necessary fixture in high efficiency homes and reduces the operating costs by allowing a higher level of energy efficiency that would otherwise result in poor indoor air quality and moisture issues without mechanical ventilation. A typical code-built house exchanges air into and out of the home through leaks, exhaust fans and mechanical systems, although this is very inefficient when it is cold outside because the heat isn’t captured before leaving the home. The HRV system helps make it possible to remove a much costlier and less efficient furnace or boiler by very efficiently heating intake air with recycled heat from the exhaust air.

“These houses [at BCE] are so tight that you can control what air comes in through one little pipe,” explains Brian Hughes, a carpenter for GO Logic and member of BCE. “Then you can use a heat exchanger to take almost all the energy out of the exhaust air [before it exits the home].”

Many high efficiency homes have no boiler, furnace, or air conditioners, as simple electric baseboard heaters can sufficiently and economically heat the home. The heat loss of the home is modest, even in a cold climate like Maine. “Because the heat loads of the buildings [at BCE] are so low, it really doesn’t argue for anything but the cheapest heating system you can get, which is electric resistance baseboard heat,” says Alan Gibson, principal of GO Logic, the design-build company that worked with BCE members to design and construct the community. “We saved a lot of money there.”

Gibson estimates that replacing the heating system with electric baseboard heaters saves $15,000 in the 1,500-square-foot homes. Other energy-efficiency components boost the construction costs, including air sealing, a high-efficiency heat recovery ventilation system, improved insulation, and triple-pane windows and doors. The result is a 7 percent increase in construction costs, with a seven and a half year payback period from the energy savings.

These energy efficiency upgrades result in a 90 percent reduction in energy for space heating compared to the average house, yielding much lower heating bills. Gibson estimates a 1,500-square-foot BCE home uses $300 to heat using electric baseboard heat, while a standard Maine home costs over $2,500 to heat with an estimated 680 gallons of oil. In addition, the homes stay cool in the summer without needing air conditioning. If these ultra-efficient homes are purchased using a mortgage, it results in lower annual bills (a higher mortgage offset by lower electric bill), thus having an instant payback.

“Increasing building performance has a multitude of benefits,” adds Romano. “The associated fuel savings and lower operating costs, are obvious; others take a little longer to show themselves, but can be more dramatic. What value would you put on decreasing the frequency or intensity of your child's asthma attacks, reducing hospitalizations and missed school days? Direct health benefits flow from increasing your home's energy efficiency, many resulting from improved indoor air quality.”

Image credit: GO Logic (upper photo) and Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage (lower photo)

Sarah Lozanova is a regular contributor to environmental and energy publications and websites, including Mother Earth Living, Green Building & Design, Triple Pundit, Urban Farm, and Solar Today. Her experience includes work with small-scale solar energy installations and utility-scale wind farms. She earned an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio Graduate School and she resides in Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage in Midcoast Maine with her husband and two children.