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New York City, you’re at it again. Every other city in the U.S. was already jealous of your underground subway (especially LA), but now you’ve really outdone yourself. Five years ago you asked, “How can we build more green space in our cities?” Then you had a crazy idea. You decided the answer lay below your feet and ambitiously decided to build the world’s first (drumroll) … underground park. Amazing.

Then you asked an even crazier question, “What if the sun could shine underground?” And you figured out a way to give the underground park natural sunlight.

First came the High Line, a park in the sky. Now comes the Lowline, an underground park. The bottom line is: We are impressed. New York, is there anything you can’t do? Oh yeah, eliminate cockroaches. But still, we admire you.

The Lowline is a project that will transform an early 1900s underground trolley terminal into a luscious green park the size of a football field.

Creator and co-founder, James Ramsey, says, “The core feature of the Lowline is that we can take the sunlight, send it underground, and use that to grow stuff. With this natural sunlight, we can take an abandoned trolley terminal […] and transform it into a vibrant public place that is filled with plants and trees and create something unlike the world has ever seen.”

The project is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter. The goal is $200,000, and donations are currently around $87,000 with 14 days to go, so you still have time to open up your wallet and give a little green to create more green.

Dan Barasch, co-founder and executive director, explained during a TED Talk that walking through the old underground trolley station made him feel like Indiana Jones on an architectural dig, minus being chased by natives with blowguns.

Barasch was also fascinated by the area because his grandparents lived nearby when the trolley station was running. They were part of the generation that built up New York City. He used to ask his Italian grandma about that time period, but she just told him to eat more spaghetti and meatballs. Now he feels it’s his generation’s turn to build the city by turning abandoned areas into beautiful spaces for the community.

The entrance to the park will literally be a slab of peeled-back street, as if Godzilla had taken a peek at the trolley station. People will be able to step down underneath the layer of the modern world and walk into the history of the past. Oddly enough, they will simultaneously experience the future since modern technology will transform the underground with natural sunlight. Sunlight will be collected by mirrors and tubes will transport the sunlight underground.

Other cities have more green space than New York City. This particular area only has one-tenth the green space of other cities. Fortunately, the Lowline will be a four season park -- the warmth of the underground will make it useable during the cold winter.

Barasch reminisced, “I always knew as a kid that I wanted to make a difference. To somehow make the world more beautiful, more interesting and more just. I just didn’t really know how.” How many of us have said the same thing? He went through a slew of social impact jobs looking for the right fit.

First he worked for UNICEF in Kenya. Then for the U.S. government (yeah, you saw that disillusionment coming). Next he worked at Google because he was inspired by technology’s ability to solve some social problems. Finally, he found his purpose when he started a side project creating the Lowline. Then he did something crazy … he quit his job. That takes guts that most of us don’t have. But when you find your passion, you’ve got to burn your bridges and pursue it with your whole heart. Kudos to this guy for making his dream a reality.

Barasch is now sharing his childhood dream of making a difference with the children in the community. He created a Young Designers program which gives the kids a chance to help design the park. Robyn Shapiro, the Lowline director of community, says the “program is meant to engage local youth in designing and building their vision for what the future of the park could be. Some of the ideas were completely whimsical and fun.” One kid’s model included zip lines, tree houses and a skate park. Yes, please.

A young girl named Bryanna adorably expressed the significance of the park, “It’s important to build the Lowline so now we can have something down there instead of nothing.” Exactly.

Keep dreaming and changing the world, New York.

Image credits: Feature image by Steve Slater via Flickr; 1) The Lowline website; 2-4) Dan Barasch's TED Talk

By Jon Wikstrom 

California’s recent struggles with drought have been widely covered in the media of late. Everyone knows the situation there is dire.

But will this same dangerous crisis be repeated in other parts of the world?

NASA seems to think so. In a recent report, the agency pointed out that our world is running on the brink of a freshwater shortage. Giant lakes are disappearing, and the world is heading toward a future where many countries could be water insecure.

But when faced with a crisis, history shows us that humanity has an amazing ability to conquer it resourcefully, and that’s exactly what many environmental innovators are seeking to do by introducing new technology that helps businesses and individuals alike cut down on their water usage without compromising their quality of life.

1. Solar-powered water purifiers

Hot climates suffer from water shortage the most. This is what drove an American schoolgirl to come up with a way to use solar power to purify water. When she was just 15, Deepika Kurup invented a way to use zinc oxide and titanium dioxide in containers that expose it to ultraviolet radiation and cleanse the water, making it suitable to drink. She was on the Forbes' 2015 30-Under-30 in Energy list and was even awarded the U.S. Stockholm Junior Water Prize for her invention.

Her invention will help to address the fact that 1.1 billion people worldwide don’t have consistent access to clean drinking water.  Using Kurup’s invention and others like it, people will be able to make contaminated water drinkable so that they don’t have to depend on outside sources.

2. Leak monitors

German utility company, Albstadtwerke, has been using new software to pinpoint leaks and send the data instantaneously to a central data center. Showers, toilets and dripping taps are known to waste water, but the biggest problem is originates from pipelines that lead into the home.

The company believes that almost a third of water is wasted even before it reaches a home. The software, Zonescan Alpha is helping utilities around the world crack down on this inefficiency and massive waste of precious resources.

3. CO₂ cleaning

Water is used in many industrial applications, sometimes as a wet coolant or cleaning agent on a grand scale. Both of these activities lead to tons of waste every single year.  To give you an idea of how much, manufacturing a car requires nearly 40,000 gallons of water – just imagine how that much water could benefit a community that’s experiencing a water shortage. Fortunately, technology that would allow for water to be replaced by CO₂ has evolved enough to be viable in a wide variety of industries.

CO₂ cleaning involves the use of carbon dioxide in solid form, highly propelled dry ice particles out of a nozzle to clean a variety of different surfaces. The technology can be used for composite aircraft and automotive structures, cleaning complex medical equipment, and dry cleaning operations in an eco-friendly way. The CO₂ required for these machines is recycled from other industrial uses, so not only does it contribute to solving the water shortage crisis, but also helps with climate change. This is a great example of an environmental solution that kills two birds with one stone.

4. Lifesaver bottles

When the Boxing Day tsunami hit Asia a few years ago, trucks had to be sent in with drinkable water since the floodwater was simply too dirty. This led Michael Pritchard to invent a special bottle that can instantly make water potable. It uses a pump to push the water through a 15-nanometer filter which cleans it of any bacteria or viruses.

Everyone from hikers to the British army has used it since.  In that time it has not only given hundreds of thousands of people clean drinking water, but it’s done so without the financial or environmental costs of delivering water to the places that need them most.

5. Showering with ultra efficiency

We’ve all gotten into a shower, turned on the tap and waited for the water temperature to be just right before we get in. The problem, according to Richard Ogodeton, is that hundreds of millions of people do this every day around the world. In aggregate, this is a lot of water wasted. To save this water Ogodeton invented an eco-friendly shower system, which can have the water to the desired temperature in less than 30 seconds, significantly cutting down shower time and reducing water wastage.

Another innovation in shower technology is from Peter Cullin in Adelaide, Australia. He came up with a device that could save hundreds of millions of liters of water every year, even if it were installed in only 1,000 homes. He calls his device the Cullector Ultra Efficient Shower, which uses a reservoir tank to collect the water normally wasted during heating up the shower, then re-filters it back at the right temperature. These ideas and more show promise in limiting water usage to better our current environment.

6. Showering without water

Can you shower without using water at all? It doesn’t even seem like a genuine question until you really look into the alternatives. That’s exactly what 17-year-old Ludwick Marishane did while traveling in Limpopo, South Africa. He found all the ingredients for a ‘dry bath’ on his Nokia 6234 mobile phone. His lotion has a blend of chemicals that get rid of odors, bioflavonoids and essential oils. The lotion can be applied right onto the skin and is as effective as taking a regular shower.

Dry Bathing can help save 4 liters of water per person which can add up to many millions every single year and help billions of people who don’t have access to water stay clean and avoid the life-threatening bacteria that’s often found in the stagnant water some of these people use to bathe.

Many experts estimate that we use over 9 trillion cubic meters of water every year as a species. The demand for water will only grow as the global population continues to expand at an increasing pace.

Water is an already-previous resource that becomes even more precious with every passing day.

The recent water crisis in California has put the spotlight on water usage but the fact is that billions of people around the world live in regions where they are forced to walk for miles to get their daily supply for drinking, bathing and living and some aren’t even that lucky.

In the coming years, it will take creative solutions like these to help our world continue to thrive in the face of this global challenge.

Image credit: Flickr/gedenfield

Jon Wikstrom is the founder & CEO of Cool Clean technologies, one of the leaders in the eco-friendly technology of liquid CO2 cleaning.  He also enjoys sharing his knowledge and passion for green technology as a guest blogger on a variety of manufacturing & environmental blogs. To learn more, check out http://www.coolClean.com.

At this year’s Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego, we were challenged by Janssen Pharmaceuticals to ask leaders at the conference what the word "innovation" meant to them. Then, more specifically, we asked how innovation may or may not drive advancements in sustainability. We got a terrific range of responses, which we've got documented in a series of short video interviews. You can follow along here.

In this video, Arlan Peters, head of sustainability for Novozymes North America, talks about "bio-innovation" and how an understanding of biology helps the company innovate and create more sustainable, more successful products.

If everyone reading this article was in a room with me and I said, “Raise your hands if you have given money to a crowdfunding campaign,” most hands would probably be raised. My own hand would go up. Most of us like to help people, and crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter allow us to help someone in need or who is starting a new business venture. The sad truth is that sometimes scammers use crowdfunding sites. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission understands this and has done something about a scammer who claimed to be creating a board game.

The FTC took legal action against Erik Chevalier who solicited money in 2012 from consumers to produce the board game, The Doom That Came to Atlantic City. Chevalier promised in his Doom campaign on Kickstarter that if he raised $35,000, backers would get rewards such as a copy of the game. He raised over $122,000 from 1,246 backers. The majority of backers pledged $75 or more. In updates, he claimed he was making progress on the game. After 14 months, Chevalier announced he was cancelling the Doom project and refunding the backers’ money. However, he never provided the rewards or refunds.

Chevalier used the money raised from backers “for miscellaneous personal equipment, rent for a personal residence and licenses for a separate project,” according to the FTC’s complaint. Consumers filed complaints over his failure to provide the promised rewards or refunds.

Chevalier is prohibited from making representations about crowdfunding campaigns and from failing to honor promised refund policies, under the settlement order. The order also imposed a fine of more than $111,000, but suspended it because Chevalier is not able to pay. In other words, backers will still not be given refunds.

“Many consumers enjoy the opportunity to take part in the development of a product or service through crowdfunding, and they generally know there’s some uncertainty involved in helping start something new,” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement. “But consumers should be able to trust their money will actually be spent on the project they funded.”

"Kickstarter creators have an incredible track record when it comes to following through on their promises," Kickstarter spokesperson David Gallagher told the Washington Post in a statement. "But creators who abuse our system and backers’ trust expose themselves to legal action."

The takeaway from the FTC’s settlement is that, when it comes to crowdfunding, consumers must keep in mind the Latin phrase "caveat emptor," meaning “buyer beware.” We must all be careful when we read about crowdfunding initiatives. There are more Erik Chevaliers out there.

Image credit: Kickstarter

By Anum Yoon

China’s green energy program is one of the largest, and most underreported, in the world. However, economic development is also a priority to the country’s government, and it’s often the case that growth comes at the expense of the environment. This leaves stakeholders asking: Can China’s environmental cleanup catch up with its economic development?

A green investment

Last year, China invested $90 billion in green energy programs. That was enough to put the country well ahead of the European Union and the United States.

Additionally, China has some of the world’s largest wind, solar and green-tech companies. At face value, it’s difficult to not see that the country has a commitment to an environmentally sound future.

The rest of the story

However, there are occasions when China is known to play not so nicely with Mother Nature. The country burns almost half the coal in the world. It’s also responsible for about 30 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s not just a scar on the planet that China’s leaving, either. Reportedly, emissions from coal plants in the country are responsible for 250,000 deaths each year.

This is not a problem lost on the Chinese government. The country’s leaders know that they can no longer afford to adopt a reactive plan for cleaning up the environmental mess that their growing economy is leaving behind. Instead, they need to adopt alternative energy sources.

“Environmental pollution is a blight on people’s quality of life and a trouble that weighs on their hearts,” said premier Li Keqiang this past March.

But what’s he going to do about it?

A top-down approach

China boasts the largest footprint of wind power of any place in the world. This is due in no small part to green energy companies like Goldwind, the world’s second-largest wind turbine manufacturer (first place goes to Vestas, in Denmark).

Just five years ago, China had no solar power. Now, the country is soon expected to surpass Germany in its solar-powered capacity. By 2020, China’s solar power capacity is expected to triple to 100 gigawatts. Many of the 10 largest solar manufacturers in the world today are Chinese companies.

Not all good news

Even though China has earned some bragging rights in its commitment to clean energy, the country’s efforts have encountered obstacles.

For example, although China has more wind capacity than the United States, its inefficient wind turbines generate less electricity. Why? Because the turbines were built for political reasons and not to maximize green energy usage.

As of this writing, some turbine developers are still experiencing maddening delays when it comes to connecting to the power grid. Further, even when they do get connected, the power that they generate often isn’t used.

Real estate development

Nowhere does China seem to show less of an interest in committing to a clean energy future than in its real estate development. Globally, buildings consume over a third of all electricity that is used worldwide. That number is closer to 50 percent if the energy used to construct the building (including electricity required to produce the raw materials used in construction) is factored in as well.

On top of that, buildings in China tend to be inefficient. This is in spite of the fact that an efficient building, such as modular buildings, can cost as much as four times less over its lifetime than a traditional building that requires coal-powered electricity for cooling, heat and light.

That’s a business decision that developers have made. They’d rather opt for the quick, cheap route and sell the property to pocket the proceeds. This effectively leaves the investor with a building that is a money pit and contributes to the overall environmental hazards that characterize Chinese real estate.

Now that the real estate market in China is slowing down, it’s likely that the government will place a stronger emphasis on the construction of green buildings. It’s thought that some companies have already started the ball rolling to this end, but because China lacks a transparent government and a free press, it’s hard to discern what is really happening.

That doesn’t change the fact that the green energy industry in China is happening: The country’s wind and solar companies are among the largest and, in some cases, most cost-effective in the world -- despite its real estate development woes.

China still has the potential to move forward toward an environmentally sound policy. It might just take some time before it’s fully realized. The top-down approach lacks government accountability, but that doesn’t mean that the country isn’t taking strides forward.

Whether or not those strides will outpace China’s economic development remains to be seen.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this post noted that buildings in China consume over 30 percent of all energy used worldwide. This statistic refers to all buildings worldwide, and the post has been updated to reflect this distinction. 

Image credits: Solar is Everywhere, Air Pollution in China & Apartments via photopin

Anum Yoon is a writer who is passionate about personal finance and sustainability. As a regular contributor to the Presidio Graduate School’s blog, she often looks for ways she can incorporate money management with environmental awareness. You can read her updates on Current on Currency.

Spurred by the Charleston massacre that left nine African-American churchgoers dead at the hands of a 21-year-old white supremacist, Walmart and Sears have decided to discontinue all of their Confederate flag merchandise.

The removal of the merchandise, including items such as belt buckles and T-shirts, came after Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley publicly said that she wants the Confederate flag near the state’s capitol building taken down. Although Haley voiced her opinion on the removal of the flag, it could be months before it's actually removed from the grounds.

The state legislature has the final word on whether the initiative to rid the flag goes through. The legislature will likely take a lot of heat in the days wasted not taking the flag down, as rallies have already entrenched South Carolina’s capitol city of Columbia. As part of an installment reached 15 years ago, two-thirds of the state legislature must vote to remove the flag.

But Walmart and Sears didn’t waste any time dissolving the image of the Confederate flag in their stores. As of Monday afternoon, with just a few mouse clicks, a customer on Walmart.com could purchase merchandise embroidered with the flag. Sears Holdings Corp., which operates Sears and Kmart, doesn’t sell Confederate flag merchandise in its stores but said it would halt all third-party vendors selling those items.

CNN inquired whether Amazon and eBay would remove Confederate flag merchandise from their sites, and both businesses said they would also stop selling these items.

Dylann Roof, the young man accused of killing nine black worshippers in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was pictured on Facebook wearing a jacket emblazoned with the flags of two countries which supported white supremacy and segregation, apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia — modern day Zimbabwe. A huge tip for his arrest came because a woman recognized his three-flag “Confederate States of America” bumper sticker.

The Confederate flag represented the unrecognized, joint unionship of 11 states that were outraged at President Abraham Lincoln’s election into office in 1860. The flag, which was adopted by the Confederacy in 1861, stood for a racist, slave-bearing South set to go against the North in what would be the bloodiest battle in American history.

South Carolina was the leading Confederate state, responsible for engineering the Confederacy and becoming the first state to secede from the Union. Of the 700,000 people living in South Carolina at the time, more than half of those people were enslaved blacks. After the Confederacy lost the Civil War in 1865, South Carolina was readmitted into the Union three years later. Some say the Confederate flag remains a symbol for the state’s history and culture, but its impact and constant reminder of an unjust era has led to many eyebrow-raises over its necessity.

Roof confessed that he committed the attack with the intention of starting a race war, but instead it seems that Roof has started a war with the Confederate flag.

Image credit: Flickr/Jason Eppink

General Mills announced its human rights policy earlier this month. Although the policy does not contain anything new, it is the first time the company has released a public policy statement on the topic. Or as Catherine Gunsbury, director of sustainability and transparency for General Mills, told TriplePundit: It is a “public-facing statement” of the company’s beliefs regarding human rights.

Why does a company need a human rights policy? Gunsbury explained that in “today’s world we are hyper-digitalized and extremely global.” There is an increase in access to information, including for business. That makes a company vulnerable to risks, Gunsbury pointed out, but it also gives it the “opportunity to be a positive partner."

In its public human rights policy, General Mills aims to do several things:

• Codify existing policies, programs and approaches


• Bring together much of what it is already doing


• Create a common narrative and thinking about human rights

There are six different sections to the human rights policy, and the beginning is a statement of human rights. This establishes that General Mills is a “company in a much broader society, and we wanted to set a very broad framework,” Gunsbury said. The policy discusses what the role of business is in human rights and, specifically, what General Mills sees as its purpose. As the policy states, the company works “within a large, diverse value chain of business partners and stakeholders.” What it expects is for them to “adhere to ethical business conduct consistent with our own."

What is the significance of General Mills' announcement given that there is nothing new in the human rights policy? According to Gunsbury, there are several reasons why it is significant -- first being that the company has never made a public statement on human rights. "There is a real opportunity for us as a company to say something,” she told us. “Business is seen as both part of the problem and part of the solution."

The public policy statement is a step toward greater transparency. It opens up the conversation about what General Mills believes and is doing regarding human rights. And it is also an opportunity to take different actions and engagements that are already underway and package them into one document that serves to express the company's beliefs and approach.

Over a year ago, General Mills made a commitment to sustainably source 100 percent of its top 10 ingredients by 2020, calling it the 10 by 2020 Commitment. One of those ingredients is vanilla, sourced from Madagascar. As of last year, the company sourced 45 percent of its vanilla sustainably. One of the focuses in making its vanilla supply chain more sustainable is helping smallholder farmers who tend to struggle to make a stable livelihood. “One of the things we look at in trying to strengthen that supply chain is strengthening their capacity for a sustainable livelihood, ensuring that they are able to command the highest price possible for their crops, which translates into economic value for them and improves their lives,” Gunsbury said.

Image credit: Flickr/urza

By Natasha Perkins

At Futerra we recently co-published a guide with BSR for Selling Sustainability, offering a framework for marketers struggling with the challenge of making sustainability desirable. That’s nice and all. But as Raz Godelnik recently asked in a post on TriplePundit, is this the answer? Let’s see.

People want better lives and a better world. We can positively say this, whether we believe attitude surveys or not. And sustainability practitioners often believe they have the answer: greener, cleaner, safer and all that jazz.

Here is the crux. This answer isn’t giving people what they want. For decades sustainability has been sold on better for planet, for people and for close-to-extinction tree frogs. The problem: The only ones to listen are the already converted (Futerrans included of course).

Because the masses want better lives for themselves and a better world that they can experience: value to them, not to the tree frogs. The good news is that this can align with sustainability. The benefits aren’t mutually exclusive. But it all hinges on telling a great story. Solar power can save you money and give you independence. Organic food is safer for your children. And a driving a Tesla makes you look pretty damn cool.

Our proposition is that marketers can help make sustainability so desirable that everyone wants a piece of it, not just the usual suspects perusing the aisles of organic health food stores.

Now Raz suggest the troubles don’t end here. His analysis: If marketers truly want to sell sustainability, they need to think about how they can design a new culture and change the environment in which we live. Let’s try adding in some nuance.

Products and messages play a big part of cultural context in which we live. Think about the smartphone and how it has transformed social interaction. Or how creative digital marketing has changed the way we view entertainment. Eighty-three million views of Nike’s Last Game video is testimony to this.

Now imagine more products and messages fronting sustainability that is actually desirable: more Teslas and more Ella’s Kitchen -- things that raise people’s expectations and gets them asking for more and better. That’s a pretty good start to create cultural change.

So, is it enough? Well. Re-designing culture is a massive societal project. It’s a multiplayer game that happens over time. Governments, citizens and companies need to create attractive representations of sustainability that lead to social roles and institutions to support said representations. So, this whole project probably needs some direction, some fuel and a vision of what this better world looks like.

Like victor Hugo said, "There is nothing like a dream to create the future."

What Selling Sustainability can do is offer a pragmatic tool for companies to help make sustainability so desirable it becomes a new normal. But without a bolder and braver dream of what better is, our electrical cars might all get lost in the mud.

So, we would love for you to let us know what you think a better world looks like, and the type of stuff you think belongs there. Let’s create both the dream and the tools that will make it reality. Tell us about your dream of a better future on Twitter at @Futerra.

Image credit: Futerra

Natasha Perkins is a brand strategist for Futerra.

By Chat Reynders and Patrick McVeigh

The world has reached a critical point in its exploration of energy sources, and it stands on the cusp on redefining how we create, distribute and store power. What was once thought of “alternative energy” is now simply considered the “future of energy,” with titans like Tesla leading the way.

The market is in flux between ideas and the technology to advance those ideas. Those companies that serve as bridges to implementation are well positioned for success as the field shifts; they will serve as social and financial leaders for the energy revolution.

There are three areas that are poised for a second wind as the energy field takes shape:

1. Accelerating next-generation ethanol

The first foray into biofuels achieved nominal levels of success; efforts met with criticism due to a perceived waste of food crops and the reality that the process to create energy still resulted in increased greenhouse gas emissions. As the New York Times noted, the drive for corn-based ethanol adoption has “helped drive up global food prices, has worsened some types of air pollution and has done relatively little to reduce overall emissions of carbon dioxide.”

However, lessons taken from first-generation biofuel production are leading to a much more efficient technology that is disrupting the biofuel space. Second-generation processes use waste products from agriculture (i.e., corn husks and stalks) in a process that reduces greenhouse gas emissions by almost 90 percent over gasoline, according to the Department of Energy.

Production is still in its infancy. There are only a handful of facilities in operation globally, but there are telltale signs of more widespread adoption. As the price of production lowers to create a competitively priced product, demand will naturally follow. Indeed, Sandia National Labs says the U.S. could produce 75 billion gallons per year by 2030, meeting 50 percent of U.S. fuel demand.

Novozymes is a key player as it delivers the enzyme-based technology that brings the concept of second-generation ethanol to life. Enzymes serve as the catalyst for converting agricultural waste into energy, and Novozymes is the primary provider of the technology. The company services approximately 60 percent of the market for first-generation enzyme use, and has the potential to replicate that market share for the second generation.

2. Behind the scenes of solar

The initial promise of solar energy lured some investors away from fundamentals, as they fell in love with the idea of the end product more than the strength of the technology and the state of the market. Solar panel production itself, however, was a risky venture, as global competition – particularly from Chinese manufacturers – squeezed margins and drove down profitability.

Patient investors are also seeing greater opportunities with nuanced, central technology emerging as the real change-maker. Enphase Energy, for example, supplies inverters that convert power from solar panels to electricity in the home. Solar energy systems are now sophisticated enough to handle inverters for individual panels, enabling customers to fine tune and maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of installations.

Enphase’s market position was hard fought, with significant upside still to be gained. Residential solar installations in the United States increased by 58 percent in the third quarter of 2014, compared to the prior year, and Enphase controlled 37 percent of the domestic market for residential inverters in the first half of 2014.

3. Solving the storage challenge

The next great leap in energy storage is already well underway, and Tesla put a stake in the ground with its April 2015 announcement that it will provide energy storage (batteries) for home use that could allow users to migrate off the power grid.

Home energy storage is a significant stride in changing the way consumers approach solar energy, allowing them to generate electricity during the day and keep it overnight – instead of selling it back into the grid, as traditional systems demand.

Tesla’s system is too expensive to have an immediate impact. Its announcement, however, has helped bring the conversation about more efficient energy use from theory to reality. “Over time, lower cost, competition and network effects from a larger number of users may well increase the number of households switching to a solar-and-storage type of model Tesla is laying out,” notes CNBC.

Meanwhile, the overall storage market was already expected to expand quickly. By 2019, total U.S. sales could reach $1.5 billion – up from just $128 million in 2014, according to a March report by GTM Research.

Biofuels, solar and storage will each be important components to the evolution of energy over the next several years. Further gains in efficiency are expected as well, and smart investment strategies should focus on the technologies and processes that contribute to these advances by attacking issues at the roots. The companies that fuel the sector’s growth will be those that provide the foundation for a stable, sustainable and profitable shift.

Image credit: Flickr/Windwärts Energie GmbH / Photographer: Mark Mühlhaus/attenzione

Chat Reynders, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Reynders, McVeigh Capital Management LLC., has more than 25 years of experience in investment management and social venture investing. He has structured and funded public/private partnerships that have brought more than $150 million in revenues to leading cultural institutions. He has for decades produced socially oriented IMAX films, including the Oscar-nominated Dolphins and Coral Reef Adventure.

Patrick McVeigh, President and Chief Investment Officer of Reynders, McVeigh Capital Management LLC., has more than 30 years of experience in socially responsible investing (SRI). He was an owner and key employee of one of the first SRI wealth management firms, and he served on the board of the Social Investment Forum. At SIF, he pioneered research on SRI, and he has authored articles on finance, ethics and ecology, and contributed to The Social Investment Almanac (New York: Henry Holt, 1992) and Working Capital: The Power of Labor’s Pensions (Cornell University Press, 2001).

At this year’s Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego, we were challenged by Janssen Pharmaceuticals to ask leaders at the conference what the word "innovation" meant to them. Then, more specifically, we asked how innovation may or may not drive advancements in sustainability. We got a terrific range of responses, which we've got documented in a series of short video interviews. You can follow along here.

In this video, Bridgett Luther, president of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, talks about how her team is helping companies innovate toward more sustainable practices -- and a better bottom line.