Current Savers Blog

– Laura Zizzo is a partner at Zizzo Allan Climate Law LLP. Any views expressed here are her own. –

There is an important race occurring in capitals, factories and research facilities across the globe.

It’s a high-stakes race that will determine two very important things: whether we will be able to respond to climate change in time to avoid catastrophe, and which economies will be the clean energy/low-carbon superpowers.

Because this race — let’s call it a climate-friendly cycling race — is long and we had a delayed start, many racers are hesitant to pull out from the pack and risk an uncompetitive burn out.

We can all get further and go faster by sticking together. We generally agree that more speed is necessary, but the best cyclist, the United States, the one with the strongest legs and the most first-place victories seems confused.

Others want to speed up, but they cannot do it without her. Additionally, it seems that the pack is reordering and it looks like the U.S. is falling farther and farther behind.

Those of us with our eyes on climate issues and world wide carbon markets were not exactly holding our breath as we waited for draft climate legislation to come out of the Senate this week, but we were hopeful.

The bi-partisan bill referred to as KGL (Kerry Graham Lieberman) is heavily supported by industry. Although imperfect, it would help to establish a long-term price on carbon emissions and provide some certainty to investors.

The release of any legislation on climate from the Senate has been delayed and one of the key drafters, Senator Lindsey Graham, pulled out of negotiations, citing leadership priorities.

In particular, he is miffed that Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid decided to push immigration reform before the KGL bill, even though there is no immigration bill ready to support. So we continue to wait, and hope.

If the KGL bill can be reinvigorated, we might expect a focus on the electricity sector and limited emissions caps across other selected sectors. There will be additional work to do in its wake. If the bill fails, a more piecemeal approach to the issues it attempts to legislate is still possible.

The Offset Bill proposed by Senator Debbie Stabenow and the Energy-Only Bill approved by Senator Jeff Bingaman’s Natural Resources Committee last year are possible alternatives to the more comprehensive approach of climate/energy/jobs found in the KGL bill, and may provide a starting point from which to build.

Even if a climate-related bill is released in time to be passed before the mid-term elections in November, a prospect that looks less likely with every passing day, it will likely leave many holes to be filled in the future.

More delays in the Senate mean more delays for industry, carbon market participants and policy-makers around the globe. The only way for the pack to start speeding up is for the U.S. to acknowledge its unique position as the world’s largest economy and largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases and display leadership.

Legislation on energy and climate in the U.S. is vital to the global response to climate change. Whether it embraces this or not, the U.S. response will drive action (or inaction) around the world.

The benefits aren’t strictly environmental.  If the U.S. can find a way to get back in front, it can determine the course and take the role it has historically been most comfortable with; that of a system-builder and leader, not merely a middle-of-the-pack follower.

The failure of the government to act is slowing down innovators and companies with confused signals and delayed responses. Market participants understand how to deal with risk and change, and they will respond if given parameters within which to do so. But the lack of even the most basic framework for dealing with climate issues in the United States is making it very difficult to develop a worldwide market that values innovative technologies and actions that reduce emissions.

It is also wreaking havoc on the global carbon market, and allowing the market to proliferate with low-value, unregulated credits – a development that could erode any confidence that remains in market-based mechanism. Clear laws and rules will drive cost effective action towards a low-carbon economy.

It appears world leaders are interested in acting under joint rules, but hesitant to get far out front alone. There is no viable alternative waiting in the wings and the trend is blatant. A lack of meaningful U.S. legislation results in uncertainty for industry and a stalled and ineffective global response.

In Copenhagen at the U.N. Climate Change negotiations last December, it was clear that the world would not embrace a global deal without U.S. participation. However, without legislation from Congress, the Obama administration could do little but consent to soft targets and agreements in principle.

It was clear that the U.S. has learned from its Kyoto Protocol experience, where the executive signed on to a treaty that the U.S. Congress never accepted, resulting in the abandonment of Kyoto , inaction and increased domestic tension on this issue. This time, U.S. legislation undoubtedly needs to be in place before the international community feels secure enough to develop any significant international treaty. At present, the international treaty-making process is at a standstill, and the recent Copenhagen Accord is insufficient.

From the desks of a climate law firm in Toronto, the effects of the U.S. Congress’ inaction are evident. The Canadian Government has indicated that it will not move forward on a national climate change strategy without some explicit action by the U.S., arguing it needs to act in concert with the U.S. on these matters (in large part due to trade competitiveness concerns).

In Australia, the Rudd government has indicated its Emissions Trading System (ETS) is indefinitely delayed. Australia’s Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong suggested that the ETS will not start in 2013, as planned, unless there is credible action by the end of 2012 from other major emitters, notably the U.S.

New Zealand’s ETS has already passed into law, but the government recently indicated that it will not expand the scheme beyond 2013 unless major trading partners have similar efforts.

Even the EU, which has led the pack thus far, is showing signs of fatigue. The EU ETS has been in operation since 2005 and has steadily increased in scope. It now covers more than 10,000 installations and close to half of the EU’s CO₂ emissions (40 per cent of its total greenhouse gases). Yet despite the scope of the EU ETS and statements by some EU government leaders advocating for unilaterally increasing emissions reductions targets, there is disagreement as to whether the EU can or should go it alone.

Recently Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed uncertainty about Germany’s ability to proceed with its planned climate leadership and signaled she no longer thinks that the EU can stay out in front by itself.

Regardless of the setbacks and delays in a coordinated global response, the science tells us unequivocally that we need innovation. That is why the incentives going to companies in regions that have made progress on greenhouse gasses are so important.

As the global response to climate change slows, some participants, notably the EU and China, blaze ahead in terms of their market dominance in sectors such as renewable energy and energy efficiency.

These actors are forging ahead and taking control of the new clean energy/low-carbon economy that will undoubtedly transform the world economy.

We are currently at a crossroads, with huge risks and opportunity ahead.

The strongest must get back in the race and create meaningful legislation that will help set the pace going forward. It may feel risky, but the true risk is making no decision at all.

______________________________

File photo shows a line of spectators waits to get into the Capitol Building in Washington February 12, 2001, for the final day of the Senate impeachment trial. REUTERS/Mark Wilson

Sphere: Related Content

– Willy Bemis is Kingsbury Director of Shoals Marine Laboratory, collaboratively operated by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire, and professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell. Any views expressed here are his own.–

Earth Day 2010 will be remembered for the explosion and fire on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, from which 11 workers are missing and presumed dead.

One week later, the resulting oil leak now seems certain to become one of the greatest ecological catastrophes in United States history.

From the first reports of the disaster that afternoon, I have been extremely worried about this prospect. In addition to ecological damage, the economy of Gulf Coast communities will be changed. Oil and gas workers, fishermen, tourists, and all manner of coastal businesses are already being affected.

Yesterday, Louisiana opened its shrimping season early so that shrimpers can fish before the slick’s arrival. This oil slick is not like a typical coastal hurricane, where people can begin to assess damage within hours or days after the storm.

This is more like a stationary hurricane that threatens to cause damage for a long time to come.

In many ways, we are lucky to have escaped such a major leak up to now. Offshore oil drilling has always carried the inherent risk of oil pollution. And there have always been spills.

But this leak is different because it will be difficult to stop. It is not like the Exxon Valdez, where the ship’s size placed an upper limit to the total possible volume of the spill. A major factor this time is water depth: the leak is nearly two miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where remotely operated submersibles are the only tools yet able to reach the site.

High tech as this sounds, submersibles now deployed may prove no match for the volume of oil leaking from the well, now estimated by NOAA at 210,000 gallons a day (5,000 barrels a day).  It may take additional drilling rigs and weeks or even months to stem the flow.

The newly declared federal state of emergency will mobilize new tools, but the emerging reality is that this leak is going to take a long time to fix. In the meantime, its scale continues to grow.

This leak is also different because of its proximity to the large and extraordinarily productive marshes and barrier island systems of the Gulf Coast.

Oil exploration and production in southern Louisiana had already crisscrossed these fragile habitats, contributing to the loss of coastal wetlands that makes hurricanes such a threat to New Orleans.

Now, petroleum contamination further threatens coastal wetlands. Miles of petroleum absorbing booms now being deployed may help limit damage, but the life of the Gulf of Mexico depends on these habitats, which provide nurseries for invertebrates and fishes that are the basis for the coast’s biological exuberance. Petroleum and animals – even microscopic animals – don’t mix.

Quite apart from pretroleum’s chemical toxicity, and the threat of biomagnifications of toxins through food webs, oil-contaminated animals have difficulty swimming, flying, eating, and breathing.

Videos of previous spills document the challenges of de-oiling seabirds: imagine the impact of a continuing slick of oil on crustaceans and larval fishes and all of the animals that depend on them for food.

Or consider the impacts to animals such as the endangered Kemp’s Ridley turtles, now foraging in the area of the spill off the Louisiana coast. One thing seems certain: we can expect damage to coastal and oceanic environments and food webs to reverberate long after the oil leak is stopped.

This leak is different because of its national political implications. Already there is new opposition to President Obama’s recently announced plan to open portions of the mid-Atlantic coast to offshore drilling. And, in the midst of congressional consideration of cap-and-trade regulations for reducing carbon emissions, this unprecedented oil leak may force all of us to think more carefully about the true costs of our carbon-based economy.

When I first visited southern Louisiana in 1976, it was hard not to be impressed with the sheer size of the equipment needed for offshore drilling.

I saw great towers being assembled and erected, and there was an understandable national urgency to pursue new American sources of oil in the era of OPEC oil embargos.

But even in 1976, domestic onshore petroleum production had already passed its peak, which is why the industry was moving offshore.

Beginning in 1997, I spent many happy summers on Dauphin Island, Alabama, a sliver of an island fringing Mobile Bay that the oil slick may reach this weekend. Rigs constantly move in and out of the bay for servicing, looking like Christmas trees at night.

Now, as we pass the global peak in oil production, there is global pressure to drill in deeper and deeper waters. New deepwater projects in countries with less stringent environmental regulations and capacity to cope with spills could mean a global future of catastrophes and leaks such as this one.

Eighteen months ago, Rahm Emanuel echoed the words of Paul Romer when he said: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Let’s be sure that this serious crisis helps America and the world realize that we are very near the end of the age of oil. And for the oceans, it can’t end soon enough.

_______________________

Image shows an oil slick (C) pictured off the Louisiana coast, in this Terra satellite image taken on April 29, 2010.  REUTERS/NASA/Handout

Sphere: Related Content

–Asher Miller is executive director of think tank Post Carbon Institute. Any opinion expressed here is his own.–

In the convoluted world of U.S. politics, a debate broke out last weekend over climate change and immigration, but not for the reasons you might think.

No, the debate wasn’t about how much internal migration might occur because of droughts, floods, and rising sea levels (imagine the Hurricane Katrina diaspora multiplied one hundred fold) or how many hundreds of millions of people around the world might attempt to cross borders in the coming decades as a result of the same climatic events.

No, the debate arose when Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) threatened to pull his support of a Senate climate bill he and Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lieberman (IND-CT) were about to announce because of Democrats’ plans to fast-track immigration reform.

Said Graham: “I want to bring to your attention what appears to be a decision by the Obama Administration and Senate Democratic leadership to move immigration instead of energy. Unless their plan substantially changes this weekend, I will be unable to move forward on energy independence legislation at this time. I will not allow our hard work to be rolled out in a manner that has no chance of success.”

He added, “Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is nothing more than a cynical political ploy.”

It’s not unusual for events to trigger seemingly unrelated outcomes or for politicians to use these as openings to advance an agenda, sometimes with great ingenuity.

In the midst of the Dust Bowl, Hugh Bennett—unsung American hero and founder of the Soil Conservation Service under President Roosevelt—let the dust do his talking for him.

In the days before air-conditioning, drinking water was kept cool by placing them in front of open windows in staff offices and hearing rooms. Knowing that a dust storm was about to descend on Washington, D.C., Bennett stalled his testimony in Room 333 of the Senate Office Building before bored and blank stares until a dust storm enveloped the nation’s capital, darkening the skies and caking the Senators’ water glasses with dust.

“This, gentlemen,” he told the committee, “is exactly what I am talking about.” They passed the Soil Conservation Act later that year.

Former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth tried something similar when he held hearings on global warming in the summer of 1988—choosing the hottest day of the year and having the air-conditioning turned off—but with less success.

When it comes to matters of singular importance like, for instance, the need to take immediate and bold action to avert climate catastrophe, it’d be nice to think that political maneuvering would be viewed as taboo.

And so I understand why some environmental groups, in the days since Graham’s announcement, have publicly expressed their anger and disappointment over the delay, decrying the state of politics in America.

But let’s be honest here. Political debates and maneuvering are just as prevalent in the blogs and boardrooms of environmental groups as they are in the halls of Congress, and for good reason. The stakes are high and getting higher with every new ton of CO₂ released into the atmosphere and every day that the 2010 midterm elections near, which could shift the balance of power in Congress.

The debate among environmentalists is very similar to the one that raged among progressives over healthcare reform: Is it better to pass a flawed bill while the opportunity exists or hold out for the right bill and risk getting nothing passed?

The way I see it, the debate has two components: Merits and political feasibility.

On the merit side, I have a hard time seeing how anyone seriously concerned about climate change would be an enthusiastic supporter of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill. From early reports (it hasn’t been released yet), the bill is rife with give-aways and loopholes, and undermines governments’ ability to advance the kind of massive scale and rapid de-carbonization of our energy portfolio that we need.

Beyond the typical subsidies for “clean coal” (sic!) and nuclear, the most worrisome aspect of the bill is that it would block states from enforcing more aggressive climate policies and the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Most proponents of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill hold their noses and insist that, as President Obama is fond of saying, “we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Their belief is that with the bi-partisan backing of three of the Senate’s most influential members, this bill has the best chance of actually getting passed. Perhaps that’s so. It’s certainly true that CLEAR Act proposed by Senators Cantwell (D-WA) and Collins (R-ME) doesn’t have nearly as much political horsepower behind it.

But, as the Graham-Reid brouhaha reminds us, political winds often shift in surprising ways. Dominating headlines these days are the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and allegations that Goldman Sachs used complex financial mechanisms to make billions betting against their own clients (which Goldman denies).

With these as a backdrop, how will the American public feel about the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill reportedly subsidizing the oil industry to do more domestic and off-shore oil production? How will they feel about the bill’s plan to establish another complicated trading scheme (this time for carbon credits) that Wall Street can make billions from?

If you offered the American people a choice between getting a check in the mail from the likes of Exxon Mobil (which made over $45 billion in profit in 2008 and reportedly paid $0 in federal taxes in 2009) or having Uncle Sam cut them a check to continue to pollute our skies and water, which do you think they’d choose?

So perhaps the kerfuffle over climate and immigration reform is the dust storm we’ve all been waiting for. Why not open the windows wide and see what CLEAR skies might bring?

______________________________

Photo shows a serious drought on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation near Dupree, South Dakota August 7, 2006. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Sphere: Related Content

Sphere: Related Content

– Giselle Weybrect is author of The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business. Any views expressed  are her own. –

Sustainability is taking the business world by storm. It seems that every day a new company is getting on board in an incredible range of different ways. While some are still only approaching it on a very superficial level, plenty of others are really taking sustainability seriously, exploring what it does and can mean to their business, their suppliers, their employees, their customers and the role that they can plan in strengthening society and the environment while also running an increasingly successful business.

Here are ten interesting trends happening right now around the world in sustainable business.

1. A deeper understanding of what sustainability means.

The days of sustainability strategies being principally about putting recycling bins in the office and printing on both sides of the printer paper are (hopefully) increasingly behind us. Although this is still an important part of most strategies, sustainability in a business is about so much more regardless of the size of your business, and we are quickly moving away from a ‘sustainability is all about saving the world but not about business’ mentality into the ‘using sustainability to strengthen my business while also having a positive impact on society’ one. Companies such as General Electric are leading the way.

2. Your employees are your secret weapon.

A sustainability strategy doesn’t count for much if you get someone to write it up, print it off and put it behind a glass window. Your employees are your strength; give them a strategy and goals to get excited about, and ways to be part of implementing it. Employees know their jobs, their products better than anyone else so are best placed to see opportunities to make them more sustainable. Give them the tools and motivation to be able to be part of moving forward in the chosen direction. (For example eBay’s green team and 3M’s Pollution Prevention Pays Program.)

3. Speaking with rather than to your customers.

For years now businesses have communicated their sustainability commitments or activities to their stakeholders and customers through their websites, through annual reports and presentations. They trusted that a glossy, 90-page brochure available to download as a PDF would give people the information that they wanted. Today companies are exploring ways to create a two-way conversation between the company and its stakeholders in this area and are involving customers in their sustainability strategies.

4. Your impact goes well beyond what happens in your office.

Every product, every service has a story. Whereas before, most people had no interest in what that story was and were only concerned with the price tag, today companies such as Patagonia are either voluntarily choosing to, or are being forced to, not only know but really understand the life story of what they sell. It is no longer just about the price and performance of the radio, it is about how the radio is designed, what materials are being used and where are they coming from, how the radio is being produced, how it is being sold, how it is being used by consumers and what consumers do with it once they are finished with it and then increasingly how that radio becomes another radio or another product altogether and becomes part of the story of a new product.

5. Really get to know your suppliers.

Increasingly businesses such as Pepsico are realizing that in order to make their businesses more sustainable they need to take some time to really get to know their suppliers in ways they often haven’t in the past. Are your suppliers helping or hindering your sustainability efforts? What about the suppliers of your suppliers. Are there ways that you can help them help you?

6. The gap is getting bigger, which is both good and bad.

The difference between the leaders in sustainability and the laggards is getting noticeably bigger. Those who started early and/or really took the time and energy to take a serious look at how sustainability can and is affecting their business are pushing ahead in leaps and bounds (i.e. Walmart). For those companies who are behind or early in the process this means some catching up and some innovative thinking. However, it equally means that there are many lessons to learn from those who have tried all this before including increasingly robust information about business cases. As standards in this area both voluntary and regulatory are becoming more stringent, laggards are going to be forced to get their acts together soon, and fast.

7. A more open environment to explore sustainability.

Companies are increasingly working together; with competitors, across industries, with NGOs and with government, to get it right when it comes to sustainability. Combine this with a trend towards increased transparency in reporting (for example Global Reporting Initiative and the Carbon Disclosure Project) means they are disclosing increasing amounts of information about the impacts that they have on the planet, both positive and negative. As awareness levels about sustainability go up, companies are being encouraged to be honest about the challenges they face, and to work together on finding the solutions.

8. The ‘business case’ is wider than most realize.

Sustainability isn’t a switch that you turn on and off within a company, where the benefit can be quantified in such a straightforward way. Companies such as Unilever are seeing that pursuing different sustainability strategies have an effect on many parts of the business, from employee and customer retention to better relationships with suppliers ensuring higher quality goods.

9. Your new recruits will take you there.

We are seeing new employees coming into the workforce that not only have strong business knowledge, but an interest and knowledge of sustainability and how and where the two intersect. MBA programs around the world such as the Schulich School of Business and Haas School of Business are starting finally to actively look at how to bring this knowledge to their students to ensure that the next generation of business leaders see it as just the way you do business. We aren’t there yet, but the wheels are starting to move.

10. Having fun with it.

In many ways, sustainability is all about innovation. As individuals and companies become more experienced with what sustainability means and how to approach it, we are seeing companies having fun with it, being very innovative, creative, and experimental. Just look at the creative packaging of Puma’s Clever little bag and Amazon’s Frustration-Free packaging.

_________________________________

Handout photo shows Puma’s Clever Little Bag, designed to replace the cardboard shoebox. REUTERS/Handout

Sphere: Related Content

Over at Edge, a variety of scientists give their take on the Iceland volcano eruption and its impact on air travel. Two really stood out to me. The first also highlights the problem of defensive medicine; the second shows the downside to action dealing with global warming:

DANIEL KAHNEMAN

Psychologist, Princeton; Recipient, 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

Imagine a public official who considers an action that involves a small and ambiguous risk of disaster. Imagine further that the best expert judgment available is that the expected social benefit of the action is large and that the risks are real but tolerably small. Such situations inevitably create a conflict between the interests of society and those of the officials who are charged to decide on its behalf.

Hindsight and personal accountability are the problem. Decision makers can be certain that if the worst happens their decision to act — however justified it was ex ante — will be perceived ex post as a horrendous mistake. They face the possibility of devastating blame and guilt, as well as career-destroying consequences. The risks are asymmetric because the costs of playing it safe are likely to be negligible.

Even if future analyses of the ash cloud incident conclude that flights could have resumed safely much sooner, it is unlikely that any of the officials involved in delaying the flights will lose their jobs. In this situation and in many others — defensive medicine is an example — the valid anticipation of hindsight combines with social norms of personal accountability to produce overly cautious behavior.

The solution?

Where the social good requires taking risks, we need procedures that will reduce personal accountability and diffuse responsibility, perhaps by assigning some categories of decisions to designated groups of experts rather than to individual functionaries.

MATT RIDLEY
Science Writer; Founding chairman of the International Centre for Life; Author, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

The ash cloud reminds us of the risks of risk aversion. Shutting down Europe’s airspace removed the risk of an ash-caused crash, but it also increased all sorts of other risks: the risk of death to a patient because an urgent medical operation might have to be postponed for lack of supplies, the risk of poverty to a Kenyan farm worker because roses could not be flown to European markets, the risk of a collision between ferries on extra night-time sailings in the English Channel. And so on. Risk decisions cannot be taken in isolation. The precautionary principle makes too little allowance for the risks that are run by avoiding risks — the innovations not made, the existing suffering not alleviated. The ash cloud, by reminding us of the risks of not being able to fly planes, is a timely reminder that the risks of global warming must be weighed against the risks of high energy costs — the risks of poverty (cheap energy creates jobs), of hunger (fertiliser costs depend on energy costs), of rainforest destruction and indoor air pollution (expensive electricity makes firewood seem cheaper), of orangutan extinction in subsidised biofuel palm oil plantations.

Oh, and remember the lessons of public choice theory: if you set up a body called the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, don’t be surprised if it over-reacts the first time it gets a chance the demonstrate that it considers itself — as all public bodies always do — underfunded.

Sphere: Related Content

Will consumers be buying hybrid-electric cars like today’s Toyota Prius and Ford Escape for the next few decades or are the hybrids just a milestone on the road to all-electric vehicles?

The answer to that question may come down to two words: Range anxiety — the fear that when an all-electric car’s battery runs out, the driver will find him or herself stranded on a roadside with no way of charging up.

Auto and battery executives at a green-tech conference held in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Lux Research were divided on whether hybrids will be a long-term fixture of the automotive landscape or would quickly give way to all-electric cars like the forthcoming Nissan Leaf.

“Hybrid vehicles now are a transition vehicle,” argued Michael Austin, vice president of BYD America, a unit of China’s No. 3 car battery maker.

While he allowed that “range anxiety is a key point,” he suggested that allowing drivers to manually control whether hybrid electric vehicles use their electric motor or gasoline-fueled combustion engine would convince drivers over time that a limited all-electric range is practical for most driving conditions.

Bill Reinert, national manager of advanced technology at Toyota’s U.S. arm, disagreed, arguing that hybrids — like his company’s Prius — are here to stay.

“The range anxiety will limit the ability of the all electric car to be used in certain specific applications, even if the battery costs come down,” Reinert said.

The question of how to charge all-electric vehicles quickly — so that the experience can be similar to that of filling a gas tank at a service station — is one that’s attracted the interest of the auto and energy industries. General Electric and Nissan on Monday said they were teaming up for three years to work on charging station technologies.

They may have time. Interest in hybrids and electric vehicles spiked when gasoline hit record highs above $4 in the summer of 2008. Gas prices stood at $2.85 per gallon across the United States as of Sunday, according to the latest Lundberg survey, and the surge of consumer enthusiasm for hybrids has also eased.

“We don’t see a huge behavioral shift right now at $3 a gallon,” Reinert said. “When gasoline went up to $4 people quite driving the SUVs but when it came back down they quit buying the Priuses  at a much faster rate. And we see a long, stable gasoline price for quite a long time.”

Sphere: Related Content

Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace’s International Executive Director, sat down with Reuters in San Francisco and chatted about the US Senate climate bill and where the non-profit is focusing its campaigning energies.

Sphere: Related Content

One man alone does not make a movement. But can he influence one?

There are no limits is the attitude espoused by PhD, MBA, entrepreneur, eco-designer, and visionary Gunter Pauli (above), who is now pouring his life’s work into a project to spark a new way of doing business, ergo a new economy.

He calls it the Blue Economy, because it’s not enough to be green and good to the environment. Blue creates a competitive and sustainable society and blue thrives on innovation. Blue is better than green, he asserts.

The 54-year-old founder and former CEO and president of Ecover is releasing the English and Korean editions of his book The Blue Economy at the Business for the Environment B4E Global Summit in Seoul today, Earth Day. It is to be published in 14 languages.

Pauli, who is fluent in seven languages, is addressing a crowd of business professionals, industry players and academics to promote his latest undertaking: “10 Years, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs”. The project explores business opportunities that have evolved from mimicking technologies already found in nature with the goal of inspiring entrepreneurs.

Every week for two years, his foundation the Zero Emissions Research Institute of the United Nations University in Tokyo, will be publishing an essay and video about one of the innovations. He is touring the world meeting with government representatives and industry groups to engage in discussions about what their unique challenges are and what solutions may be proposed in the innovations identified by the ZERI foundation.

“The question is which ones make you tick here?” he said, describing the consultation process where governments are asked what the biggest issues are from a policy point of view.

Following meetings, ZERI follows up by sending experts and advisers to work with government agencies to assist in massaging business models into viable programs.

As part of the Reuters Green Business section, the innovations will be coming to you on a regular basis, and we’ll be asking you to vote on your favorites.

We look forward to seeing you back here soon.

Sphere: Related Content

Treating water for human consumption is costly and energy intensive. Is there a more efficient way to do it?

Sphere: Related Content