The six keys to driving change in a conservative corporate culture include: top-level support; management-level and administrative support; minimal risk; a clear path; bottom-line value; and political awareness.

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.

The RES Alliance for Jobs, a coalition of America’s renewable energy companies and national renewable energy associations, has released a new study showing that a 25% by 2025 national Renewable Electricity Standard would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the United States. The “Jobs Impact of a National Renewable Electricity Standard” study found that a 25% by 2025 national RES would result in 274,000 more renewable energy jobs over no-national RES policy. This additional employment is equivalent to 2.36 million additional job-years by 2025. The study found that new jobs would be supported by renewable energy in every region of the United States. While the biomass, hydropower and waste-to-energy industries would see significant job gains in the Southeast, the states of the Great Plains and Midwest would employ thousands developing their wind resources and the Western United States would see job gains in its solar and hydropower industries. Without stronger near-term targets than currently envisioned, the study found that industries like wind will experience flat job growth and long-term stagnation, while the U.S. biomass industry could collapse altogether. The Alliance recommends that aggressive near and long-term federal RES targets should be pursued in order to attract manufacturing investment in the sector and to ensure global competitiveness of the U.S. renewable energy industry.

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.

The debate surrounding global climate change has been a very hot button issue for the past few years. In most cases the average person doesn’t know enough about the science behind this issue to make an informed decision. The fact is that climate change will become a major issue within the next two decades and will have a host of environmental as well as economic impacts in the United States. Climate change will play a major role in the way our economy functions as well as the way our legislators make decisions.

A well-crafted green lease provides an opportunity to improve landlord/tenant collaboration on sustainability issues, leading to increased building performance, including energy efficiency. Green commercial leases provide incentives to reduce energy use and water, and increase recycling and the use of sustainable materials. A green lease detailing the sustainable use of a building by landlord and tenant is critical to the performance of a green building.

After feed-in tariff legal uncertainty, a January 2010 report by the National Regulatory Research Institute finds that states can successfully and legally implement feed-in tariff programs to accelerate renewable energy projects.

The Sustainable Energy Fellowship is a unique learning experience for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students in engineering, business and the sciences who are considering a career involving energy. The program is June 2- 9, 2010 at Cornell University. Deadline for application is March 1, 2010.

There has been growing talk about a clean-tech race between China and the U.S., often cast in ominous tones. But the quest to develop and implement renewable energy can be one where both nations win.