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Earlier this week Corporate Knights (CK) announced its Global 100 list of the world’s most sustainable corporations for 2013. This year the first company on the list, and hence, perhaps, the most sustainable company in the world, was Umicore, the Belgium-based materials technology and recycling company.

Every time a new sustainability ranking is released, questions are raised about the value of these rankings and what we can really learn from them. This year’s Global 100 is no different. While one obvious question is whether Umicore is really the most sustainable company in the world, other interesting questions arise, such as if it is possible to compare companies from different sectors like the Global 100 does, can we learn anything from this ranking on the current state of sustainability in business and who reads it anyway.

Today we will answer all of these questions and some more. Here we go.

How is the Global 100 ranking conducted?

This year CK looked at all companies that had a market capitalization in excess of $US 2 ibllion as of Oct 1, 2012. Then, “four screens are employed based on companies' sustainability disclosure practices, financial health, product category and financial sanctions. Companies that pass all four screens constitute the 2013 Global 100 Shortlist.”

In the next step, companies in the shortlist are assessed against a list of 12 key performance indicators (KPIs), including energy and water productivity, innovation capacity, CEO-to-employee pay ratio, percentage tax paid and leadership diversity. For each KPI, companies are ranked and then percent-ranked against all same-industry group peers within the ranking coverage universe. Finally, the Global 100 is comprised of the highest ranking companies in the shortlist subject to each industry group's cap.

Does the Global 100 compare apples to oranges?

This is a common complaint lobbed at many of the rankings that try to compare companies from different sectors. While some would argue that it is impossible to compare a bank to a retailer or hi-tech company to an oil company when it comes to sustainability, Corporate Knights believes it can be done. “While companies from all geographies are eligible for consideration in the Global 100, companies are only evaluated against their same-industry group peers. Banks are assessed against other banks, and mining companies are assessed against other mining companies,” the company explains.

What are the pros and cons of such comparison?

An important advantage is that you have just one master list instead of multiple sector-specific lists like those created by Best Corporate Citizens’ lists of CR Magazine, which prides itself for comparing apples to apples.

The main disadvantage of such a comparison is that, because it is based on the ‘best in class’ principle, it is biased towards companies that do relatively well in a sector where many others lag behind. As Doug Morrow, VP of research at Corporate Knights Capital told Marc Gunther: “In some industries, the industry mean is going to be lower than others. If you happen to be a company with outstanding performance and your peers are way behind, you’re going to come out like a star.”

What does the Global 100 tell us on the current state of sustainability in business?

Not much. To me this is the biggest problem with this ranking as well as some others. While the Global 100 tells us for example that Umicore (#1 on the list) is more sustainable than Intel (#14), or that among financial companies, Prudential (#61) is better than Banco do Brasil (#100), we have no idea if what they’re doing is good enough. In a way, it is like providing you with the results of a 100-meter race without telling you what the 100-meter world record is – how can you tell whether the runners did well or not?

What we’re missing here is the sort of objective benchmark that Deloitte offers with its Zero Impact Growth Monitor. Deloitte also compares companies from different sectors, but by comparing companies’ performance to a common benchmark that tries to define what a ‘good performance’ is rather than to one another it achieves more meaningful results in my opinion. Just look at the ranking of Unilever in both cases (#1 on Deloitte, #82 on Global 100) and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

What’s the most valuable part of the Global 100?

The raw data (look for the link above the list to download it). With everything said, the Global 100 includes good KPIs and you can learn a lot from them, finding for example which company pays the highest percentage of taxes comparing to its EBITDA (Statoil of Norway – 52.68 percent) or the company with the lowest CEO-average employee pay (City Developments Ltd of Singapore – 5 times).

Who reads it anyway?

According to ‘Rate the Raters’, the excellent GlobeScan / SustainAbility survey, 45 percent of sustainability professionals find ratings/rankings a trustworthy resource for judging a company’s sustainable performance (second only to NGOs with 50 percent) More specifically, 42 percent of them are familiar with the Global 100 and 34 percent find it credible, comparing to 21 percent that find it not credible.

Oh, and is Umicore really the most sustainable company in the world?

It’s hard to tell. For sure it has impressive achievements, but is it #1? Is it more sustainable for example than Intel, Unilever or Novo Nordisk that won last year? I doubt it.

[Image credit: Corporate Knights]

Raz Godelnik is the co-founder of Eco-Libris and an adjunct faculty at the University of Delaware’s Business School, CUNY SPS and Parsons the New School for Design, teaching courses in green business, sustainable design and new product development. You can follow Raz on Twitter.

This post originally appeared on Green Money Journal blog.

By Amy Domini, founder, Domini Social Investments

Looking forward ten, even twenty years, what will Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) have become? What will it have accomplished? What will the field look like? Today, I build a case for a good future. In a word, it will largely be marvelous.

Roughly 15 years ago, I spoke in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It is a spectacular setting, one that makes a person proud to be in a great nation like ours, one that protects such places. Yet, as I reminded the audience that day, it had not been the public that had kept the Grand Tetons pristine. It was one man, John D. Rockefeller, who had purchased the land and given it to the nation.

This is the classic dilemma we in SRI struggle with every day. It is great that the Grand Tetons are a public treasure, but they became so on the backs of crushed labor forces, pollution and selfishness. One man made his money and then gave it away, but he set in motion the international oil industry, an industry that is robbing us of a climate, a future.

That day I challenged SRI to become relevant. Today, I can see clearly that it has. Over the next twenty years, the positions we have taken and the battles we have fought will lead to a universal understanding that what we have been saying, the way you invest matters, is absolutely correct. We will see our guiding principles integrated into the mainstream. We will be astonished at the acceptance and the impact that we have had.

How We Became Relevant – Performance Matters

Perhaps the most devastating argument we faced early on was the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). It argues that the previous “prudent man” idea of buying good stocks alone, created risk. Introduced in 1952 by Harry Markowitz, the original premise was simple: investors should focus on overall portfolio risk. Simply put, even if you love software, you still shouldn’t build an entire portfolio of software stocks. Astonishingly, this revelation won Mr. Markowitz a Nobel Prize in Economics and caused the entire financial services industry to argue that the individual risk characteristics of a company mattered little.

Against this backdrop, SRI seemed hopelessly old fashioned. We argue that each company, by virtue of the industry within which it operates, faces a series of risks that we label as risks to people or the planet. We then argue that taking too large a risk is not necessary and further, that it perpetuates an acceptance of these risks. Wall Street pundits stated with great authority, but with no basis, that our form of analysis flew in the face of Modern Portfolio Theory and so would fail. Our largest barrier was that, to use the vernacular, every smart person knew SRI was stupid.

The evidence proved otherwise. The MSCI KLD 400 Social Index has not only debunked the premise of MPT, but also shown that risk avoidance works. The index has outperformed — and has done so with a lower standard deviation. Clearly, examining the risk of corporate behavior tells us something about a company that is useful to investors.

Why We Are Relevant – An Increase in Reporting

SRI practitioners have pushed for “extra-financial” data and have gotten it. At first, true comparative data on companies was extremely scarce in some areas of keen interest to the concerned investor. Any good researcher understands that the newspapers are a lousy place to start. The fact that we know that Apple sourced from Foxconn does not tell us what Hewlett Packard does. What is needed is data that is universally ascertainable, without the company answering a questionnaire (which allows them to self-define), and the data must be quantitative in nature, e.g. I don’t care as much about a statement that a company seeks diversity as I do about how many minorities have been hired.

Today, thousands of companies self-report. Whereas the one or two companies that issued Social Responsibility reports thirty years ago were real outliers, today it is so mainstream that Forbes magazine maintains a blog to follow them. Accounting giant PWC makes available the 2010 survey of CSR reporting on their website. The highlights: 81 percent of all companies have CSR information on their websites; 31 percent have these assured (or verified) by a third party. Their 2012 update contains examples of what to look for when writing (or reading) them.

Who was pushing for this disclosure? It wasn’t civil society, it wasn’t Wall Street; it wasn’t government. It was a loose confederation of concerned investors who consistently pushed for greater and more standardized “non-financial” information.

Why We Are Relevant – An Increase in Regulation to Disclose

Regulators are beginning to expand on the data corporations are required to disclose. Remember, there was no God-given definition of the right way to report financials to investors. In 1932, when reforms to protect investors began, regulators looked at some of the pre-existing methods and evaluated them. This led to audited annual reports on income statements and balance sheets. It led to quarterly unaudited reports. These had, in the past, come to be viewed as important in judging the financial soundness of a corporation.

However, the regulators did not stop with accounting issues. Given that the 1930s were a period of high unemployment, the number of company employees was considered important, and so its disclosure became mandated. There is no reason that more robust social and environmental reporting shouldn’t be in the financial reports. We already disclose a company’s hometown, without companies complaining of the inappropriateness and burden of so doing.

The Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard University maintains a database of Global CSR Disclosure requirements. In it we find 34 nations are taking steps. In 2009, Denmark, required companies to disclose CSR activities and use of environmental resources. In 2010, the United Kingdom requiredcompanies that use more than 6,000MWh per year to report on all emissions related to energy use. Malaysia, in 2007, required companies to publish CSR information on a “comply or explain” basis. Regulators, recognizing the societal costs of less than full cost accounting, are moving in to mandate disclosure.

Mainstreaming – With this solid base, here come the “big boys”

Conventional asset managers and the academic community have brought SRI to the mainstream. I began by saying the future for SRI is marvelous. Consider a world in which every major financial asset management firm demands that its staff study the social and environmental implications of the investments they make and bases recommendations upon it.

But this has already begun. Consider MEAG, the American portfolio management branch of Munich Re. Their team buys only publicly traded bonds which then back the insurance the firm issues. They use ESG criteria to give their research the edge and to avoid risk. When I met with their research team, I found that they use several of Domini’s Key Indicators. No, we don’t publish the indicators. It also was not a coincidence. The two firms independently discovered the same indicators to be telling because they both use the same logic in approaching the issues. Or there is UBS Investment Bank, where analysts specifically address the social, environmental or governance risks of a company they are recommending.

Finally, look at the all-important realm of academia, where MPT began. Just three recent examples are telling:

The Impact of a Corporate Culture of Sustainability on Corporate Behavior and Performance by Professors Robert Eccles and George Serafeim, Harvard Business School. “… we provide evidence that High Sustainability companies significantly outperform their counterparts over the long-term, both in terms of stock market and accounting performance. The outperformance is stronger in sectors where the customers are individual consumers, companies compete on the basis of brands and reputation, and in sectors where companies’ products significantly depend upon extracting large amounts of natural resources.”

Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Finance by Beiting Cheng, Harvard Business School, Ioannis Ioannou, London Business School, and George Serafeim, Harvard Business School. “Using a large cross-section of firms, we show that firms with better CSR performance face significantly lower capital constraints. The results are confirmed using an instrumental variables and a simultaneous equations approach. Finally, we find that the relation is primarily driven by social and environmental performance, rather than corporate governance.”

An FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for Financial Innovation: Applying the Insurable Interest Doctrine toTwenty-First Century Financial Markets, by Eric A. Posner and E. Glen Weyl, Law School, University of Chicago. “We propose that when firms invent new financial products, they be forbidden to sell them until they receive approval from a government agency designed along the lines of the FDA, which screens pharmaceutical innovations. The agency would approve financial products if they satisfy a test for social utility …”

The Next Twenty Years

This article limits its scope to only one leg of the SRI stool. It does not discuss the growth of shareholder activism, which is vibrant. Nor does it address the mainstreaming of selling products with narrow and specific social purpose, also a burgeoning field. Rather, by looking at the application of social criteria to an investable universe alone, we see that barriers have been removed, and that now both a mountain of money, and the force of government and academia, will work with us and introduce our goals into mainstream investment thinking.

We know we can make money, government is increasingly with us, and academia is swinging our way. Now, the rapid acceptance of more robust and integrated accounting has done away with the last barriers. This brings us the assets to have impact. As society sees the full cost of traditional business behavior, SRI will be embraced as the single most important lever towards building a better world than the planet has ever seen.

Amy Domini has worked for decades to advocate that financial systems must be used to create a world of universal human dignity and ecological sustainability. She authored or co-authored several books. Her most recent, Socially Responsible Investing: Making a Difference and Making Money, was published by Dearborn Trade in 2001. She writes on the topic frequently. Her articles have appeared on the Huffington Post, the OECD Observer, GreenMoney Journal and the Journal of Investing. She is a regular columnist for Ode Magazine.

My daily ritual of drinking a glass of orange juice was something that was passed down from my parents.  However, with Lebron James and Ellen DeGeneres pushing these vitamin and energy infused bottles of goodness, it seemed like the newest generation was shifting this morning ritual to vitaminwater.  After all, using the word "vitamin" in front of the name surely implies that there is some nutritional or healthy value. It must be good for you, right? Wrong!  These drinks hold about as much nutrition as that piece of lint in your pocket.

In retaliation for this misinformation, the non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest, is suing Coca-Cola (Coke bought vitaminwater for over $4 billion in 2007) on the grounds that vitaminwater labels and advertising are filled with “deceptive and unsubstantiated health claims.”  vitaminwater contains about 33 grams of sugar, while Two Hostess Ding Dong cake snacks have about 36 grams of sugar. Instead of taking the silent plea here, Coke attorneys are defending the lawsuit by stating that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitamin water was a healthy beverage." What!?

About 35 percent of Americans are now considered medically obese. In 1990, the obesity average was only 12 percent. Today, two-thirds of Americans are overweight.  When faced with the decision to buy vitaminwater or the can of Coke right next to it, people are proactively making the conscious decision. How many drinkers out there know they are consuming more calories and sugar in vitaminwater than in a 12 ounce serving of Coke (12 oz of coke equates 110 calories and 30 grams of sugar)? I would lean towards the “not many” category.

Now Coke will have to take the witness stand and defend themselves in court by acknowledging that vitaminwater is not a healthy product.  Considering, at one point, the marketing slogan was to “keep you healthy as a horse” and will supply you with a “healthy state of physical and mental well-being,” Coke will have a lot of explaining to do. Next time you purchase the newest craze of Vitamin Salad or Vitamin Coffee, be sure to think twice about how nutritious it really is.

By Darius Graham

When starting a new venture, entrepreneurs face a number of choices. These range from picking the right name to selecting the right talent to join the team. These questions are critical and should be addressed with the utmost care and deliberation, as they can make or break a business. One other choice faced by an entrepreneur that wants to offer a product or service and make a difference is whether to create a non-profit or for-profit. This is a choice especially difficult for social entrepreneurs – people that want to combine profit and purpose.

While it’s worth thinking about because of the legal distinctions and consequences of selecting either, the choice between for-profit and non-profit is not as important as it used to be as more non-profits generate income from business activities that go back to support the core charitable programs, and for-profits build giving back into their corporate mission.

Two local examples illustrate how a non-profit organization can blend in aspects of a traditional for-profit business. Food For Life’s core mission is to help train young adults in culinary arts and equip them with life skills, but it also sells the meals that the participants produce to the public in order to generate revenue to sustain its charitable program.  DC Social Innovation Project, which helps launch innovative community initiatives, also generates revenue by offering basic financial services that help non-profits focus more on their mission instead of administrative tasks.

For-profit businesses can also blur the line and adopt some charitable aspects into their work while also boosting their bottom line. Here’s a look at how three different types of for-profit companies are building in social good and how any business can adopt these models.

Product
Tevolution and MyCause Water build social good into their business model by donating a portion of the proceeds from each product sold. The creators of Tevolution wanted to create a healthy and delicious bottled tea that its consumer could enjoy while also making a difference. So for every bottle of tea purchased, $0.25 goes to a non-profit organization. Similarly, MyCause Water – a maker of great tasting bottled water – donates $0.05 for each bottle sold. Even if a company can’t quite adopt this model, simply committing to donate a certain amount of its product to a non-profit organization can be beneficial – like a bakery regularly donating loaves of bread to a shelter on a regular basis. This can in turn generate goodwill for the brand and boost its bottom line.

Service
Palantir is a company creating software that helps companies and organizations make sense of massive amounts of data. It has taken the smart step of creating a team of philanthropy engineers within its company that works pro bono with non-profits on the same “big data” issues that Palantir’s traditional engineers tackle for its for-profit customers. It is a model that can be adapted to even a small business with just a few employees – like a design firm could work with non-profit clients pro bono to help them revamp their logo, overhaul their website, or create a new brochure. This could simultaneously provide a great professional development and training opportunity for the employee by presenting a new type of challenge, while also giving the firm an additional way to showcase the range of high-quality work it produces.

App
SendHub is an application for smartphones that provides a simple way to send group text messages. It uses the “freemium” model by offering its basic messaging service for free and offering a premium service for a fee to users wanting even more features. While SendHub is in business to generate a profit, it strives for its app to be just as useful for social causes and used by teachers and community organizations to share critical information. Thus it shows how a for-profit company can build something equally beneficial to businesses and non-profits alike – and with a great product the non-profit may become a paying customer for the premium service.

With these models as guides, beyond the legal and tax implications, the choice between starting a non-profit or a for-profit need not be an agonizing one for the social entrepreneur since both types of entities can draw on elements of the other. And even existing companies and non-profits can use these examples as a model to blend profit or purpose into their work.

Darius Graham, an attorney, is co-founder of DC Social Innovation Project and a Social Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Center for Social Value Creation in the University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business.

[Image credit: Lynne Hand, Flickr]

This is the second post in a series about Cruelty Free Supply Chains.

Three companies this week made announcements about eliminating cruel sow gestation crates from their pork supply chains. Marriott International is one of those companies. The hotel chain is requiring its pork suppliers to stop using gestation crates, which are used to confine pregnant pigs until they give birth, by 2018. In addition, Marriott announced it will require all eggs to come from cage-free hens by 2015.

Marriott made the announcement in a blog post, which declared that the hotel chain "considers animal welfare an important consideration as we work toward a more sustainable food supply chain, and is addressing these complex issues with our valued vendors who supply our hotels."

"Today’s announcement is the right thing for animals, the environment, our customers and our company," said Brad Nelson, vice president of culinary and corporate chef for Marriott International.

The Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) is glad that Marriott is working to eliminate animal cruelty from its supply chain. "By taking these steps, Marriott International will improve the lives of countless animals," said Josh Balk, corporate policy director for farm animal protection at The HSUS. "The Humane Society of the United States applauds the company for working to raise the bar on these important animal welfare issues."

General Mills works to eliminate animal cruelty from its supply chain

General Mills announced this week that by 2017 its pork supply chain will be gestation crate free. General Mills' announcement adds to the work it has already done to eliminate animal cruelty from its supply chains. This year all eggs sourced for Haagen-Daz products produced in Europe will be from cage-free hens. General Mills is working with farmers' association in Europe to eliminate animal cruelty. When it comes to animal testing, the company has a long-standing policy to "minimize the testing of food products and food ingredients on animals other than humans," and most of its products are not tested on animals.

"We welcome General Mills’ important animal welfare progress and hope the pork industry can read the writing on the wall: gestation crates don’t have a future in the pork industry," stated Josh Balk, corporate policy director for farm animal protection at The HSUS.

Owner of IHOP & Applebees to eliminate gestation crates from its supply chain

DineEquity, owner of restaurant chains IHOP and Applebees, also announced this week that it will eliminate gestation crates from its pork supply chain by 2020. IHOP and Applebees have over 3,400 locations in all 50 states.

"We recognize there are challenges to meeting this goal, but as one of the world’s largest full-service restaurant companies, we are confident our suppliers will meet our expectations and work with us to achieve this objective," stated Kevin Mortesen, DineEquity’s Vice President, Communications.

Image source: Wikipedia user, SlimVirgin

This is part of a series of articles by MBA students at California College of the Arts dMBA program. Follow along here.

By Hachem Mahfoud, Architect and DMBA student, CCA

Did you know that some people regard the One Rincon Hill Tower in San Francisco as an archiopath? You might ask, what is an archiopath?  Most of us know what a sociopath is. Maybe you’ve even met one. In psychology a sociopath is someone who disregards the rights of others. Similarly, an archiopath is an architectural element that disregards other architectural elements around it. This labeling comes from architectural research I conducted on cross-discipline implementation of theories. The driving force behind this work is the desire to enhance one discipline by borrowing theories from another in order to give architects other ways to think about, and conceive, urban sustainable design.

To accomplish such a task, one has to go through three different phases: deconstruction, parallelism and cross-implementation.

1. Deconstruction
   In the deconstruction phase, both fields are broken down into their simplest elements.  In architecture, for example, a city can be broken down to buildings, which in turn can be broken down to flats, then rooms, until we reach our basic element, which is space.   In a similar manner, sociology can be deconstructed into social groups, then social relationships, and finally to a set of behaviors.


2. Parallelism
   Once deconstruction is completed and the simplest elements are obtained, parallelism can be drawn between the elements of each discipline. A simple example would be equating a space in architecture to a behavior in sociology.


3. Cross Implementation
   Finally, with the completion of the parallelism phase, theories from one discipline can be applied to another discipline.  As an example, take conflict theory from sociology and then apply it to architectural elements.  Or vice versa, one can take the “Formalism” theory in architecture and apply it to social elements.

For a glimpse of how this cross discipline implementation of series might work, consider its application to city skylines.  Take for example the San Francisco skyline. At a first glance one may see a bunch of arbitrarily positioned buildings.  Or one might recognize some relationships between these buildings and their effect of the total appeal of the skyline, even without any formal architectural knowledge.  Looking at this relationship from a sociological point of view, conflict theory states that conflict between sub groups of society is what keeps that society alive. For instance, people without means are always struggling to better their status which drives them to work harder, and people with means also work hard to keep growing their wealth. Drawing parallels between building dimensions and social groups and their wealth, one can easily see how conflict theory can be applied to a skyline and how it can answer why certain skylines are voted worse or better than others.

Take a look at the skyline in Fort Lease, Brazil. It was voted to be one of the more boring skylines.  It can be easily seen that the buildings pretty much match each other in shape and in height.  And thus per conflict theory, this skyline resembles a society made of one group i.e. it lacks economic diversity, which results in a static society that soon stagnates.   In contrast, the San Francisco skyline voted to be the 53^rd best skyline in the world by the Emporis Standards Committee is full of buildings with different sizes resembling a society with economic diversity. Thus, per conflict theory, this skyline offers a balance between the buildings.

Furthermore, one can assess the conflict in shapes, rather than conflict in size.  Looking at the San Francisco skyline there are other elements that keep us engaged - namely, the shapes of the structures and not just their size.  Here again, one can see a conflict between the Transamerica building with its triangular shape and the rest of the skyline, which is predominantly rectangular.  Thus such a structure has more wealth in terms of size and also in terms of shape.  Similarly, the Golden Gate Bridge’s curvilinear shape gives it more status and wealth over other structures.

Conflict theory applied to a city skyline is just one example of value of the cross discipline perspective. Other theories in sociology, such as Functionalism and Symbolic Interactionism, could also be applied to city planning or highway planning.

Borrowing from other disciplines gives architects another tool to shape their structures in order to create impact as a building either stands alone or is part of a complex or skyline. Looking at design problems from a sociologist’s point of view brings a new dimension to the solution. These multidisciplinary approaches will help create more interesting and sustainable designs around us. “One Rincon Hill Tower” may be sociopath if viewed from a psychological perspective. Looking at it from a Conflict Theory perspective, however, may reveal its importance in adding to the “wealth” and “diversity” of the San Francisco Skyline.

Update March 16, 2013: Shams 1 has begun operation. More in India's Economic Times.

About 2 hours south west of the city of Abu Dhabi is the first phase of one of the largest concentrated solar power projects in the world: Shams One.  It's a 100MW project which aims to power 20,000 homes with the combination of the sun's energy and a small amount of natural gas.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) is not photovoltaics - rather, it's the focusing of the sun's energy to turn water into steam which powers a traditional turbine.   In the case of the Shams project, a joint venture between Masdar, Total SA and Abengoa Solar, parabolic mirrors focus the sun's rays on a type of special oil which gets heated to more than 300 degrees Celsius.  That oil transfers its heat energy to water which is turned into steam.

Interestingly, the plant then uses natural gas to super-heat the steam to upwards of 500 degrees which then drives a turbine.   The use of natural gas as a "booster heater" is actually a common practice in CSP because the heating oil isn't stable enough to be brought to the optimal high temperature required for the steam turbine.  It also allows the plant to operate at night and maintain a higher degree of generating stability.

I had a chance to take a day trip Shams One last week, and shot a short video you can watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3b9VZAjLt0

Shams One has been a a learning experience for Masdar - constant dust and sand have forced new innovations in cleaning and wind blocking technology, and the plummeting cost of photovoltaics may challenge the commercial viability of CSP.  Nonetheless, Shams One will go online as scheduled in coming months and make a significant dent in Abu Dhabi's commitment to produce 7% of its electricity from renewable sources.

Ed Note: Travel expenses for the TriplePundit were provided by Masdar.

 

As the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos is underway, SAP made two announcements today covering how the company will encourage both entrepreneurship and sustainability. SAP has a strong record of working on social and environmental issues, and today’s unveiling of these new programs builds on SAP’s reputation as a corporate social responsibility leader.

The two new programs are, in part, the result of SAP’s long term strategy. SAP has been keen on emerging markets such as the BRICs India and Brazil. But in order to have clients to whom a firm can pitch enterprise software, that same firm, not surprisingly, needs enterprises. And with youth employment a pesky program in both emerging and developed economies, the world’s largest companies must show they can participate within the solution, not be part of the problem. Furthermore, as climate change gains prominence on multinationals’ radar, investment in climate change and poverty--or in programs that tackle both problems concurrently--can help build a company’s reputation as an engaged local stakeholder seeking to improve people’s lives. To that end, today’s announcement that SAP will partner with organizations including Endeavor and the Livelihoods Fund is welcome news.

On the entrepreneurship front, SAP will invest $5 million over the next three years in Endeavor Global, Endeavor Brasil and India’s National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN). Endeavor, an anti-poverty movement the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman hailed as “the best anti-poverty program of all,” has screened over 30,000 entrepreneurs who, in turn, generated $5 billion in revenues during 2011, and created over 200,000 jobs.

Endeavor, SAP and their partners will choose emerging companies that have a robust business model, focus on social innovation and have the capacity to scale with their technologies. In Brazil, Endeavor Brazil and SAP will grant 50 emerging entrepreneurs access to programs such as mentorships and access to Endeavor’s online platform. In India, SAP will work within a similar initiative that involves the training 30 mentors across the country who will in turn support 300 emerging entrepreneurs. Up to five of these entrepreneurs will then receive a package of technologies to help meet their goals as well as a grant from SAP.

In addition, as of today, SAP has joined the Livelihoods Fund, an NGO that funds carbon sequestration, biodiversity and anti-poverty projects. Among the goals of this carbon investment fund is to build economic opportunities in rural communities and bolster food security. Among SAP’s strategies for partnering with Livelihoods Fund is to find new ways to decrease the company’s energy consumption, boost its purchase of electricity from clean energy sources and find new ways to offset the company’s emissions.

According to an email exchange program I had yesterday with SAP’s Evan Welsh, this one-two investment punch offers new opportunities to meet its sustainability commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the company’s 2000 levels by 2020--as well as create new businesses who can employ the world’s newest trained workers. When companies talk about “sustainability,” the social side of this movement deserves as much attention as the attention paid to the environment. SAP’s two-pronged approach may very well be one from which other multinationals can learn.

Leon Kaye, based in Fresno, California, is a sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com. He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business; his work has also appeared on Sustainable Brands, Inhabitat and Earth911. You can follow Leon and ask him questions on Twitter or Instagram (greengopost). He will explore children’s health issues in India next month with the International Reporting Project.

[Image credit: SAP]

The U.S. Department of Energy currently lists almost 400 different building energy management software tools, leaving property managers with the daunting task of figuring out which ones can best help them find cost-effective ways to increase energy efficiency, use more renewable energy, and achieve more overall sustainability. If that sounds intimidating, you are probably not alone. However, if you are new to the field there are a number of free, relatively simple software tools that you can use to get familiar with the basics of building energy management, before investing in a more involved service.

One free software tool from a startup called Noesis Energy caught our eye because it gives building managers a user-friendly overview of their situation through an online platform, which could provide enough information to motivate the purchase of add-on services from the company.

Noesis Energy's free building energy management software

Though only in public operation for about six months, Noesis's free energy management website has already built a base of 6,000 commercial, industrial and institutional users who have uploaded information on more than 22,000 different facilities. Overall, the input represents an impressive total of more than one billion square feet.

The free site provides all the services you would expect from a basic energy management tool, including benchmarking and performance tracking, along with extensive user education services like videos, webinars, white papers, tip sheets and discussion groups.

Throughout the website, the presentation is crisp and clear, which can be particularly appealing to energy management newbies while providing more experienced users with high value information.

Once you've gotten your feet wet, Noesis hopes that you'll check out its fee-based Noesis Data Service, which among other services includes online connections with hundreds of utilities throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Noesis Energy and Green Button

If you're familiar with the Obama Administration's Green Button energy management initiative for buildings, then you're probably guessing that Noesis Energy is going to join the program, and you would be right. The company has already begun the process, which it expects to complete within the first part of this year.

Noeisis announced its support for Green Button last December, and it's no accident that the initiative dovetails precisely with the company's toolkit.

Green Button launched last year with the aim of enlisting utility companies across the country to join together to adopt a standard online data format for energy use, and provide it to their customers literally with the click of a uniform "green button" desktop icon.

Aside from encouraging the nation's property owners to improve inefficient buildings as a significant, untapped source of "found" energy, the Obama Administration hoped that Green Button would foster job creation by providing a national market for new software companies, and Noesis is a perfect example of the initiative's success. As the company stated in its announcement of support:

"...access to energy usage data presents one of the largest obstacles for organizations focused on proactive energy management. Collecting the information from utilities directly or keying in data from paper bills can be time consuming and error prone. By supporting Green Button, Noesis Energy can allow Green Button users to automatically collect and upload their data into the Noesis platform, keeping their energy analysis reports and analyses up-to-date."

What about the little guy?

Noesis Energy is a good example of the kind of services that Green Button participants can offer to relatively large users, but the initiative is also designed to serve homeowners and small property managers.

At that end of the sale, we've been following a building analytics company called WegoWise, which has just acquired the startup Green Button affiliate Melon Power. The combination has the potential to cover millions of buildings, including single family homes as well as large commercial properties.

[Image: Buildings by idleformat, flickr]

Follow me on Twitter: @TinaMCasey.

 

Last week’s North American International Show featured several hybrid, electric and plug-in (PHEV) vehicles on the floor of COBO Hall. Among them was Via Motors, which unveiled the concept E-REV VTRUX, a retrofitted General Motors (GM) pickup truck--the 2013 Chevrolet Silverado, to be exact. Among Via’s backers is Bob Lutz, a former vice chairman of GM. With a lineup that includes three trucks, an SUV and a commercial van that can drive up to 40 miles in all-electric mode, can Via sway a group of drivers who are generally more concerned about performance and getting the job done, not fuel efficiency?

Once dubious (to put it tactfully) about any hybrids and electric vehicles, Lutz eventually became influential in GM’s decision to launch the Chevy Volt, though he is still dismissive of electrified small cars. To that end, Lutz and the executive team at Via Motors are betting that the future of hybrid technologies lies in large vehicles, in which drivers can find far more bang, and of course torque, for their buck.

One longstanding issue with electric, hybrid and plug-in vehicles is the weight of the battery pack. Via’s E-REV line tackles that challenge by optimizing its trucks’ battery packs so that their weight is minimized. Since 75 percent of drivers average less than 40 miles on the road daily, Via claims that owners of its trucks can drive up to 400 miles on one single fill-up--and score an average about 100 MPG on the roads. A 24 kWh liquid cooled lithium ion battery pack is behind that 40 mile electric-only range; tucked under the vehicle’s bed, the truck also offers a low center of gravity for what Via says is a smooth and safe ride. The 402 horsepower electric motor, which only weighs 108 pounds, offers an impressive 300 pound-feet of torque while the extended cab can deliver 5,500 pounds of payload capacity.

Finally, Via’s VR150 electric generator generates plenty of power, allowing the battery to recharge quickly if a charging station is unavailable--and also holds enough reserve tower to not only recharge one’s power tools, but even power an entire house in case there is an emergency. Current truck drivers may scoff at the 40 miles of range, but even if the E-REV’s owner drives over 200 miles a day, Via claims its fuel economy far surpasses the conventional ICE-powered cars currently on the market: and the company offers a calculator to prove it.

Via’s lineup, which is currently available for order and delivery during 2013, could be the product line that turns truck owners on to the idea of a plug-in truck. Currently, the company is focused on government fleets though companies such as Verizon are interested in collaborating with Via. Watch for more companies with fleets to pay attention: fossil fuel prices will continue to rise in price, and the stubborn fact remains that many truck drivers own the truck out of necessity--they are small business owners vulnerable to fuel price volatility. Between current financial incentives and the fact that the average driver needs to fuel up only 10 times a year, not weekly . . . and the business case for a Via truck or a similar option will only make more sense in the coming years.

Leon Kaye, based in Fresno, California, is a sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com. He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business; his work has also appeared on Sustainable Brands, Inhabitat and Earth911. You can follow Leon and ask him questions on Twitter or Instagram (greengopost). He will explore children’s health issues in India next month with the International Reporting Project.

[Image Credit: Via Motors Facebook page]