Events
State of Green Business 2009 Report - A Review
March 9th, 2009 by Bill BarenRecently Joel Makower, executive editor and chairman of GreenBiz.com, and his team of editors unveiled the second annual State of Green Business Report. The report looks at data behind 20 indicators to find out how companies are doing in creating changes in environmental issues. It’s an comprehensive report with invaluable information for all businesses. If you haven’t yet, be sure to get your copy of State of Green Business Report.
“This year’s update is a mixed bag of encouraging and discouraging news,” says Joel Makower, the report’s principal author. “But on balance, despite a growing chorus of corporate commitments and actions, we’re less optimistic that these activities, in aggregate, are addressing planetary problems at sufficient scale and speed.”
The report shows that despite the slumping economy, green businesses have continued to grow. On the flip side, environmental improvements being made are still low, which is cause for serious concern.
Some statistics/trends I found interesting:
- Our continued love affair with our cars. According to the report the number of solo commuters has inched down from 77.8% in 2003 to 76.1% in 2007
- Consumers’ distrust of companies offering sustainable alternatives despite their desire to lessen their carbon footprint
- Our inability to deal with our e-waste properly and in a sustainable way
- We have decreased our packaging use (as slight as it may be) using less aluminum, plastics, cardboard and other materials per dollar of GDP
- We have decreased our paper use by 27% less paper per dollar of GDP over the last decade and increased the amount of recycled paper - also by 27%
- We are steadily increasing our energy efficiency.
I know how much work goes into a report like this, so I sincerely appreciate the efforts of Joel Makower and his team at GreenBiz.com. I look forward to what we can do with the info in this report NOW - and how this effort will influence the 2010 report.
Upcoming Green Business Events 2008
October 11th, 2008 by Patrick Dominguez
Save the date - many exciting green and socially responsible business events and conferences are just around the corner! To keep you, our audience, in the know, Green Business Innovators has put together a diverse list of green/socially responsible business events, forums, festivals and conferences happening throughout North America over the next couple of months. Get out there, and get green!
If your green business event is missing from this list, please share the details of your event by submitting a comment below. Cheers! (And a special thanks to Kate Krueger for compiling this list)
October 13, 2008
Social Capital Markets
San Francisco, CA
At SoCap08, attendees will learn what works and what doesn’t in this new world of social capital and social entrepreneurs, which hybrid social & business models reach sustainability and which don’t, and where this emerging industry is headed. Attendees will be able to network with their peers, discovering a whole new realm of people they had hoped existed - organizations, groups, and individuals who share the same intention to launch and support sustainable businesses designed to impact global and local problems. Investors and entrepreneurs will find themselves helping to build a new community, gaining encouragement as they realize that they are not alone, but are part of something big, important - and rapidly growing.
Event Website: http://socialcapitalmarkets.net/index.php
Speaker Lineup: http://socialcapitalmarkets.net/speakers.php
October 14, 2008
Sustainable Industries Economic Forum
Portland, OR
In a stormy and unprecedented economic climate, businesses large and small are pursuing economic advantage through ambitious environmental innovation and social responsibility. The West Coast — Portland, Seattle and San Francisco in particular — is home to successful business thought leaders who have long understood the economic potential of sustainability. Still, tough viability questions and real economic context are sorely lacking, as are authentic, inspirational events that capture the true opportunity in going “beyond green.” Sustainable Industries helps address this need with our annual, reputable Sustainable Industries Economic Forums.
Event Page & Speaker Lineup: http://www.sustainableindustries.com/forums/portland
October 14-16, 2008
Associations and Social Responsibility: Carrying the Movement Forward
Online Summit
Hosted by ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership, the Global Summit on Social Responsibility united more than 800 association professionals and stakeholders in Washington, DC and 19 connected locations around the world and online to co-create a social responsibility agenda for the future of the association profession. The Project Action Teams that emerged from this pioneering event have refined their goals, outlined necessary action steps, and broadened their recruitment of colleagues and other organizations ready to move beyond conversation to actual identification of the business opportunities and substantive impact of positive change-making for a just and healthy world. Join ASAE & The Center, Appreciative Inquiry creator and Professor David Cooperrider, Ph.D.; and the iCohere/OvationNet Team as they facilitate an always-available, online-only summit, Associations and Social Responsibility: Carrying the Movement Forward, that marks the next leg in our sector’s journey toward greater sustainability.
Event Page: http://www.icohere.com/gssr/index.htm
Speaker Lineup: http://www.icohere.com/gssr/presenters.htm
Deviants Unite!
September 30th, 2008 by Bill Baren
(reporting from the trenches of the West Coast Green Conference in San Jose, CA)
I am sitting and eagerly awaiting Al Gore’s arrival for his keynote address at the San Jose Convention Center, the location of the West Coast Green Conference. I am secretly hoping that what he is about to say is somehow different from what I have heard him say before. I want to hear, Al Gore, the thought leader. Yes, I do want him to inspire, but more than anything I want to see someone in his position be able to give us a blueprint of a solution that he believes will get us out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. It’s time for the business community to be the solution and we need a leader with a simple, yet-cohesive plan. Industry by industry we can radically change and that change has to happen now.
So it was a good kick in the pants to hear Jerry Brown and Al Gore clearly direct us all to be leaders. Each one of us needs to be a change agent of the new movement arising out of a system that is currently failing. It’s failing itself and it’s failing the people in it.
Jerry Brown literally called us out. He said that visionaries tend not to run for office and so it’s up to us to be visionaries, not the politicians. It’s up to us to be the deviants. If we don’t deviate from the current culture, we will die with the culture. We need a big shake-up to create even a minimal shift.
Jerry Brown was a hard act to follow, but Al was up to the task of proving that he is the spokesperson for the greatest challenge facing mankind. The crowd noise was deafening and the energy was palpable as he walked onto the stage. What I love about Al Gore speech was that it was obviously more than a speech He is deeply passionate about global transformation and facing the climate crisis head on. He lives it and breathes it. And it is certainly infectious.
“If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far, go together” is an African proverb that Vice President Gore loves to change up a bit. Yes, we now need to go quickly and we need to go far.
“Enough baby steps!” So what’s the plan for going quickly and for going for in the sustainability movement?
To have a plan one needs to have a goal. It’s time for a bold approach. Al proposed to embrace the goal of having the U.S. produce and source 100% of our electricity from renewable resources and clean technology within the next 10 years. He talked about restructuring our entire electrical grid and empowering households to know where they are wasting energy. Gore also pointed out that we need to develop the technology to transmit energy (with less loss than now) from places where it’s cheap to create to urban centers where energy resources are more scarce.
“It’s time for us to make up our mind that we can provide this kind of independent energy leadership to the rest of the world. There’s been this bail out of the financial market. Well I think we need a ‘bail in’ of renewable energy and green building. I actually do think that the green revolution is the solution to the financial crisis, the national security crisis, the debt crisis, and the climate crisis.”
Martin Luther King once said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The same applies to the current climate crisis - increase of CO2 emissions anywhere is a threat to people everywhere.
Here’s an outline of Gore’s proposed solution:
20% - way of the way we deal with forests
25% - efficiency and conservation, including new ways of thinking
55% - new energy source with a new energy infrastructure
Yes, the situation is currently grim and the road ahead seems long and arduous. “So how do we maintain an adequate amount of hope in the crisis? … by being a part of the solution. Being on the sidelines doesn’t work.
“All the bad news can be depressing. But where there’s danger and challenge, there is an opportunity.
There are millions of people who are going through personal transformation – seeing with their hearts and with their minds the need for change.
As more people realize this, there will come a moment. There will come a time when there’s a monumental shift.
We will find that we are in the effective majority of people who are actively shaping the future. There will be a new way of thinking and new consciousness of who we are as human beings.”
We can all breathe a sigh of relief, Al Gore is still the “deviant” on the case.