Show premiered on TV this weekend and will soon move to web TV. Take a look at the preview on our home page.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
Terrific job by the Rockefeller Family Fund
This is a feel good story about a private foundation making a difference in our lives, and a reminder that each one of us can make a difference in the world.
We will follow up with a radio show reporting more on the EIP and their work.
Eric Schaeffer was planning to leave his job as EPA Director of Civil Enforcement, and we were more than happy to help him with the planning.
We got to know Eric in 2001 when he served on a conference panel we helped organize. At the time he was head of civil enforcement for EPA, and his enforcement initiative to limit pollution from power plants and oil refineries was under direct attack by the Bush Administration. Together, we identified the need for a new organization, one that could deploy a wide range of tools – including whistleblowing – to hold the EPA and other environmental agencies accountable.
We knew we had found the right person – Eric’s demeanor and professionalism were ideal for an organization designed to insist on public integrity. But the organization and support systems didn’t yet exist to help that right person take on this task.
Over daytime meetings (often at a Starbucks down the street from EPA headquarters) and evening phone calls, we came to understand that leaving EPA would be a huge personal risk for Eric. His career path would change utterly, and he had a family, with young children, to support. So we took our time. We identified partner foundations and began building a financial base that would enable Eric to take this risk. We planned a public launch for a new organization. We made it possible for him to commit.
In February 2002, Eric resigned his post to found the Environmental Integrity Project – and did so to great fanfare, with front-page stories in major newspapers and multiple interviews on national news programs.
Today, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) thrives. It focuses public attention on chronic violations of environmental laws, and demands real enforcement. Its work has led to substantial reduction of harmful pollutants from refineries, power plants, municipal water treatments, and factory farms. The EIP pulls together accurate data measurements of pollution levels, brings court challenges when necessary, and uses its expertise to empower grassroots advocates and enhance government enforcement efforts. Its work has protected the health of millions of Americans and undoubtedly has saved lives. EIP’s annual budget is now more than $2 million – virtually all of it from sources other than RFF.
- A focus on finding highly qualified individuals, rather than organizations, often leads to key breakthroughs.
- Agencies must be held accountable - and government usually takes the path of least resistance without a watchdog nipping at its heels.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
New rankings to help shoppers go green.
This from the Sacramento Bee. Co-incidentally, Tesla opened their first retail operation in Natick, MA this past weekend. Their new sedan is a beautiful car, and the place was packed.
At the same time, as you may know, they announced plans to install super-chargers across the country...thereby giving us the infrastructure to support EV's. All good news.
"Consumers looking for horsepower with "green" appeal may soon have a way to measure a new car's performance along with its sustainability.
At the same time, as you may know, they announced plans to install super-chargers across the country...thereby giving us the infrastructure to support EV's. All good news.
"Consumers looking for horsepower with "green" appeal may soon have a way to measure a new car's performance along with its sustainability.
Unveiled Friday at the Accelerating Sustainable Performance Summit at the raceway in Sonoma, the "Sustainable Performance Ranking Metric" is "designed to create a new standard in vehicle excellence that values both sustainability and performance," according to its creators.
An academic research team from Dominican University of California's Green MBA program compiled the data used to form the matrix, which is still in its beta version. Dr. Paul Erickson, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, provided the engineering review.
For the rankings, sustainability was based on such factors as emissions and fuel mileage. Performance included horsepower, torque and a vehicle's power-to-weight ratio. More factors will be added in as the matrix is refined, say its developers.
The matrix ranks the top 100 selling consumer vehicles, as well as popular hybrid and alternative-fuel models. The highest ranking - 8.9 out of 10 - went to the electric Tesla Model S.
The Sustainable Performance Summit is a day-long forum devoted to finding new ways to prompt more automotive sustainability, both for consumers and in motorsports."
Paul Sakuma Associated Press Tesla is introducing its all-electric, five-passenger sedan. The boutique brand is known for its roadster, above, sold to the likes of George Clooney for $109,000 and up.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Today's radio show/WARL 1320 AM and Blog Talk Radio
Today at noon, EST, we introduce eNow to our global audience. This from WARL's web site promoting today's show: Listen also live this Wednesday at 12 noon to the Renewable Now Radio Show
This week we will have Jeffery Flath Pesident and CEO of Enow.
Learn about how Enow is changing the way we transport goods and services .
Visit their website at eNowEnergy.com
Don't forget the show will move to our archived section on the Renewable Now channel on Blog Talk Radio, where you find all of our previous radio shows, and will be available 24/7 by Thursday of this week.
You can be part of the show by contacting us through our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Enjoy the show.
Betaspring series
You'll notice we posted our first video, in a six-part series, from last week's open house at Betaspring in Providence, one of the key accelerators in the US.
Accelerators play a very important role in driving new business and incubating great ideas. On Friday we will be back at Betaspring to film five complete shows, covering a range of topics from how they formed, their core mission, investors, mentors and CEO's who come in and help these fledgling companies, and take a very close look at how many of their graduates help transform the business world into a more sustainable model.
Take a look at our opening video with one of their founders, Owen Johnson, and send us your comments and suggestions on how to best look at accelerators and their impact on our global economy.
Accelerators play a very important role in driving new business and incubating great ideas. On Friday we will be back at Betaspring to film five complete shows, covering a range of topics from how they formed, their core mission, investors, mentors and CEO's who come in and help these fledgling companies, and take a very close look at how many of their graduates help transform the business world into a more sustainable model.
Take a look at our opening video with one of their founders, Owen Johnson, and send us your comments and suggestions on how to best look at accelerators and their impact on our global economy.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
How Sustainability Can Save Business/Part 2
Finishing our great story from yesterday. If you are a business owner, don't forget we consult, through the show, on helping you make many of these very worthy investments in re-inventing your company:
"And it wasn't just Werbach that was feeling this -- but he captured the zeitgeist of the time. As a result, environmentalists in greater number began working with businesses to prove that going green has incredible bottom-line benefits. This is a fortunate trend for environmentalism and business.
Sustainability as strategy is a rallying cry for driving out waste and inefficiency. It is a powerful tool for engaging employees and suppliers in an innovation strategy drive to both incremental and radical improvements in operations while managing risk. In the two year period of 2010 and 2011, sustainability initiatives saved Canadian Tire approximately $10.7 million in annual avoided costs; 215,000 gigajoules (GJ) of energy (enough to power more than 2,000 homes for a year); 14,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and more than 6,600 pounds of waste.(LINK)
Just how much potential savings could sustainability generate for corporations and society? Amory Lovins, the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, has documented how using best available existing technology we could reduce current energy use in North American by 70 per cent to 90 per cent without changing our current lifestyle!
The Challenge
Like many large, established companies, growing from a single Toronto location in 1922 to the national retailer and brand management company, Canadian Tire, required specialization of business by functions -- such as strategic sourcing, merchandizing, marketing, transportation, and the operation of distribution centres and stores.
Like many large, established companies, growing from a single Toronto location in 1922 to the national retailer and brand management company, Canadian Tire, required specialization of business by functions -- such as strategic sourcing, merchandizing, marketing, transportation, and the operation of distribution centres and stores.
While enabling the business to scale, the unintended consequence of this organizational structure is that individual functions optimize around an increasingly narrow core purpose, leading to the erosion of a system-wide perspective of the enterprise level. As silos evolve, business decisions in one area may be undertaken without the insight into the unintentional effects on other areas.
Sustainability as strategy forces siloed departments to work cooperatively to both define opportunities and devise solutions. Businesses that are using sustainability as strategy are realizing that it is the most powerful tool for driving cooperation and innovation in the organization.
Sustainability as strategy forces siloed departments to work cooperatively to both define opportunities and devise solutions. Businesses that are using sustainability as strategy are realizing that it is the most powerful tool for driving cooperation and innovation in the organization.
The result: rethinking business activities, redefining peoples' roles, responsibilities, measurement and incentives. The experience at Canadian Tire of pursuing sustainability as a strategy has been organizational innovation, while generating millions of dollars cost avoidance, new sources of revenue, and thousands of tonnes of avoided waste and greenhouse gas emissions.
Why CSR is Not the Answer
Today, many companies are focused on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). As we often see it practiced, CSR is about reporting the company's activities. As a reporting function, CSR has little, if any, power to transform the organization. If we were cynical, we might say that many CSR activities are nothing more than a public relations initiative.
Today, many companies are focused on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). As we often see it practiced, CSR is about reporting the company's activities. As a reporting function, CSR has little, if any, power to transform the organization. If we were cynical, we might say that many CSR activities are nothing more than a public relations initiative.
What excites us is sustainability as strategy. By dramatically reducing energy use -- electricity, natural gas and fuel -- companies not only cut costs, but mitigate risk against rising energy prices, and raise revenue from new products and services
Management literature has shown that the majority of change initiatives fail. But sustainability engages the hearts, minds and motivation of employees and suppliers and can become a truly transformative driver. It can drive innovation and create new business value. And tip the balance to ensure success of the change initiative.
When looking at sustainability as strategy you ask fundamentally different questions than looking at sustainability in the framework of CSR. The former focuses business performance, organizational transformation -- looking at roles, incentives, re-engineering operational processes, and creating change through the whole supply chain -- while the latter focuses on reporting.
And so we believe that environmentalism can save business, as the more powerful engagement tool that business has at its disposal to drive innovation."
Monday, October 1, 2012
How Sustainability Can Save Business
Thanks to Seth Handy, my co-host and a terrific environmental law specialist for this terrific article from The Huffington Post.
This article fits perfectly with our mission: To convince everyone, individuals, businesses and non-profits, that there is a great ROI on investing in efficiency, reduced waste, clean energy, transforming technology and other sustainable changes. Those investments, and those returns of good profit, have a wonderful by-product of reducing stress on natural resources.
Will split our coverage into two days, since it is a fairly long article, but here's the link if you want to read it all today: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jim-harris/can-environmentalism-save_b_1889781.html. Kudos to the writers and newspaper for a great job.
Enjoy and make sure you watch us this weekend on ABC 6 and The Live Well Network:
"This is the first of a series of weekly columns to be published on Tuesday by Tyler Elm and Jim Harris on how sustainability as strategy cuts cost, raises revenue and mitigates risk for business.
This article fits perfectly with our mission: To convince everyone, individuals, businesses and non-profits, that there is a great ROI on investing in efficiency, reduced waste, clean energy, transforming technology and other sustainable changes. Those investments, and those returns of good profit, have a wonderful by-product of reducing stress on natural resources.
Will split our coverage into two days, since it is a fairly long article, but here's the link if you want to read it all today: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jim-harris/can-environmentalism-save_b_1889781.html. Kudos to the writers and newspaper for a great job.
Enjoy and make sure you watch us this weekend on ABC 6 and The Live Well Network:
"This is the first of a series of weekly columns to be published on Tuesday by Tyler Elm and Jim Harris on how sustainability as strategy cuts cost, raises revenue and mitigates risk for business.
Ever since Rachel Carson's groundbreaking Silent Spring was published in 1962, environmentalists have been trying to save the planet. While there has been progress, overall the efforts have clearly failed, because the planet is in worse shape today than 50 years ago. We need not document the litany of damage here.
Decades of experience have shown that environmental initiatives pursued in isolation of the economic benefit are largely immaterial.
But when environmental objectives are framed as business strategy and tied to business operations and measured in terms of cutting cost and increasing profitability -- significant environmental benefits are generated. Sustainability then garners executive focus and corporate resources. Companies like General Electric, Interface Carpet and Canadian Tire have realized the profound bottom-line benefit that pursuing sustainability as strategy yields.
In the early 2000's a number of environmentalists were feeling the futility of the environmental movement's historic approach to business. In 2004, this led Adam Werbach, then president of the Sierra Club -- the largest US environmental group, to proclaim that traditional environmentalism was ineffective, outdated and dead. In a grist.org interview, following his speech called the "Death of Environmentalism" Werbach noted:
"Perhaps during the many battles between environmentalists and business people we have been asking the wrong question all these years. As generally proposed, the question is: 'How do we save the environment?' As ridiculous as it may sound to both sides, the question may be 'how do we save business?' When you look at the environmental movement, at the great ecological challenges that the planet is faced with, that humanity is faced with, environmentalism has proven utterly incapable of addressing them. The reason we called for environmentalism's death is so that we could call for a new movement... (one) that can address these challenges."
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