Recently I attended the Cleantech Open Expo and Awards Gala at the Masonic Center. Thousands of people turned out including an all star cast of speakers: Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar at Google, Steve Westly, former CFO of the State of California and Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic.
This event is considered the Academy Awards of Cleantech. There was no red carpet or paparazzi but the audience got to have their American Idol moment by voting for the winners for a $100K prize of start-up services. The grand prize, valued at $250,000, including $100,000 of seed capital, was to be awarded to the business plan competition winner who had been selected in secret by judges the previous day.
The finalists were in the audience, and the stakes were high.
To get to the event, I took BART to Civic Center to catch the shuttle bus. I was looking forward to my second ride ever on the famous Bauer shuttle bus that transports Google employees (and raises San Francisco real estate prices along its routes). I was the only person when I got to the pick-up spot but the driver assured me I was in the right pace. He said I was free to help myself to coffee or bottled water in the back. Huh? I’ve never been to a Green event that offered bottled water. On the bus, I took a seat and looked around. I was the only person on the bus.
A few minutes later, the bus took off and I was still the only passenger leaving me to wonder: how did everyone else get to the event?
I arrived at the Masonic Center and was impressed with the turn out. Lots of people where there, and it was a different crowd than most Green events. The men were wearing suites, even some ties, and women were wearing heels, gowns and jewels. Well, not quite, but it was a different crowd. No one was carrying a Clean Kanteen water bottle.
I checked-in and walked through the lobby. There I came face to face with a surprise, a Chevron booth. I’ve never been to an event where Chevron was the sponsor. I didn’t know what to say. I stood face to face with the booth for a few moments, then made my way into the dark theater to gather my thoughts.
Inside the theater, videos of finalists were screening. Based on the videos, the audience voted on companies, and in between, speakers made presentations. It was hard for me to determine the most deserving project. I tried to vote on the underlying ideas rather than on the quality of videos, which varied dramatically. There was no scientific review. I felt unqualified to vote, but I did.
For the rest of the afternoon, I sat in the dark and I watched the Cleantech pageant in all its glory. There was a lot of excitement and positive energy in the theater, especially when the finalists made their pitches. Others have reviewed these presentations. (For example, see Reuters and Sustainable Business.) I’d like to focus on the experience of being in the theater.
I felt a disconnect between the Cleantech world and the Green or sustainable world of permaculture, conservation, recycled materials and watershed management. The A-list speakers discussed social change, changing the arc of human history and a revolution in our lives. To me, however, most of the technologies presented didn’t map on to these big picture ideas. Many of the technologies presented seemed like band-aids to existing problems, others seem like they will enable us to maintain our current standard of living using less energy. Is this the revolution?
I believe that technology is an important part of the solution. I also believe that there needs to be a bridge between technological innovation and social innovation in order to realize some meaningful change. This is where I hope Green21 can play a role. At the end of the day, when I took the Bauer shuttle bus back to BART, I was encouraged to see that I wasn’t the only one on the bus – there were about seven or eight other people. And no one was drinking bottled water
“River of Renewal” is an award winning documentary that will air on PBS stations beginning October 25. Produced by Stephen Most, Jack Kohler and Steve Michelson, “River of Renewal” won Best Documentary Award at the American Indian Film Festival.
Conflict over water & wildlife in the Klamath Basin turned farmers and ranchers against American Indians and salmon fishermen in Oregon and California. But after lawsuits and winner-take-all politics brought disaster to the farms, the fish, and the fisheries, these stakeholders came together to forge a consensus for the common good. Will the future witness the extinction of salmon in what was once North America’s third greatest salmon-producing river? Or the restoration of the Klamath as a home for life?
“River of Renewal” is scheduled to air on KQED in San Francisco 11/15 at 6 pm (check PBS Air Dates for other stations and locations). Writer and producer Stephen Most is also a member of the Green21 team, and he’ll be blogging at this spot next week (Nov 10). Check back then, or subscribe to green21.org on your RSS feed reader!
At the West Coast Green conference earlier this month, Ray Anderson told the story of Interface Carpet: how a small manufacturer in Atlanta Georgia became a market leader while reducing the enormous waste of energy and materials inherent in commercial carpeting by completely rethinking the process. I’d heard the story many times before — beginning with the 1999 book “Natural Capitalism” by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins — but this was the first time I’d seen Anderson speak. I appreciated his graceful demeanor, somewhere between a wise and humble Sunday School teacher and an inspiring captain of industry.
At the same time, I was wondering: aren’t there any new stories on the feasibility of large-scale greening? As if in answer to my question, keynote speaker Andrew Winston followed with a presentation that was uplifting, intelligent and often humorous. He described some excellent case studies, of which I’ve summarized a few below.
Drive smarter:
Con-Way freight estimates that their lowering the maximum speed of its truck fleet from 65 to 62 mph will save the company 3.2 million gallons of gas. At peak 2008 prices, that’s $15 million, or over 20% of Con-Way’s net income that year. And they found that the fewer stops to refill the tank equalled out the time loss in driving slower.
And my favorite: UPS redesigned its routes to eliminate left turns, since waiting to cross traffic wastes time, energy and fuel. The savings on “No Left Turn”? $3 million per year.
Turn the lights off:
Disney has started turning the lights off at night, on its theme park icons such as the Tree of Life, the castles, the big ball at Epcot. In addition to saving millions of kilowatt hours, it will also send a strong signal to guests as they see the park shutting down for the night. “Hmm, honey, maybe we should have turned the lights off at the motel…”
Open the door:
We think of computers as somehow being much less energy intensive than industrial machinery, but data centers are emerging as a major energy sink. As Winston says, “there’s a persistent (and believable) rumor that Google is the largest single energy user in the state of California.” Yet less than 4 percent of the energy use of a modern server farm is actual processing — the rest is cooling and keeping idle machines running. (This is reminiscent of Amory Lovins’ calculation that only 1% of a car’s energy use actually goes toward propelling the driver.)
Solutions? ”Outside air economization” or letting some of the hot air out instead of relying entirely on cooling systems. Also, “add the power bill to the CIO’s budget” — basically letting major energy users know just how much energy they’re using, and giving them an incentive to do something about it.
For more detail on these, and other case studies and insights, check out Andrew Winston’s new book Green Recovery, from Harvard Business Press, or the 30 page excerpt Green Cost Cutting which is available as a free download on his website.
Winston’s message is a powerful one: going green can be an investment, not a cost, and in many cases the pay back comes within one or two years. And if they choose not to invest in sustainable solutions, especially with respect to energy, companies are putting themselves as well as the planet at risk. Just compare Toyota today with their competition in Detroit.
Still, sifting through these examples, I had to wonder: the more sustainable course of action is not always the more profitable one, especially in the short term. Hopefully these stories are all part of a large scale shift in thinking, that will enable us to choose sustainable solutions even when there isn’t an immediate profit incentive to do so.
Green21 is excited to connect with sustainability advisors and leaders who share our mission and support our efforts. Please contact me (jennifer@green21.org) to add your signature to this letter.
[click here for the full text version]
[click here for the full pdf version]
(left to right) Ken Eklund, Denise Zmekhol, Kevin Kanarek, Jennifer Thompson
Green21 was featured at the Green Software Unconference at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA on Wednesday, August 19th. A special thank you to Mary Vincent of Green Star Solution for bringing together an amazing group of green software developers, engineers, entrepreneurs and social media producers. The event’s major sponsor was CSRware, makers of carbon and sustainability management programs.
Jennifer delivered the keynote address. She described how social attitudes have changed radically over the past 50 years, and she named two key factors in that change: 1) media, which offers new paradigms, and 2) peer influences, in other words modeling our behavior on those around us. In the case of climate change and sustainability, however, we don’t have 50 years. By combining elements of both the media and peer influence models, we hope that social media can facilitate even faster change in the near future. Jennifer then cited the work of Paul Hawken, showing how many disparate groups working toward sustainability and social justice can be seen as different facets of a single movement. She concluded by paraphrasing one of Hawken’s more inspiring points:
If you look at the scientific data you can’t help but be pessimistic, otherwise you don’t understand the data; but if you meet the people who are working to create real change, you can’t help but be optimistic.
After this speech, Green21 Director/Producer Denise Zmekhol screened the video she created with Google Earth Outreach “Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops” which explores how the internet and GPS technology is being used by indigenous peoples to monitor the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest. The audience had many questions, including the implications of a society moving from the stone age to the internet age in the space of 40 years, and work of the Surui leaders to gain access to the carbon offset market.
Green21’s Director of Game Design Ken Eklund, creator of the groundbreaking massively collaborative game “World Without Oil,” led a session on alternate reality games and social issues. Ken is developing the Green21 game “Lifeboat,” an alternate reality game that encourages participants to contribute their own experiences and discoveries, opening new paths to consensus and action. Ken and Jennifer were then briefly interviewed on the topic by Dee McCorey. On another short video, I discuss how Green21’s online ecosystem will bridge diverse communities that don’t often get to communicate directly over the critical issues of sustainability and climate change.
All in all, the unconference format allowed for spontaneous discussions and workshops at a manageable scale. This event offered the ideal forum for connecting with people who are working at the intersection of technology, sustainability and social change.
Green21 is a media project that I’ve been developing for the past two years. My goal is to bring a narrative to the environmental, sustainable and social justice movement. Green21 started out as an idea for a public television series, and my business partner Cynthia Zeiden has secured broadcast distribution with American Public Television.
In the process of developing the content for the 13-part broadcast series, I needed input from experts. I contacted a number of people and finally got a meeting with Dr. Stephen Schneider at Stanford University. When I first met with Dr. Schneider, he said Green21 is an ambitious project — and that’s why he agreed to get involved. He introduced me to a number of our board members including Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and Richard Moss of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
While the content of the series was being vetted by scientists and thought-leaders, Green21’s online and social media strategy took off. With the help of Kevin Kanarek, Michael Holzer, Ken Ikeda and Andy Volk, we developed a multi-platform media initiative which bridges broadcast television and Web 2.0 — and all its implications such as geotagging, Creative Commons licensing, Twitter and YouTube. Thank you to everyone who has worked to get Green21 to this stage, especially our graphic designer Frank Dufay.
We welcome your suggestions and comments regarding the project or content proposed in the series. Currently we’re in the fundraising stage and hope to start filming in the Summer of 2009.
