the green skeptic™

The 16 People You Must Follow on Twitter for Green Business

2010-03-08T17:20:00.002-05:00

Image by respres via Flickr

Last week, I was named one of "The 16 People You Must Follow on Twitter for Green Business" by Earth and Industry

It's a pretty impressive list and I am honored to be on it. (Although, I'm not sure what "shooting hops" is...have to ask my local brewer.)

From sharing news or quality content, to communicating with friends and communities of interest, the micro-blogging platform Twitter has something for everybody. And there are few communities of interest that have swarmed around Twitter with more fury than the business community. Granted, maybe 'business community' is too large a group to even classify as a community, but 'green business community' isn’t. On that note, we bring you the Earth & Industry 16 must-follows on Twitter.

Read the full article: Earth & Industry

And you can follow me: @greenskeptic

While We Consider, China Constructs

2010-03-06T16:29:00.000-05:00

When Duke Energy and ENN Group announced their partnership to accelerate development of low-carbon and clean energy technologies at the Clinton Global Initiative last September, Duke CEO Jim Rogers explained that "We must move at 'China speed' to combat global warming."

"China," Rogers explained, "is leading the world in investing in clean energy and we can make greater progress by joining forces and working together."

This was no less evident today at the MIT Energy Conference, where a distinguished panel shed light on what "China Speed" really means.

It means, according to Dr. Ning Li, Dean of the School of Energy Research at Xiamen University, that China's 2020 target of 30GW of wind capacity will be met by midyear -- that's this year. (They set that target in 2007.)

It means that China's new target for 100GW of nuclear power by 2025 will probably be met in record time as well.

The country currently has 26 new nuclear facilities under construction, compared to around the same number "under consideration" in this country, according to Dr. Andrew Kadak, Professor of the Practice of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT.

"Nuclear is now 'Made in China,'" said Dr. Kadak.

While we consider, China constructs.

It means that while we debate about technologies and subsidies and "buy American," the Chinese are "learning and innovating by doing," as Dr. Ning Li titled his remarks on the panel.

It means that a company like Gold Wind can, in just a few short years, go from licensing a German technology to buying the manufacturer to becoming a Top 10 company in its own country.

And it means that when Applied Materials is looking for the best place to site one of its largest R&D facilities, they look to China because of the "synergistic benefits of the largest market for its solar products," as Dr. Hongmei Zhang of ENN Group put it.

Fears of a cleantech race with China are surfacing throughout the US, and some are saying those fears are unfounded.

But, the reality is while we consider, China constructs. They are building the infrastructure of the energy future while we can't seem to get our heads out of the oil sands.

"You should think of China as a stimulating threat rather than a competitive threat," said Dr. Hongmei Zhang, with genuine hope that we might heed her advice.

But, as she also said in her remarks, Americans tend not to listen as well as Chinese.

Indeed, Hongmei noted, "In China, when president Hu says we will do this, we answer, 'yes sir.' In the US, the answer is "says who?"

Industry Reps at MIT Energy Conference: Give Us a Price on Carbon

2010-03-06T13:18:00.001-05:00

The message from industry leaders attending the MIT Energy Conference this weekend is clear: "Give us a clear price on carbon."

John Rowe, CEO of Exelon, has long been a proponent of cap-and-trade.

He reiterated this support this morning in his opening keynote, saying he felt "a bit like Elizabeth Taylor's eighth husband: I know the drill, but I'm not sure how to make it interesting."

Rowe is not so enthusiastic about our ability to reduce emissions through increasing deployment of renewables, at least not at current prices and efficiencies.

"Our work shows you can do some things with renewable energy standards," Rowe told the audience. "But you don't want to bet the farm on your picks."

Rowe secretly prefers a carbon tax, telling the audience, "Every six months I call Rohm Emmanuel and ask him if it's time yet to try a carbon tax." But he knows that it just won't happen.

Still, Rowe asserts, "We need lower carbon energy. We need more secure energy. And we need to harness the market to get it, but a market that is constrained and directed."

These sentiments were echoed by just about every industry representative I've seen at the conference.

"We need a level playing field," Helene Regnell of Maersk Line, the largest container shipper in the world, told the audience gathered for a panel on "Supply Chain Energy Use. "We need standardized, strong international regulation on carbon in order to get where we need to go and how we get there."

Speaking on the same panel, PepsiCo International's David Walker concurred, adding that 80 percent of his company's carbon footprint comes from outside the company itself.

It is hard to operate internationally with cumbersome, often conflicting regulations that differ from country to country.

The answer, at least from industry's perspective, is a clear price on carbon.

"We have to use the market to get to a $20-30 per ton price on carbon," Exelon's Rowe said. "And that means cap-and-trade or a tax. We can do a lot with carbon at $20-30 a ton."

Busy Weeks: Good for Business, Bad for Blogging

2010-03-03T12:56:00.001-05:00

This is just to say that this has been a busy couple of weeks.

We launched the Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic website last week, we've been planning our 2nd Annual Mid-Atlantic Cleantech Forum, which will be held at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia on March 25th.

And I attended CleanLinks New York, our sister organization in the City and its environs, hosted by SJF Ventures, where one of the companies I've been working with, BlackGold Biofuels had a presence. (BGB's CEO Emily Landsburg is part of the first cohort of SJF Cleantech Mentorship Fellows.)

Next up: I'm leading a panel for GoodCompany Ventures on "Entrepreneruship and Social Change" this coming Thursday at GreenSpaces NY (see my previous post or Fred Wilson's here) and then heading to Boston for the MIT Energy Conference on Friday and Saturday.

Meanwhile, my new consulting and advisory venture, VerdeStrategy, is kicking into gear. I'm lining up some very interesting clients. You can read more about what we're offering at VerdeStrategy.com

A busy couple of weeks, leaving precious little time for blogging. But I'll have so much more to blog about after this week is over.

GoodCompany: Can Venture Capital Change the World?

2010-02-26T10:41:00.002-05:00

GoodCompany Ventures will announce its 2010 Venture Incubator for Social Entrepreneurs at a launch event next Thursday, March 4th from 6-8 pm in New York City.

I'm excited to be moderating a conversation between some of the most prominent advocates for both early stage investment and social enterprise, including

Fred Wilson, founder of Union Square Ventures, an advocate for early stage investment and author of the influential A VC blog;

Jacqueline Novogratz, author of The Blue Sweater, and the founder of Acumen Fund, a global nonprofit venture philanthropy fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty;

Roger Ehrenberg, founder of IA Venture Strategies, one of the most active angel investors in New York, and author of the blog Information Arbitrage;

and Jacob Gray, a partner at Murex Investments, a leading double-bottom-line venture fund, and a GoodCompany board member.

We'll be talking about the power of capital -- early stage and patient -- to catalyze change through investing in entrepreneurs and their innovations. GoodCompany believes that financial and societal returns are not mutually exclusive.

As Garrett Melby, co-founder and CEO of GoodCompany Ventures said in a press release, "Our mission is to help entrepreneurs and investors reconcile purpose and profit. We are excited to have four such influential and innovative investors come together to highlight new models for harnessing private capital to drive lasting social impact"

GoodCompany's 2009 pilot program in Philadelphia was the first incubator in the country to adopt venture capital strategies to the needs of social enterprises.

The 2009 program attracted social entrepreneurs from around the globe, in fields such as Cleantech, Education, Public Health, Social Finance and Community Development. Several companies from the 2009 cohort will do Ignite-style flash pitches at the event.

Applications for the 2010 GoodCompany Ventures Program will be accepted beginning March 5th.

The launch event is being hosted by GoodCompany Ventures, in partnership with Green Spaces, at their Tribeca co-working facility located at 394 Broadway, New York NY 10013.

Green Spaces forwards the sustainability movement globally through widespread local hubs that incubate social and environmental entrepreneurs.

Advance tickets are required for this event and are available at http://gcvpanel.eventbrite.com.

(Disclosure: I am on the Advisory Board of GoodCompany Ventures.)

Wisdom from Wharton: Cleantech Talk

2010-02-22T21:46:00.002-05:00

"Twenty years from now, we will look back on how we get energy the same way we look back at how we got information twenty years ago," Steve Cohen said in launching the first of two cleantech panels at last Friday's Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference 2010.

"Current Trends and Opportunities in Cleantech," moderated by Cohen, an energy lawyer with Morgan Lewis, also featured Dr. Stephen Tang, CEO of the Science Center, the oldest and largest urban incubator and science park in the world, along with Sean Casey from FiniteCarbon, a forest carbon development company, and Sam Gabbita of cleantech investor Element Partners.

Dr. Tang, a Chemical Engineer by training, knows something about the "energy of the future" having earned his entrepreneurial stripes developing hydrogen fuel cells with Millennium Cell, which recently went bankrupt.

"I took Millennium Cell to its IPO in 2000, and left in 2004. Ten years ago hydrogen fuel cells were a major focus of US automakers; at least, that's what they wanted you to believe," said Tang. "What they were really focused on were CAFE standards and keeping them from being lowered. You have to understand the headwinds."

Often those headwinds are political, such as with carbon regulation. "Carbon markets are directly responsive to government action," said Casey, of FiniteCarbon. "And in the US, we want to do it our own way."

Indeed, the energy industry itself may be its own worst enemy. As Gabbita of Element Partners put it, "The biggest challenge in Cleantech is that you're dealing with a commodity market made up of slow-movers."

This is why some believe that we won't be able to move as fast as China in terms of alternative energy adoption.

"The risk isn't that China won't adopt cleantech," Gabbita suggested. "The risk is that China is doing it now and will define the rules of the game for the future."

While China may be slow to start, they have the power of the centralized government to innovate more quickly once the decision is made to move toward adoption of alternative energy sources.

And, while some, such as keynote speaker Pennsylvania State Treasurer Rob McCord, recognize that the "energy sector has massive externalities that require government support," it may be best for entrepreneurs to proceed cautiously in pursuing government funding for their ideas.

"It's great to get government money until you realize they are in your shorts for-ever," said Harrison Wellford of Wellford Energy Advisors in a panel on "Financing Your Cleantech Ventures."

Technologies are available today to help with the transition here. However, as Ravi Barot of OxiCool suggested in that same panel, "Investors and entrepreneurs need to realize that clean technology takes time, more than other investments."

And, as Steve Tang from the Science Center related earlier in the day, "The killer app of today is more important than the platform technology of the future for energy transition to happen."

Global Yawning: De Boer Resigns; Should UN Get Out of Climate Biz?

2010-02-18T07:49:00.001-05:00

The UN's top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, says he will leave his post after four years, reportedly to take a consulting position with KPMG, according the BBC News this morning.

He will vacate the position at the end of June, only 5 months before 193 countries will get together again for another shot at a climate deal.

But after the failure of Copenhagen, lingering questions surrounding the UN IPPC and its head Dr. Rajendra Pauchauri, along with other scandals making headlines involving alledged scientific data manipulations and other shenanigans, is it time for the UN to get out of the business of climate change?

Wouldn't it be better to put the collective resources spent by the 193 countries involved in climate talks into a massive R&D fund to help catalyze investments in the technologies needed to address the issue?

Is Mr. de Boer himself sending a message by heading to the private sector to focus on climate and sutainability issues?

Upcoming: Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference 2010

2010-02-15T10:40:00.000-05:00

Has there been a better time to be an entrepreneur than right now?

Technology breaks down barriers and makes it easier and less expensive than ever to turn an idea into a business -- and traditional job venues don't seem to be getting into hiring mode any time soon.

So get yourself over to the 13th Annual Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference at the Marriott in Philadelphia this Friday (February 19, 2010) to learn about "Opportunities for the Entrepreneurial Community in a Rising Economy."

The conference is a leading entrepreneurship forum for entrepreneurs, investors, industry professionals, academics, and students to foster entrepreneurial innovation and leadership.

This year's conference focuses on identifying and capturing entrepreneurial opportunities as the economy regains momentum or, at least, as the economy reboots.

Of particular interest to readers of The Green Skeptic is the panel on "Current Trends and Opportunities in Clean Tech," which features Sam Gabbita of Element Partners, Sean Carney of FiniteCarbon, and Stephen Tang, President of the Science Center, and a session on "Financing Your Clean Tech Ventures" with Ravikant Barot of OxiCool, Mark deGrandpre of Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Emily Landsburg of BlackGold Biofuels, and Harrison Wellford of Wellford Energy Advisors.

There are also sessions devoted to Health Care Services, Consumer Products, Tech and Web-based Services.

Keynote speakers include:

Rob McCord, Treasurer of Pennsylvania and founder of life-science and technology venture funds
Scott Friend, Co-Founder of ProfitLogic (which sold to Oracle in 2005) and Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures
Dr. Kathy Crothall, founder of three medical device companies (including Animas, which sold to Johnson & Johnson in 2006) and a Principal at Liberty Ventures Partners.

The conference is trying something new this year: a Student Expo. Building off the success of last year's Start-up Expo, this year's Expo will feature both local start-ups and selected start-ups run by Penn students. Entrepreneurs will showcase their businesses and introduce their teams to the 500+ conference attendees.

The conference is this Friday, February 19th at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. More information is available at WhartonEconference.com.

Register for the event using TicketLeap.

Hope to see you there!

LEED, BIM and Smart in the Land of Green Opportunity

2010-02-12T10:55:00.000-05:00

I have a guest post today on constructionlawva.com It starts out like this:

“LEED buildings are great, until the tenant moves in,” the head of a large, international construction company once said to me. “Once the tenant moves in, the environmental sustainability of the building goes out the window.”The Green Skeptic on constructionlawva.com, Thoughts on the construction landscape from Christopher G. Hill, lawyer, LEED AP and member of the Virginia Legal Elite in Construction Law, Feb 2010

To read the whole article, go here: http://bit.ly/bADZ7R

Dr. Seuss to LoraxAg: "You Don't Speak for the Trees"

2010-02-09T12:27:00.001-05:00

What's in a name? Plenty, according to Dr. Seuss Enterprises; especially if the beloved children's author, known for his creative use of the English language, coined the name.

So what was coal-gasification start-up LoraxAg thinking when they borrowed the name of one of the good doctor's much-loved characters? Let alone one that stands (literally) for the environment and "speaks for the trees."

Two weeks ago, bloggers at Wonk Room informed the owners of Dr. Seuss’s intellectual property of the company's "draping its coal-to-chemicals technology in truffula trees."

Now, the New York Times reports that Dr. Seuss' lawyer Karl ZoBell sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Massachusetts-based company.

"There's no reason for them to use the term," ZoBell told the Times' Green Inc blog, "except to purloin the good will attached to the book and use it for a company that appears to be the opposite of everything the book is about."

Amazing the company's own lawyers didn't warn them that the use of this name might cause difficulty. Or perhaps they did and the company thought they'd just go on biggering and biggering despite the controversy.

China Tops US in New Wind Installation

2010-02-04T12:38:00.000-05:00

In the latest indicator that China will be eating our lunch on cleantech and renewable energy, the country has now taken the lead in new wind energy installed in 2009, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.

China's 13,000 megawatts added last year led the pack. The US was second with 9,922 MW, followed by Spain at 2,459 MW, Germany at 1,917 MW and India at 1,271 MW. (See chart here)

The US held on to the top spot in cumulative wind energy capacity with 35,159 MW, or 22 percent of the world’s wind energy capacity. (See chart here.)

Germany is No. 2 in total installed capacity at 25,177 MW, or 16.3 percent; China is gaining at 25,104 MW, or 15.9 percent. Spain (19,149 MW) and India (10,926 MW) also make the top five.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we better get our act together or all start learning Mandarin.

Source: Environmental Leader

The Green Skeptic Speaking at Temple/Fox School of Business

2010-02-02T11:31:00.000-05:00

From the shameless self-promotion department:

I'll be speaking today at Temple University's Fox School of Business and Management today.

I was invited by Fox Net Impact and the Office of Leadership Development and will be speaking on social enterprise and the new economy.

My talk, which I hope to post a link to once it is available, is about how entrepreneurs are changing the face of business and how the recent crises can, if we learn from them, drive us to build a better economic mousetrap.

As World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab said in his closing remarks at Davos last week, we now have an opportunity to put values back into capitalism.

I've long argued here that we need a new economy based on renewal, regeneration, and respect, rather than free credit, cheap oil and new housing. We can build a new economy based not on greed, but on innovation and prosperity through sustainability.

I look forward to sharing the talk with you -- and, if you're going to be there, please say hello.

IPCC's Pachauri Must Resign

2010-01-30T11:08:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The Times of London reports this morning that the head of the UN's International Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, was told that the IPCC assertion that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to take actions to correct it.

Dr. Pachauri, who played a lead role at the recent Copenhagen climate summit where he called for drastic cuts in carbon emissions, corrected the error last week after coming under media scrutiny.

Apparently, Dr. Pachauri told The Times as recently as January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days.

The Times reports "He said: 'I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.'"

When pressed in that original interview, he insisted that he hadn't heard about the mistake prior to Copenhagen.

"However," the Times reports, "a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November. Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal, said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error. He said that Dr Pachauri had replied: 'I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.'"

Dr. Pachauri, who now claims that he was preoccupied with a number of events surrounding the summit and that he inadvertently failed to mention the error, has been accused of potential conflicts of interest surrounding carbon emissions reductions and from "using the error to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds," according to the Times.

Late last year, there was additional controversy generated around data used in the IPCC report and elsewhere when emails were discovered between climate scientists that raised questions about potential manipulation of data and climate modeling projections.

This latest controversy further erodes Dr. Pachauri's credibility at a time when public opinion about global warming continues to slip.

It is time for Dr. Pacahuri to resign as head of IPCC and for a full investigation and review of the IPCC reports.

Pass or Fail? Obama's State of the Union and Clean Energy Future

2010-01-28T10:54:00.001-05:00

Did President Obama pass or fail on energy in last night's State of the Union address? I wasn't watching, but I've read the transcript. Here are some of the choice bits:

"We can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow. From the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete. There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products."

Totally agree. We are already losing the clean energy race and need to do a lot to catch up.

"We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient, which supports clean energy jobs. And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America."

Okay. A little protectionism, a little nod to a giving something back to Americans for investing in efficiency.

"I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year. And this year I'm eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate. I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy. I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But here's the thing, even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future, because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation."

I'm not sure passing the current Senate effort is the right thing to do. I think cap-and-trade is dead on arrival now and we need to shift the focus on innovation and investment. The important phrase in the above remark is

"...the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy."

Can we get there? I'm not convinced we have the political will or that Obama can carry the day. His approval rating sucks and new polls are pointing to a continuing decrease in belief among Americans in climate change. But I do agree that we can't afford to wait any longer, as the President put it last night

"China's not waiting to revamp its economy; Germany's not waiting; India's not waiting. These nations, they're not standing still. These nations aren't playing for second place. They're putting more emphasis on math and science. They're rebuilding their infrastructure. They're making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs."

The President also said he does not "accept second place for the United States of America." Second place? In many respects we are already in third and the leaders are pulling away.

And we're not going to get there without massive investment in innovation, as Bill Gates said in his blog last week, we need "a distributed system of R&D with economic rewards for innovators and strong government encouragement is the key. There just isn't enough work going on today to get us to where we need to go."

I disagree with Gates that it is either efficiency or innovation; this is a false dichotomy. We need to fire on all cylinders. Just as with the President's nods to nuclear, offshore drilling, and "clean coal" last night, which were not just bones to GOP dogs, we need to deploy all solutions --and now.

I'm just not sure whether President Obama, rhetorical skills aside, has the political capital to wrangle the support he needs to make the necessary bold steps.

As for the speech, I give him a B-.

TerraCycle Upcycling Your Sharpie

2010-01-26T18:00:00.001-05:00

Sharpie, Paper Mate and EXPO have formed a partnership with TerraCycle to repurpose used pens, markers and other writing instruments.

Terracycle is a New Jersey-based "upcycling" company that finds new ways to repurpose otherwise throwaway items like juice pouches, chip bags and the like. According to the company, the partnership "will create the world's first program to collect and reuse pens, markers and other writing instruments while also helping raise funds for schools, charities, and non-profits nationwide."

Collection centers called "Writing Instrument Brigades" will be set up at participating locales, primarily in large corporations and schools where writing instruments are used most. For every writing instrument collected at a Writing Instrument Brigade collection center, two cents will be paid to a school, community group, charity or non-profit organization of the participant's choice.

"Keeping one pen or marker out of a landfill may seem like a small contribution, but multiply that by the estimated $5 billion writing instruments sold in the U.S. each year and it is a big opportunity to reduce waste to landfills," said Ben Gadbois, President of Markers, Highlighters, Art and Office Essentials for Newell Rubbermaid Office Products, maker of Sharpie, EXPO and Paper Mate products.

The collected writing instruments will be dissembled and/or reprocessed to make new products.

TerraCycle is also working with other consumer goods manufacturers including 3M, Mars and OfficeMax, to collect and recycle their products.

Founded in 2001 by then 19 year old Princeton University freshman named Tom Szaky, TerraCycle started from Tom's dream to find way a new, more responsible way of doing business that would be good for the planet, good for people, and good for the bottom line.

Review: Ray Anderson's "Confessions of a Radical Industrialist"

2010-01-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

"Will we bankrupt the future, or assure it?" Ray Anderson asks in his new book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist. "Or should we find ways to create wealth sustainably through the efficient use of resources, renewable energy, and closed-loop manufacturing processes that use recycled waste as raw materials?"

Anderson has been at the forefront of the sustainability movement for some time. But for 20 years he was your typical plunderer, to paraphrase the author.

He "founded Interface in 1973 to equip the emerging, technology-driven 'office of the future' with a new kind of carpet, a floor covering that could change along with its owners needs," as he writes. He built the business into a global leader in the commercial carpet industry.

In 1994, however, a colleague from the company's research division passed on a memo from a sales associate that said some customers wanted to know, "What is Interface doing for the environment?" Another associate gave him a copy of Paul Hawken's groundbreaking book, The Ecology of Commerce.

That started Ray Anderson on his journey of discovery -- both personal and corporate -- that led to the company deciding to be a global leader in sustainability and never make a carpet from virgin raw materials again.

It's a story he has told before, on stage and in his 1995 book, Mid-Course Correction, and a third of this new book covers ground from that earlier memoir. But in retelling his personal journey Anderson connects his readers to his true purpose: to demonstrate that sustainability is a worthy and profitable journey and that the journey is the destination.

Along the way, Anderson makes clear the business case for sustainability -- and for accomplishing it "with good old capitalist self-interest firmly in mind."

Anderson never loses sight of the fact that "financial success is the key to achieving sustainability," as he writes in this new book. "A bankrupt company is clearly not sustainable. But sustainability is also a big key to achieving financial success. We have proved that earning a bigger and better, more legitimate profit is possible."

It's an important lesson and one supported by his book's subtitle, "Profits, People, Purpose--Doing Business by Respecting the Earth." I like that he leads with Profits and People; too often, environmentalists try to lead with the planet first and lose sight of the people and their self-interest.

That's why Ray Anderson's story is a good one and Confessions of a Radical Industrialist is an important book. (It's not a perfect book, I must say, and suffers a bit from overstating some points and pontification in spots. Yet the overall message is important enough to forgive these flaws.)

"Efficiency equals profits, profits equal jobs, and good jobs mean a strong economy," Anderson writes. To Ray Anderson, sustainability offers a new business model and a new future characterized by new thinking, new products, and new profits.

(Note: As of this writing, I have just learned that Ray Anderson has been diagnosed with cancer and is heading for further tests at the MD Anderson Center in Houston. My prayers go out to Ray and his family.)

IPCC Sucker Punches Itself, Again

2010-01-21T12:46:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This is getting ridiculous. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is becoming its own worst enemy, providing more fodder for climate skeptics.

The UN's top climate authority issued an apology yesterday for what it now says was a flawed "prediction" regarding the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035.

New Scientist magazine broke the story last week about the quote attributed to Indian scientist Syed Hasnain, who claimed that he was misquoted in a media interview that was later used in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment report.

New Scientist reported the comment in 1999 as part of what it says was an email interview with India's leading glaciologist. There were no other sources for the claim, other than a 2005 WWF report (PDF, see Correction on page 2) cited the New Scientist article, but it still found its way into the IPCC report.

"I have not made any prediction on date as I am not an astrologer but I did say they were shrinking fast," Hasnain has said, according to an article in TimesOnline. "I have never written 2035 in any of my research papers or reports."

At the time of the original interview, Professor Hasnain worked for Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and was chairman of the International Commission on Snow and Ice's working group on Himalayan glacialology. He now works for The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi, which is headed by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN climate change panel.

This is the latest in a series of attacks on the "consensus" around the theory of global climate change and may further erode public sentiment on the issue. The IPCC chairman has recently come under fire for allegations of conflict of interest and the credibility of some of the computer modeling used in the report was called into question when emails between climate scientists were hacked late last year.

CREE LED Market Leader, Continues to Impress

2010-01-19T17:00:00.003-05:00

I've been long LED lighting manufacturer $CREE for a long time, as readers of this blog know. Today, Cree continued to impress me with its quarterly earnings release, beating estimates and generating record revenue.

They announced record revenue of $199.5 million for its second quarter of fiscal 2010, ended December 27, 2009, which is a "35 percent increase compared to revenue of $147.6 million reported for the second fiscal quarter last year and an 18 percent increase compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2010," according to a company press release.

“We continued to execute very well in Q2, as we delivered record revenue and net income,” stated Chuck Swoboda, Cree chairman and CEO. “LED lighting adoption continues to gain momentum and our near term focus is on factory execution and capacity expansion. Our strong balance sheet further enhances our leadership position and supports our mission of leading the LED lighting revolution.”

Here are other highlights from the press release:

Q2 2010 Financial Metrics:

* Cash and investments increased $65.6 million from Q1 of fiscal 2010 to $954.1 million.

* Cash flow from operations was $21.5 million. Free cash flow (cash flow from operations less capital expenditures) was ($19.9) million as we spent $41.4 million on capital expenditures.

* Accounts receivable (net) increased $20.3 million from Q1 of fiscal 2010 to $113.4 million, resulting in days sales outstanding of 51, an increase of 1 day from Q1 of fiscal 2010.

* Inventory (net) increased $7.3 million from Q1 of fiscal 2010 to $93.3 million and represents 80 days of inventory, a decrease of 1 day from Q1 of fiscal 2010.

Recent Business Highlights:

* Awarded $39 million in tax credits as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support our investment to build energy efficient LED lighting

* Announced that Cree LED lamps have been selected for an initial deployment in approximately 650 Walmart stores

* Set a new standard for indoor LED lighting with the XLamp® MX-6 LED, the industry’s first lighting-class PLCC LED

* Demonstrated an A-lamp LED light bulb with the highest lumen output and efficacy reported in the industry

* Achieved industry-best reported R&D results of 186 lumens per watt from a white high-power LED

* Purchased a facility for manufacturing expansion in Huizhou, China

Business Outlook:

For its third quarter of fiscal 2010 ending March 28, 2010, Cree targets revenue in a range of $215 million to $225 million with GAAP net income of $37 million to $40 million, or $0.35 to $0.37 per diluted share. Non-GAAP net income is targeted to increase quarter-over-quarter to $44 million to $47 million, or $0.41 to $0.44 per diluted share, based on an estimated 107.5 million diluted weighted average shares. Targeted non-GAAP earnings exclude expenses related to the amortization of acquired intangibles of $0.02 per diluted share, and stock-based compensation expense of $0.04 per diluted share.

Here's a link to the full press release: CREE Earnings Q2 2010

(Disclosure: I hold a long position in CREE. This post is for informational purposes only and is neither intended to be investment advice nor an offer, or the solicitation of any offer, to buy or sell any securities.)

Cleantech Events 2010

2010-01-15T14:29:00.000-05:00

I asked a number of Cleantech experts to share their top "must-attend" conferences for 2010. Here's the list in order of number of recommendations:

1.) Cleantech Forum XXVI

2.) Cleantech Investor Summit 2010

3.) Going Green East

4.) RETECH 2010

5.) Earth2Tech's GreenNet 2010

Other events that didn't make the top 5, but are worth mentioning:

MIT Energy Conference

GridWeek 2010

Fortune: Brainstorm Green

Alternative Energy Innovations (Dow Jones)

TechConnectWorld: Clean Technology Expo

1st Int'l Conf on Materials for Energy

Clean Tech World Africa

ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit

What conferences are YOU interested in this year?

Green Skeptic on Job Creation: FoxBusiness

2010-01-15T10:21:00.000-05:00

I was on FoxBusiness yesterday, talking with Stuart Varney about the green jobs number that has come out from the Obama administration.

There were three points I wanted to make on the subject:

1.) What qualifies as a green job? What counts? We need a clear definition to determine whether the accounting is accurate and the impact is greatest.
2.) Only $5B of the $90B stimulus commitment to clean energy has moved thus far. How can we more efficiently move that capital to put it to work?
3.) Lack of manufacturing base for clean energy in the US calls into question the number and quality of the jobs that will be created here in the US. Will they be just service-oriented? Will that have significant impact on the larger economy?

You can judge for yourself whether I succeeded. Let me know what you think.

World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers: Embracing Disruption

2010-01-13T10:57:00.000-05:00

The World Economic Forum made its selection of Technology Pioneers for 2010 last month. The Energy and Environment group is an impressive list:

BioFuelBox
BioFuelBox builds, owns and operates modular bio-refineries that recycle brown grease and trap grease and waste water sludge for companies and cities, converting it into premium clean burning fuel for local use. It eliminates the waste streams on site and shares part of the fuel profits with its customers.
Steve Perricone, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.biofuelbox.com

Bloom Energy
Bloom Energy aims to change the way the world generates and consumes energy by converting a wide range of renewable and traditional fuels into electricity through a highly efficient electrochemical reaction, rather than combustion.
K.R. Sridhar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.bloomenergy.com

Boston-Power
Boston-Power is pioneering the use of lithium-ion and other materials capable of powering end applications ranging from portable consumer electronic devices to electric vehicles.
Christina Lampe-Onnerud, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.boston-power.com

Care Electric Energia
CARE has designed a turbine system that generates energy from the natural flow of a river, without any alternation of its natural state. It provides fish passage facilities and does not dam the normal flow of materials in the river, conserving the fauna, vegetation and ecosystem.
Johann Hoffmann, Founder

Epuramat
Epuramat’s technology promises to revolutionize waste water treatment. Its Extreme Separator achieves an efficiency of up to 99% in terms of solid/liquid separation of organic and inorganic particles in wastewater and liquids – and it does it in only one treatment step.
David Din, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.epuramat.com

eSolar
eSolar aims to become the first solar electricity company to reach parity with the cost of fossil fuel. It hopes to achieve that goal with technology that concentrates the sunlight of mirrors of one square metre to produce steam at centralized towers.
Bill Gross, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.esolar.com

Lehigh Technologies
Lehigh Technologies manufactures very small, micron scale, engineered rubber powders from material derived from scrap tires using a proprietary, cryogenic, grinding technology. These powders are novel materials that are currently used in the manufacture of new tires and other rubber goods.
Alan Barton, Chief Executive Officer
www.lehightechnologies.com

Metabolix
Metabolix aims to create a new class of materials that can serve as an alternative to petroleum-based plastics. It has developed bio-based and biodegradable plastics using both engineered microbes and engineered bio-energy crops that grow bio-plastic directly inside leaves and stems.
Richard P. Eno, President and Chief Executive Officer
www.metabolix.com

Serious Materials
The construction industry is responsible for 52% of C02 emissions worldwide, which is more than automobiles, transportation and industry combined. Serious Materials is tackling the problem with high tech building materials that include super insulating products.
Kevin Surace, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.seriousmaterials.com

Vihaan Networks Limited (VNL)
VNL has developed a solar-powered GSM system specifically for remote and rural areas where people have less than US$ 2 a month to spend on their phone bills. Its base stations, which cost one-quarter of traditional equipment, only require as much energy as a 50-watt light bulb.
Rajiv Mehrotra, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
www.vnl.in

The Technology Pioneers program is the World Economic Forum's way of identifying and integrating companies – normally in a start-up phase or in their first rounds of financing – from around the world that are involved in the design and development of new technologies. The innovations of these companies reflect society’s attempts to harness, adapt and use technology to change and improve the way business and society operate.

Each year, hundreds of innovative companies from around the world are nominated, and approximately 30 are recognized as Technology Pioneers in three categories:

1. Biotechnology and Health
2. Energy and Environmental Technologies
3. Information Technologies and New Media.

For more information on the Technology Pioneers, visit the web site or download the brochure.

The Green Skeptic's Portfolio for 2010

2010-01-07T10:43:00.001-05:00

I've made some adjustments to my Green Skeptic Stock Portfolio for this year.

All of these stocks are in the cleantech, energy, or environmental sector. (Note: I may hold other positions outside this sector and have an IRA that may have other positions as well, but this portfolio is strategically focused for specific investments in this sector.)

A couple of other things you should know about this list, in addition to the disclaimer below:

I rarely short any stocks. Although I am tempted sometimes, I'm neither smart enough of a trader nor can I pay close enough attention to the market to do it well. So, the bulk of my portfolio is Long, but I'm also watching or tracking other stocks for either an entry, re-entry, or just because I'm curious about what's happening in a particular sector -- or they are a direct competitor of another stock I hold.

My interest in the companies whose stock I buy and hold is based upon a belief in the company, their product, their potential in the market, and whether I think they are or will be a market leader. (Don't let me fool you, I don't think I'm smart enough to predict whether they will be best in class either! But "ya gotta have one vice," as my Grandmother used to say.)

Anyway, here is my list of long positions and my watch list for 2010:

Long positions: $FSLR $CREE $TTEK $ORA $ENOC $JCI $EXC $AONE $XTO $AEP $AWK

Watch list: $BTU $CHK $KOL $CCC $GE $BWA $OTTR $TLM $NLC $TNB $APWR $COMV $WTR $AMAT

You will note that I am using the StockTwits convention for identifying ticker symbols, which includes a dollar sign. If you don't know about StockTwits, read my post here: StockTwits: Break Away from the Usual Market Noise or head on over to StockTwits.com and sign up for some of the best dialog and community on the web.

(Disclosure: I hold long positions in some of the stocks listed above. This post is for informational purposes only and is neither intended to be investment advice nor an offer, or the solicitation of any offer, to buy or sell any securities.)

Whole Foods Flak: Give Mackey a Break

2010-01-05T13:00:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is in hot water with environmentalists, liberal media pundits, and the climate crisis police for expressing his doubt about the scientific consensus around the causes of climate change.

The hulabaloo stems from the following passage from The New Yorker profile by Nick Paumgarten:

"One of the books on the list was 'Heaven and Earth: Global Warming—the Missing Science,' a skeptical take on climate change. Mackey told me that he agrees with the book's assertion that, as he put it, 'no scientific consensus exists' regarding the causes of climate change; he added, with a candor you could call bold or reckless, that it would be a pity to allow 'hysteria about global warming' to cause us 'to raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty.' One would imagine that, on this score, many of his customers, to say nothing of most climate scientists, might disagree. He also said, 'Historically, prosperity tends to correlate to warmer temperatures.'"

But he already answered critics, telling Paumgarten,

"I have my own views, and they're not necessarily the same as Whole Foods'...People want me to suppress who I am. I guess that's why so many politicians and C.E.O.s get to be sort of boring, because they end up suppressing any individuality to conform to some phony, inauthentic way of being. I'd rather be myself."

Now, I don't shop at Whole Paycheck, frankly because it's always seemed overpriced and under quality. I prefer Trader Joe's or our local food co-op. And Mackey has some pretty wacky views -- his embracing of the "Course in Miracles" is example enough -- and has done some bonehead things (remember the Wild Oats scandal).

But the fact that Mackey can't express his doubts about the "consensus" on climate change without people calling for his head is just ludicrous. Give the guy a break. Don't patronize his store if you don't agree with him, but stop the witch hunt, please. You're acting as bad as your enemy.

Read the whole CEO profile in The New Yorker

My Top 10 "Green" Books of the Decade 2000-2009

2010-01-03T14:48:00.001-05:00

Here's The Green Skeptic's list of the top ten green books of the decade 2000-2009. This reflects my personal favorites and not necessarily their influence or popularity among the reading public.

1.) The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman

2.) Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals by Joy Williams

3.) Break Through: Why We Can't Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger

4.) Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit

5.) The Song of the Earth by Jonathan Bate

6.) Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment by James Gustave Speth

7.) The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly

8.) Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century by Alex Steffen

9.) A New Theory for American Poetry: Democracy, the Environment, and the Future of Imagination by Angus Fletcher

10.) Eye of the Albatross: Views of the Endangered Sea by Carl Safina

What were YOUR favorite "green" books of the decade?

Green Decade: Were the Aughts All for Naught?

2009-12-31T11:25:00.001-05:00

It was the best of decades; it was the worst of decades. Any way you slice it, the Aughts were a surprising decade for the green movement.

Janus-headed, the Aughts were, as entrepreneur and hedge-fund blogger Howard Lindzon pointed out in his end of the decade post, the "decade was all about two things, creative and greedy destruction."

From the Clinton/Gore failures to act on climate change when they had the opportunity, if not the Congress, to the Bush Administration's eviscerating the EPA and altering documents while encouraging quiet progress on emissions reductions, doesn't seem like a decade of progress.

Still, the Aughts saw "sustainability" and "green" move decidedly more mainstream, but it didn't start out that way.

In early 2000, just before the dot-com bubble burst, I was being romanced by a start-up called "Verde.com," which billed itself as "a 360-degree media company, like Martha Stewart." Unfortunately, there was no Martha Stewart in the model, and the idea was seven years too soon. It flamed out by summer.

By 2007-08, Al Gore became the Martha Stewart of Green, and Discovery Communications launched "planet green," which had a lot of similarities to the Verde model. Green became the new Black.

Celebrities jumped on the bandwagon, driven by Mr. Gore, and the environment even had its own rock extravaganza. But despite its celebrity staying power, and some traction even in the wake of recession, at decade's end consumer choices still have "more to do with the personal benefit as opposed to having some sort of general sense that we have to save the planet," as GfK's Tim Kenyon told Joel Makower.

And there is a growing sense that, despite the scientific "consensus" on climate change and heightened public awareness brought about by Mr. Gore's Academy Award-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth," environmentalists and climate scientists alike may have played too heavy a hand when it comes to the "climate crisis."

At the end of the Aughts an increased number of Americans believe global warming is exaggerated and fewer see solid evidence of global warming. In fact, as a 2009 Pew study revealed, more Americans believe in angels than human's role in global warming.

Meanwhile, on the practical side, Green Buildings LEED the way. The US Green Building Council launched its certification in 2000 and in the ensuing years it became not only the gold standard, but ubiquitous in the building trade. So much so that a survey of commercial real estate executives conducted by Turner Construction Company in late 2008 showed that plans to build green would not be affected by credit market conditions.

Biodiversity loss continued to spiral through the decade, with the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species cataloging 17,291 out of 47,677 assessed species being threatened with extinction.

While a 2004 study by World Wildlife Fund, Status of Coral Reefs Around the World, found that 20 percent of the world’s coral reefs have been effectively destroyed and show no immediate prospects of recovery, another 24 percent are under imminent risk of collapse through human pressures, and a further 26 percent are under a longer term threat of collapse.

Still, some progress was made on the conservation front with Brazil leading the way. Brazil accounted for 60 percent of total terrestrial conservation during the decade, according to Mongabay.com's analysis of global conservation data. Unfortunately, Brazil also topped the list of forest destroyers, losing 175,000 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest over the decade.

The Aughts may also mark the end of big, global plans, treaties and conventions that fail to inspire or make progress. One of the hard lessons of this decade has been that globalization of environmental action is doomed to failure by entrenched interests. In the teens, big treaties and plans must give way to local action, stewardship, and adaptation.

I learned this the hard way at the Nature Conservancy as we pushed forward with a big hairy audacious goal that was not, ultimately, achievable. When I pressed others on what would happen if we didn't meet our targets by 2015, I was told "we'll just revise the goal." That sounded too much like the UN and World Bank for my taste.

We also watched with horror as centralized decisions to protect forests in one country led to increased destruction in other countries and biofuels production led to unintended consequences, from skyrocketing food prices to forest destruction.

Yet, I have seen how local people from Indonesia to Ecuador and India to the Caribbean are taking action despite big global pronouncements. I remain convinced that conservation needs to be local to be global -- or "glocal," to use Tom Friedman's coinage. We need local action with a global understanding and a heavy dose of scenario planning.

By the end of the decade, the Copenhagen Climate Summit laid a big goose egg on the UN's efforts to get a global agreement on reducing emissions. Tolling the death knell for top-down, government-led negotiations, in my opinion.

This was also the decade when green became gold. Venture investors poured money into clean tech innovations in the latter half of the decade, reaching a record $7.6 billion in 2008 and only dipping to around $5 billion in 2009, as entrepreneurs and investors tried to help lead the economy back to health.

Wal-Mart surprised everybody in the 00s by leading the way with new standards for sustainability on its shelves, in its stores, and up and down its supply chain. Industrial carpet manufacturer Interface made progress on climbing "Mt. Sustainability," and GE re-envisioned itself as a purveyor of "ecoimagination," bringing good and green things to life.

The Toyota Prius hybrid was introduced in July 2000 and, in its peak year of sales 2007, Toyota sold 180,000 units in the United States. But the Aughts truly were the decade of the "other 2-axle 4-tire vehicle," which includes SUVs and light trucks.

In 2000, there were 79,084,979 such vehicles on US roads; by 2007 there were more than 100 million, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. In 2004 alone, GM sold 28,898 gas-hog Hummers, many of them to suburban families and even city dwellers.

Despite the resistance and doublespeak of US auto-manufacturers, by decade's end, Ford saw its hybrid sales increase and was betting its future on cars like the Escape Hybrid, Fusion and Focus, while GM, limping along with the help of a government bailout, promised the plug-in hybrid Volt and was looking for a buyer for its Hummer division.

In 2005, I wrote that the green tent needed to be expanded. Over the decade, the tent expanded, but is it yet big enough? At the start of the decade, green was seen as a pursuit of elite, white highly educated liberals. The complexion has changed a little, thanks to environmental leaders like Van Jones, Majora Carter, and Jerome Ringo, along with religious leaders like Ted Haggard, Jim Ball, and Rick Warren, but has it really become more inclusive?

In many ways, it seems the movement is even more liberal than it was last century as, other than Governors Schwarzenegger and Crist, the GOP has largely abandoned the environment despite the legacy of Republicans Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. And, in my view, the more partisan this issue becomes, the more ground it will lose.

Were the Aughts all for Naught? I'm guessing not. Really some progress has been made in a decade of extreme triumphs and failures, tragedies and excess. But we've still along way to go.

What lessons have I learned this past decade? I've learned that private, direct action really is the best way to make change happen; that a new green economy is possible only when we figure out how to make it profitable; that neither big governments nor big NGOs are the game-changers and we should put our trust in the entrepreneurs (social or otherwise); and, finally, that efficiency and innovation can help lead the way to a better future.

May the teens, be a decade of progress and prosperity. Happy New Year!

(Thanks to James Bedell of build2sustain and Jamie Burdett of Worn Again for suggestions that led to the focus of this post.)