It used to be that “going green” meant simple recycling, reusing, and reducing. It was a series of actions, a checklist of to-dos. Complete steps 1, 2, and 3, and congratulations, you’ve gone green! With the advent of technology and development in options and resources, possibilities have come about due to more of a shift in lifestyle and mentality, going deeper than just a mere checklist. The act of going green now calls for a more comprehensive understanding of your actions and consequences of those actions. No longer the simple task of recycling, the process of becoming more green and sustainable has broadened to a shift in mentality in the choices we make for our businesses and lifestyles.
The Social Venture Network is looking for the next generation of innovative, socially responsible business leaders and nonprofit entrepreneurs. And so, they’ve created the Innovation Awards program, dedicated to recognizing the leaders of emerging enterprises. Once these figures have been recognized, they will be immersed into the SVN community, providing them access to a network of 500 successful socially responsible business and nonprofit leaders, investors, and other resources and connections that can help them achieve success with their own enterprise.
Job creation. Innovation. U.S. competitiveness. In the eyes of the top CEOs in the U.S., before these goals become reality, the foundation of policies and comprehensive climate and energy legislation needs to be laid by those who reside in Washington D.C. As such, more than 80 CEOs from U.S. businesses, from eBay to PG&E to Virgin America, have sent a letter to President Obama and members of Congress asking them to create the impetus to achieve these goals by enacting climate and energy legislation.
In the webinar “Building a Balanced Sustainable Brand Strategy”, Peter Salmon talks about a platform that helps companies make the transition to more environmentally sustainable and efficient practices.
A summary of the second webinar in the Sustainable Brands Boot Camp series, Innovation Opportunities in Response to Today’s Environmental Hot Buttons: Climate Change, Water & Waste. The webinar was led by Will Sarni, CEO and founder of Domani Consulting, an integrated sustainability consulting firm, and featured examples of new, innovative business and product strategies from various markets that are successfully being brought to market in response to emerging environmental and social strains.
The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Monday that its U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will pilot a year-long program to accelerate the examination of certain “green” technology patent applications by as much as one year. The new initiative is designed to speed the development and deployment of green technology, create green jobs, and promote U.S. competitiveness. In particular, the program focuses on patents for renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, plus other environmental technologies.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced more than $18 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support small business innovation research, development, and deployment of clean energy technologies. In this first phase of funding, 125 grants of up to $150,000 each will be awarded to 107 small advanced technology firms across the United States.
The AlwaysOn Network recently announced their Third Annual List of the GoingGreen 100 Top Private Companies of 2009. The award recognizes the top private greentech companies that are creating new business opportunities and transforming the world’s largest industries to improve sustainability.Among the hundreds of companies evaluated, They selected the Oakland California-based, Brightsource Energy, a provider of solar energy to utility companies, as the overall winner.
We’re doing a remodeling project which includes installing a new roof. Here in California, we get a lot of sun, so the impact of solar irradiance on solar heat gain is a major concern — either for A/C costs (and thus peak summer energy loads) or on comfort (for those of us who don’t have A/C). Thus, I’ve been looking into solar reflectivity and what has been called the “cool roofs“ movement. There is the Cool Roof Rating Council, “created in 1998 to develop accurate and credible methods for evaluating and labeling the solar reflectance and thermal emittance (radiative properties) of roofing products and to disseminate the information to all interested parties.”
