This weekend, the Bright Green Talent team had the pleasure of attending a panel at RMI2009 that consisted of the following environmental heavyweights: Amory Lovins: Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute; Ray Anderson: Founder and Chairman, Interface; Carl Bass: President and CEO, Autodesk; Janine Benyus: Author, Founder of Biomimicry Guild; and  Paul Hawken: Author of Natural Capitalism.

Though all the panelists had incredibly interesting insight to share, Ray Anderson stood out to me with his perspective on how integrating sustainability can improve a business, such as he has seen with Interface.

Here’s a cliff notes version of what he talked about:

• The “inevitability of the environmental movement”: “Once you get it, you get it.” He pointed out that he’d never met an ex-environmentalist; that is to say, environmentalism is a lens through which you come to see and understand the world, and once you get there, you can’t go back to ignoring environmental externalities and separating growth from resource limitations.
• The business case for integrating sustainability: For Interface, Anderson said: costs are down, products are better, the people are galvanized, and they’ve received good will from the marketplace. I thought the third point was especially interesting - he talked about how he’s been able to motivate Interface’s employees behind the product and the company, and how each is now an evangelist for the company.
• Biggest dishonesty in the market: lack of carbon pricing and acknowledging externalities.
• The state of the green business movement: “still in the stage of early movers and fast followers.” The key will be continuing to push growth and competition so that the whole industry and marketplace is integrating sustainability.
• Wise words for businesses: “Play to win, rather than not to lose.” He’s been focusing on sensitizing stakeholders, employees, and everyone else to environmental issues to establish Interface as an industry leader.
• Wise words for individuals: “Brighten the corner where you are, and then make that corner as big as possible.”

Of course, we don’t want to discount the advice and perspective of the other illustrious panelists.

• Janine Benyus, the biomimicry thought leader, brought up the shift in the environmental movement that she had perceived from scientists learning about nature to learning from nature. She believes there’s been a democratization of innovation - that small, innovative companies are going to break through and help lead the change.
• Paul Hawken talked about mobilizing the younger generations, his recent commencement speech (worth a read!), and his view on the inaccuracies of macroeconomics (memorable remark to an econ student’s question: “don’t worry about the macroeconomists; one coffin at a time”).
• Carl Bass of Autodesk talked about integrating sustainability into Autodesk’s programs in order to make sustainability accessible and scalable for designers around the world, and his belief in disruptive innovation.
• Amory Lovins spoke about his work with RMI (and how he’d worked alongside a lot of the other companies represented on the panel), as well as the importance of emphasizing hope over despair: “hope requires fearlessness.”

Some other coverage of the event:

• GreenBiz: Reinventing Fire
• Watch the RMI2009 site for videos and other materials from the event.
• Ray Anderson’s new book: Confessions of a Radical Industrialist

Buried in Time Magazine’s September 21 issue, whose lead story was “Out of Work in America” (sigh…), is a feature section on service in America. The section includes a few interesting articles - such as “The Responsibility Revolution” about responsible consumers, “25 Responsibility Pioneers” (which includes a number of our past and present clients), and an interview with President Obama and Michelle Obama around the concept of service in the United States.

While a lot of the content in there and initiatives featured are not new news to people who’ve been in this space for awhile, we take it as a heartening sign that these great companies - RecycleBank, Interface, CleanFish, among others - are getting national mainstream attention.

Another interesting theme that runs throughout is the idea of bringing public responsibility and “citizenship” back to the fore - Time’s poll reported that 68% of respondents thought most Americans do not live up to their responsibilities as citizens, 75% would pay $2000 more to buy a car that gets better gas mileage, and 46% think teh government should require stores to charge for plastic bags in order to encourage use of reusable bags.

This is, of course, all well and good, and more evidence of a heartening trend towards social responsibility at large. We just have to hope that people will actually go out of their way to do and pay for these things. Thomas Friedman’s 2007 editorial on Generation Q comes to mind- how millennials are replacing online activism and mouse-clicking with actual committed activism. There’s a lot to act out on and communicate to businesses and decision-makers - it’s on all of us to make sure we’re not just sitting back and hoping someone else will buy organic or lobby their company to initiate greener practices.

All in all, worth a read - if mostly for the inspiration from the 25 Responsibility Pioneers who’ve taken their beliefs to heart and to business to try to offer consumers more responsible options.

Image: Time Magazine

There’s been a lot of buzz about the sustainable transport industry - rounds of funding and stimulus promise bring hope that the industry will grow out and create jobs where they’ve been lost in Detroit. Just recently, General Motors announced that the Chevy Volt would get 230 mpg - a claim that has provoked a fair amount of conversation.

We found this great article about 30 Electric Vehicle Companies  Ready to Take Over the Road by Chris Morrison on GreenBeat. A few below… click the link to see all 30.

30 electric cars companies ready to take over the road

January 10, 2008 | Chris Morrison

It’s official: Green car madness has taken over. After seeing more electric and hybrid vehicle startups than we could keep track of, we finally decided to start keeping count.

We’ve compiled a list, below, of 27 (update: the list has reached 30; thanks for the comments) startups, listed according to their release date, with additional information on fuel type, range, top speed and price. Most haven’t yet taken venture funding, but where applicable, we’ve listed financial backing.

While we’ve got some overall favorites (Miles, Tesla, Think) and a few favorite oddballs (Aptera, Commuter Cars, Eliica), we’ve for the most part withheld judgement. Still, if you have any of your own predictions about which companies will succeed or — far more likely — fail, we’d encourage you to make them known in the comments.

A note on our method: While most manufacturers are planning more than one model, we chose the one that seemed either most commercially viable or closest to release, depending on our own (discretionary) formula. We didn’t included well-known consumer models like the Toyota Prius or Chevy Volt, or startups like AC Propulsion that only do battery conversions for consumer vehicles. We also rounded the price to the nearest thousand.

All details are taken from the companies, so we haven’t independently confirmed things like range and top speed details. In case we missed any, mention them below and we’ll add them to the list.

American Electric Vehicle — Kurrent
Update: Defunct, according to a comment below, although they seem to still be for sale. We’re looking into it.
AEV advises its potential drivers to “Slow down,” which seems like wise advice, given the golf cart-inspired design. Still, it’s ridiculously cheap.
Fuel type: All-electric
Price: $10K
Range / top speed: 40 miles / 25mph
Release date: Available now

Commuter Cars — Tango T600
The Tango is even odder than three-wheeled designs, in some ways: It’s less than half the width of a normal car, and two can fit in a single lane. It also accelerates like a bat out of hell. Future versions are planned to be much cheaper, and have longer ranges.
Fuel type: All-electric
Price: $108K
Range / top speed: 80 miles / 150mph
Funding: Less than $1 million in angel backing; open to venture funding.
Release date: Available now

Read more.

Penned by Tom

It’s always good to look at the bottom-line when assessing the environmental movement. There are a plethora of interesting success stories which demonstrate to executives the importance and benefits of going green, even if you’re a climate-change denier. Here are a few examples from Sustainable Business Consulting:

• A Global cleaning products company maximized natural lighting, installed occupancy sensors and enabled employees to control heating and cooling at their work stations. The ROI: Saved nearly $100,000 a year.
• A Fortune 500 global technology company gave employees the option to telecommute from home. The ROI: Saved $67.8 million in real estate costs in just one year and reduced 29,000 tons of CO2 emissions, and increased worker productivity by 34 percent.
• A 41-story, Class A+ office building with 1,000,000 square feet of office space located in the US reduced unnecessary after-hours and weekend lighting and initiated a high efficiency lighting retrofit. The ROI: Saved $386,000 in annual operating expenses.
• A Global cleaning products company restored native and drought tolerant plants, such as prairie grass and wild flowers, to the site. ROI: Saved $2,000 per acre in annual maintenance costs.
• A Global forest products company encouraged employees to commute using vanpools, carpools, walking or biking. ROI: Reduced total vehicle miles driven by 1.2 million and reduced emissions by 66,884 pounds of CO2 in one year.
• A US-based independent federal agency developed an advanced preventative maintenance inspection process for its delivery fleet. The ROI: Saved $3 million and 330,000 quarts of oil to date.
• A Cancer research center utilized off-hour lighting, fan shutoffs, occupancy sensors, high-efficiency chillers, L.E.D. exit signs, heat recovery from washers and efficient lighting. The ROI: Saved $317,000 annually, which is enough electricity to power 1,200 homes annually.
• A Medical center sent used toner cartridges to a recycling company that refurbishes and refills them. The ROI: Saved $20,000 annually.
• A Healthcare company recycled more than 6,000 tons of paper, plastic, glass and aluminum waste. The ROI: Saved more than $300,000 in disposal costs, diverted more than 18,000 cubic yards form landfills.
• A Major US-based retailer changed the specifications for individual item packaging and reduced the quantity of excess pins clips, bags, paperboard inserts, tape and tissue paper in its items. The ROI: Saved an estimated $4.5 million in labor costs and eliminated approximately 1.5 million pounds of waste.

Posted by Nick

The New York Times ran an article that featured biodegradable household products. Worth mentioning, primarily because though one hand more sustainable, there’s also the potential that they deepen our (American) proclivity for conspicuous consumerism under the auspices of responsible shopping. I’m also concerned–as the article duly notes–about the concept of family heirlooms and keepsakes, which deepen family bonds and serve as the physical embodiment of oral traditions. Should everything we physically surround ourselves with eventually go kaput!, one has to wonder whether we find ourselves enjoying inner peace or suffering from utter despair…