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COVENTRY, UNITED KINGDOM -- Although the wings themselves won't waggle, by using tiny jets to emulate the air flow from waggling can cut mid-flight air drag, and save up to 20 percent of airplane fuel use.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- About one-third of all government printing is wasted, and federal employees lack incentives and guidelines to reduce printing waste, according to a new report from Lexmark.
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GREENWICH, Conn. -- Nestle Waters North America and Keep America Beautiful have partnered to provide grants of $10,000 to 12 communities to spur recycling in public areas including sports venues and parks.
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Meet The Game-Changing Green Entrepreneurs
[Editor's note: In this exclusive excerpt from Joel Makower's new book, "Strategies for the Green Economy," offers a look at just a few of the innovative companies and thinkers that are emerging in the new green economy, changing the way industry creates everything from clothing to housing to solar energy. You can read a previous excerpt here.]
The advent of the green economy coincides with a new era for entrepreneurism. Unlike, say, Ben & Jerry's, today's promising young green companies are less likely to be influenced by the war than the Web. Today's entrepreneur has been chastened and emboldened by the successes -- and excesses -- of the Internet revolution. Indeed, many green-economy entrepreneurs are dot-com refugees, flush with cash, connections, and a can-do mind-set. They bring their innovations in business strategy, such as the notion of turning products into services, of customers as "members," of networks as marketplaces.
One of countless examples is SolarCity, founded by Lyndon and Peter Rive, two brothers who previously started a software company they sold to Dell. The Silicon Valley company became a fast-growing phenomenon by creating a residential solar purchasing program that encouraged neighbors to join together to receive special group pricing incentives on solar installations.
It's a classic dot-com play: Break through the barriers of the incumbent business mind-set, in this case by using the power of human networks to do viral marketing on the company's behalf, thereby short-circuiting the marketing and sales cycles. SolarCity has attracted major investors, including Elon Musk, the brains behind PayPal.
And then there's Sungevity, another solar company, this one founded by two brothers-in-arms, Danny Kennedy and J.P. Ross, both ex-Greenpeace activists turned solar entrepreneurs. Their company similarly brings dot-com smarts to the relatively staid world of solar energy. It works like this: Simply enter your address on Sungevity's Web site. Within 24 hours (more or less), you'll get a complete analysis of your home's solar potential, including a proposal for three different types of solar systems and a picture of what your house will look like with each. You'll also get complete financial analyses of the three systems, a contract, and all the paperwork.
All this used to take at least two site visits, usually over several weeks. Sungevity uses Web and mapping technology (similar to Google Earth) to calculate your home's solar profile -- how much sunlight it gets, whether that sunlight is shaded in ways that negatively affect its exposure to the sun, and other factors -- and automates a heretofore heavily manual, paper-based process. Such a smart, automated system seems like a no-brainer -- but then again, no one has done it previously.
Another smart, automated player is mkDesigns, founded by Michelle Kaufman, an architect who previously worked with Frank Gehry and Michael Graves -- renowned architects known for out-of-the-box thinking. The company has created affordable prefabricated green housing that breaks the mold for how people think about either. mkDesigns creates custom homes built in factories, which sounds like an oxymoron but actually makes a lot of sense. By building the core of each home in a controlled factory environment, the company is able to reduce costs, improve quality, and take advantage of economies of scale. On site, the homes are customized -- they can be one story or many, small or large, even sizable multifamily structures. You'd never know their factory origins.
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SolarCity deal
Actually there is recent good news for the brothers from SolarCity. Not only have they succesfully sold a business to Dell; now, they have gotten First Solar to invest $25 million in SolarCity. The deal calls for First Solar to deliver 100 megawatts worth of solar panels to SolarCity over five years beginning in the first quarter of 2009. I learned this reading:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/first-solar-invests-in-solarcity-...
Joel, you are great. thanks for sharing all of your valuable insights into the field of cleantech. Can't wait to read your book!
There are other Entrepreneurs beyond Solar
One company in Wantagh, NY has been working on some insteresting green solutions from a a net energy gain perspective.
You can find information about their initial idea here:
http://www.amilabs.com/news.htm
Agilewaves
There's another pretty cool company doing pretty cool things...Agilewaves
Nau and Again...
Joel, thanks for highlighting Nau's story. Our original approach was not, as you point out, ultimately successful. But while your book was at the publisher we managed to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and with learning's in our back pocket re-launch the business. We partnered with Horny Toad, a Santa Barbara based apparel company. On October 21 we launched our new website and introduced our Fall 08 line. Our fundamental philosophy about the way we do business has not changed, although parts of our business model have. The one material change is that we will not be re-opening our own stores but instead distributing our product in partnership with select retailers. Maybe this next phase of our journey will provide some relevant content for your next book.
http://www.nau.com/
Ian
Correct MK Designs web site link
http://www.mkd-arc.com
Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is often difficult and tricky, resulting in many new ventures failing. The word entrepreneur is often synonymous with founder. Most commonly, the term entrepreneur applies to someone who creates value by offering a product or service, by carving out a niche in the market that may not exist currently. Entrepreneurs tend to identify a market opportunity and exploit it by organizing their resources effectively to accomplish an outcome that changes existing interactions within a given sector. Some observers see them as being willing to accept a high level of personal, professional or financial risk to pursue opportunity. Business entrepreneurs are viewed as fundamentally important in the capitalistic society. Some distinguish business entrepreneurs as either "political entrepreneurs" or "market entrepreneurs," while social entrepreneurs' principal objectives include the creation of a social and/or environmental benefit.Meanwhile had you heard about Shop it To Me? Well Shop it To Me is a free service that you can sign up for to find clothes on sale. For those of us who don't want to contemplate getting instant payday loans because we need a couple of shirts, Shop it To Me is a great idea. We are aware that some of you feel a moral obligation to pay the full price that some suit in New York thinks you should pay for it. You have to wonder though when those same suits get stock options and the poor maltreated people that slave for them get virtually no reward. But, if you like to find bargains on clothes – made in factories thousands of miles away from the same material as the stuff at Wal Mart – then Shop it To Me might be for you.
Rule changers
Fantasic to see this line-up of people who want to do things differently and change or break the rules to get things done. The world needs advocates and idealists, but IMO opinion it needs this breed of people more.
Internet Marketing Guy
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