ecofrenzy: what’s good in green

One of my favorite features of San Francisco is the Artist in Residence program hosted by the city’s waste hauler, Norcal Waste Systems.  This is a shining example of “garbage to goods.”

From the website:

The Artist In Residence Program at SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc. is an innovative program that inspires and educates people about recycling and resource conservation by providing local artists with access to materials, a work space, and other resources at our Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center…Since 1990, artists have worked in a large, well-equipped studio next to our Transfer Station…Art is created from what would have been sent with the rest of San Francisco’s trash to landfills across the Bay or recycling plants across the nation.

This weekend’s show featured art from residents David King and Christine Lee, who’d been residents for 4 months.  The two artists couldn’t have more opposite styles – David King’s work was largely orb shaped, unplanned (he used whatever inspiring materials he could find in the waste stream), and decorative.  Christine Lee’s work was strictly linear,  methodically planned (she knew what she’d be making and sought the right materials to complete the work), and functional (she created several beautiful benches).

David King

King’s artist statement:

In all of my collage work, I am interested in transformation, and, in particular, how I can re-use and re-imagine old images into entirely new contexts and meanings.

My vision is to create pieces, which, despite all that troubles the world, mirror the peacefulness and benevolent energy that is also part of my experience. The bejeweled environments I decorate, reflect that utopian ideal, and are meant for the viewer to follow a path towards their own peaceful, jeweled existence.

Christine Lee

Lee’s artist statement:

I view the original purpose of any material as merely a suggestion or starting point for a multitude of possibilities. With that in mind, I choose to spend a considerable amount of time on a material exploration through processes of manipulation, rearrangement, and deconstruction. My current investigation lies in the reuse of materials. From sources such as surplus, liquidator and thrift stores, I collect items ranging from fire hoses to sweaters. Mundane, repetitive tasks such as coiling, folding, interlacing, and stacking allow me to develop an understanding and appreciation for a material beyond it’s common associations and intended function. Experimenting with multiples of a material allow me to work through a variety of configurations and offer me opportunities for discovery. The resulting objects, forms and installations weave my deep appreciation for the environment with the tactile experience. The sense of repetition, rhythm and refinement applied to the pieces reveal my internal cadence that is meditative but at the same time, concerned by our society’s abusive pattern of production and waste.

Photos courtesy of Natalya and Alex

The trendiness of farmer’s markets, community supported agriculture, and local food systems in the Bay Area is palpable.  Each weekend we bike or walk happily with our canvas bags to the nearest market to load up on seasonable delights, and every potluck we discuss where this vegetable grew and this beer microbrewed.  All of these connections to the systems that sustain us breed consciousness, respect, and strengthen community.

As many in the Bay Area cultivate their connection to local food, numerous neighborhoods in San Francisco and Oakland lack access to fresh produce (let alone healthy, whole foods) and are instead populated by convenience stores and fast food joints.  Food justice is a movement focused on creating access to healthy food for all, and addressing inequalities such as this.  Recently, I’ve come across a few organizations in the area with empowering solutions.  One of the most creative projects is Mission Pie.

Mission Pie is a cute cafe and pie shop hidden away on 25th and Mission St in San Francisco.  Not only is their pie delicious and coffee respectable, but their walls are lined with their inspiring story and environmentally minded do it yourself books.  Pie Ranch is Mission Pie’s rural partner, located on the San Mateo Coast.  Pie Ranch, a 14 acre farm with fruit, goats, bees, and chickens,  touts itself as a “rural place for urban renewal.” The two organizations are connected not only through food, but also by experientially educating youth. Students living in the Mission go to the farm to learn about food cultivation, and then receive job training at Mission Pie.  The goal is to introduce the youth to healthy food systems, and empower them through that process.

The environmental movement is beginning to embrace social justice as a necessary partner in its crusade for long term sustainability.  Mission Pie and Pie Ranch embody this paradigm shift, and there are many other like minded projects surfacing in our area.  It’s not surprising, food is the cornerstone of community and an ideal platform for change.

In “Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered” Woody Tasch, former Chairman of Investor’s Circle, argues for a new financial system that brings money back down to earth by supporting small food enterprises (SFEs) and the local agricultural economy. In addition to myriad environmental problems in the public eye (i.e. carbon, water), Tasch introduces another in this collection of essays – depletion of soil fertility – which he links to our financial system. Our farming practices are abhorrent and strip the land of its fertility for future generations. Tasch contends that our obsession with speed and high financial returns leads to broken ecological and social relationships. “How can we allow money to accelerate endlessly, hoping that it will not accelerate commerce, erode culture, and degrade nature?” Tasch asks. We invest with a mantra of “Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later” and refuse to accept below market rate returns. This is a book about reworking business as usual to support the lifeblood of our economy – food and soil.

“Fast money does violence to the web of relations on which the health of communities and bioregions depends. It is not enough to steer money in new directions. We must slow money down.”

Slow Money is the title of the book as well as an NGO that Tasch founded in 2008 to incite the very changes he describes in this book. This book marks the beginning of a movement. Slow money, the term, describes the “nonviolent” and “beautiful” financial structures that will support investment in “small, independent, local-first food enterprises” and therefore soil fertility. Tasch posits that “Ford + Yunus + Petrini = Slow Money;” in other words combine Henry Ford’s hatred of speculative financing and the fast money of stocks and bonds, with Muhammad Yunus’ vision of social business which develops for-profit solutions to poverty and other social problems, with Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini’s vision of “food as a tool for social change” and there you have Slow Money.

Despite our current organics craze, Tasch presents the startling figures: only 0.5% of all agricultural land in the US is organic; only $100M of the USDA’s 1997 budget of $92B went towards small or mid-sized organic farmers;and in 2007 only a small percentage of foundation capital (0.1% or $50M out of $40B) and venture capital (<$1B of $20B with organics in portfolio) went towards organics or sustainable agriculture.

Tasch suggests several solutions – which include a Main Street Exchange, dedicated to building a “restorative economy” and a Ground Zero Fund to invest in the small food economy he describes. Though specific details are not a focus of the book, the message is clear: We need to rebuild the concept of fiduciary responsibility, such that “investors measure their success as much by what they leave in the soil for the benefit of future generations as by what they take out.”

“Slow Money” is an engaging read thanks to Tasch’s colorful writing style and heavy use of quotes from leading thinkers in the field. I recommend it to all interested in the topic. However, Tasch’s non-linear narrative style and at times esoteric language may be frustrating for some readers looking for a straightforward argument. I am absolutely on board with Tasch’s vision of a new financial system, and this book caters to those who are already thinking about these very issues. Tasch assumes a level of understanding that will make “Slow Money” less appealing to those who have never heard of N-P-K fertilizer (something Tasch mentions many times without stopping to define). Needless to say, Tasch’s argument is strong for reform – I personally began reconsidering where I keep my money and the returns I expect after reading “Slow Money.”

[Originally posted to TriplePundit.]

We are currently witnessing a shift in the job market away from the more traditional MBA path, which is crumbling as I type, towards traditionally riskier start-ups, social ventures, and entrepreneurial careers with social and environmental impact goals. Each year, business school students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management embark on a “Tech Trek,” visiting companies of interest in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Boston to make connections, get career ideas and generally explore. This year’s San Francisco and Silicon Valley trek was quite popular, attracting 100 of about 150 Trekkers total with over 40 company visits. Seven of these Trekkers visited us at Social Venture Technology Group (SVT). SVT has been in business since 2001, but this is the first time we have been contacted for this particular visit.

Typical MBA job opportunities have been slashed with the decline of the banking giants, near hiring freezes at the big consulting firms, and job losses at Fortune 500 firms. For example, Google and Yahoo are usually annual stops on the Sloan Tech Trek, however this year they declined to participate. For the Trekkers, this created an opportunity to visit more start-ups and small firms.

The economic downturn “has placed some budget constraints on many of the companies we originally intended to visit, but it has also allowed us to look at a different set of companies,” said Pedro Santos, a Sloan student on the San Francisco and Silicon Valley Trek. “I think that startups will be hiring a significant number of talented individuals who would have been taken by larger corporations, which means that the infusion of energy and talent from MBAs could really lead to a significant amount of value going into the startups.” Another Trekker, Rajiv Bhatia added: “I believe this is one of the best times for the startup company model to thrive. Large corporations typically cut their budgets and go into ‘survival mode’ during times of economic crisis.”

The students visited us in our San Francisco office, which was under construction at the time (and could only have added to that start-up feel). These MBA candidates had elected the Entrepreneurship and Innovation track at Sloan, which has grown to 70 students in its third year of existence. Within this track, interest in social entrepreneurship has blossomed as well. The group had an impressive degree of understanding for what SVT does (“measure, manage and communicate social and environmental impact”), which often takes some time to explain. The students’ backgrounds were fairly traditional – weighted towards investment banking, consulting, and large companies. Less than half of the group mentioned experience in social or environmental fields, such as CSR and microfinance. But the Trekkers were genuinely interested in our work at SVT, citing an interest in pursuing related career goals.

I myself made the switch from business management consulting to social and environmental impact consulting less than a year ago. This was before things got really nasty in the economy, and my choice had nothing to do with the absence of other options. Instead, I was looking to get into a line of work where I could feel good about the outcomes, have more of an impact personally, and continue to learn at a fast pace, but with more flexibility in my daily life. I suspect these MBA’s are seeking more rewarding work just like I was, hence their proactive approach to learning more about SVT and other social ventures (Kiva and Microplace were among their other stops).

Perhaps this is a positive outcome of the downturn: the bright minds of my generation are turning away from banking, consulting, and marketing toward social entrepreneurship and environmental innovation, where we need them most. As Amanda Symonds, a Trekker who visited us at SVT noted, “there is a lot of talent that would otherwise have pursued traditional career paths now looking to join small, entrepreneurial businesses, or to start their own businesses. Some of the greatest companies like Apple and Google were formed during a recession, and MIT Sloan students are hard-working, driven people looking to be part of the next big thing.”

[I write a column for TriplePundit; this piece was originally posted there]

A typical residential solar system will put you back ~$20,000+ after credits and incentives and requires extensive design work and several trained technicians toiling on your roof – drilling, wiring, bolting, and performing other complex tasks to build the proper infrastructure. What if your roof were built for solar panels, and installing them were as simple as snapping panels into place? And what if it didn’t cost you an arm and a leg?

Chances are a lot more people would be going solar today. This is exactly what Solar Red aims to do. Based in San Jose, California, Solar Red is still more concept than product, but their concept won them runner up in the California Clean Tech Open (CCTO), and is poised to entirely disrupt the residential solar market by making it affordable.

After learning of the exciting new technology at the CCTO, I was intrigued. But with a website just now emerging from stealth mode (launching any day now), and purposefully limited press coverage, I had to sit down with CEO Joe Augenbraun to get more information. Augenbraun reviewed the piece you are reading now, and told me it is more revealing of his start-up than any previous coverage or their soon to launch website, so consider yourself privy to breaking start-up news.

Solar Red wants to reinvent residential solar installation, and cut the cost in half with its proprietary, patent-pending technology. Solar Red’s core product is a plug-and-play solar panel mounting system featuring a bracket that interleaves with the shingles of a roof, which can be installed at the time of construction, or retrofitted into the roof.

The brackets are cheap to manufacture and install – it costs $825 in additional costs to make a new roof solar ready. Then special Solar Red compatible solar panels can simply be clicked into place on the roof, taking mere minutes to install.

The cost to install a 5kW residential system is ~$42,000 for conventional solar and ~$32,000 with a Solar Red system, a $10,000 savings. Now, layer in an estimate for federal tax credits and state and utility incentives, this becomes ~$19,000 for conventional solar and ~$10,000 for Solar Red in many US states (keep in mind that state incentives will vary).

And Solar Red offers operational improvements along with cost savings. In a conventional array, when one solar panel is shaded or broken, the entire system is affected because they are all connected to the same inverter. Solar Red solves this problem by using integrated micro-inverters, which simplifies the wiring and makes each panel its own independently functioning system.

Solar Red’s modular design enables users to snap panels in and out easily, making a Solar Red system the ultimate, timeless solar system. As technology advances, consumers can swap out older types of panels with the latest and greatest with ease. The trick for Solar Red will be to ensure their system accommodates the breadth of panels manufactured.

I think the most important factor in Solar Red’s success will be how they are able to work with competitors and across the solar industry to gain wide adoption and collaboration. While Solar Red has plans to create panels as well as the mounting technology I describe above, it may be easiest to get panels from a competitor who has already achieved significant market share. Since the panel technology will continue to change rapidly, it will be difficult to keep up.

Ideally, Augenbraun can infiltrate the LEED guidelines (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), requiring that all new LEED certified building roofs be solar ready. For now his focus is on getting into new homes and development projects as the added cost of making a roof solar ready is negligible and who wouldn’t want to move into a solar ready home?

Solar Red does have some competitors, but Augenbraun systematically explained that no competitor can compete with Solar Red on affordability. Akeena Solar for example boasts a 25% savings over conventional solar, which pales in comparison to Solar Red’s 50%. “Where Akeena streamlines the system, we change it”, Augenbraun pointed out.

The Solar Red team met at Stanford business school. Augenbraun is an electrical engineer by training, and a serial entrepreneur, having been involved previously in two successful startups: WorldGate, which went public, and Neato Robotics, which is poised to launch its proprietary robotic vacuum next Christmas. The Solar Red team is working on a Series A round of funding, with a goal of $5M. The ultimate aim is to go public, but Augenbraun noted that the IPO market has “dried up,” so this could prove a bit more difficult than during his WorldGate days.

Overall, I think Solar Red can help speed the transition to a renewable energy economy by lowering the prohibitive barriers to residential solar adoption. Their model requires a more unified solar industry, and will require more collaboration and partnership-building than I’ve seen in solar to date.

[I write a column for TriplePundit - this piece was originally posted there.]

India-based NGO, Conserve, takes non-recyclable trash from streets and converts it to sale-worthy fair trade goods. (TreeHugger)

On a related note, the plummeting price of commodities in the US combined with the faltering economy has lead some to get creative with garbage, according to this Wall Street Journal piece. (Thanks, Greg!)

Passive houses in Germany and Scandinavia (and making their way into the US) are heated with ~5% the energy use of a typical home. (New York Times – thanks, Leah!)

The US Army is trying to go green, and has released its first annual  sustainability report documenting its progress.  Despite some environmental initiatives, including a 12-acre solar site, toxics and hazardous waste are huge problems. (GreenBiz.com)

Mayor Newsom creates YouTube site and addresses city of San Francisco in web-only “Interacrive State of the City” which is composed of 10 webisodes on specific topics, such as environment, transport, violence prevention and more. (San Francisco Department of the Environment)

The City of San Francisco won the 2008 Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award (GEELA) for its ambitious redevelopment plans for Treasure Island  in the Sustainable Communities category.  “The project outlines a vision for a transit-oriented community with green infrastructure and buildings, and innovative strategies for creating habitat, protecting natural resources and promoting economic development for those most in need.” (San Francisco Press Release)

Foundation giving for international purposes poised to reach record high in 2008, beating 2007’s record of $5.4 billionecofrenzy: navigating the green scene › Edit Post — WordPressn.  (Washington Business Journal)

The EPA has a new site listing environmental fugitives who’ve committed crimes against the environment, such as illegal dumping of hazardous materials. (Environmental Leader)

Group of businesses, Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), which includes Starbucks, Nike, and Timberland, have formed a coalition to request and support green legislation, which will reward their climate friendly policies. (Harvard Business Blog)

British development using innovative Swedish system to suck away garbage via underground vauum pipes, eliminating the need for curbside trash and recycling collection. (GreenBiz.com)

The Financial Post discusses ways small businesses can save money by adopting eco-friendly practices.

Analyst reports that First Solar has reached grid parity in 12.6MW Nevada array, an important milestone wherein solar power costs less than conventional power. (GreenTech Media)

Sony is working on a new form of packaging, so that it can do away with plastic clamshell packaging which apparently sends 6,000 Americans to emergency rooms annually. (GreenerDesign)

I came home for the holidays from San Francisco, a Mecca of local and slow food, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where I was born and raised. Portsmouth is home to ~20,000 people, with a lively historic downtown center, and a weekly farmer’s market in the summertime. In the past year or so I’ve witnessed a dramatic shift in the local food culture. Local foods are all the rage, though this was not the case just a few years back when I lived here. I find this trend encouraging and worthy of notice.

I asked my family about local foods. Before every big dinner, my parents will cite the source of all local food elements, quite proudly. My mother, Jackie Ellis, cites Barbara Kingsolver’s most recent book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as the tipping point behind this movement. “Kingsolver eloquently demonstrates that eating locally is possible and preferable from an ecological and environmental perspective” Ellis told me. She says many of her friends have read the book and have since changed their attitudes towards what they consume. In contrast, I would contend that Michael Pollan’s writing is what has tipped the local food movement for me and I think others in my network in San Francisco.

How does the local food movement manifest itself in Portsmouth, NH?

• Local foods week in restaurants: “There was a week-long local foods festival in Portsmouth this November, featuring about 15 restaurants with inexpensive prix fixe meals that highlighted local foods. The week was so successful it will be repeated in early spring” Ellis told me.
• Local dairy cart: Every week a farmer (who shall remain anonymous) sets up shop on a residential road in Portsmouth selling his yogurt, raw (unpasteurized) milk, eggs, farm-fresh cheese, organic vegetables as available, locally-raised meats and more. My parents and other locals visit him weekly in his discreet spot, returning the glass containers’ from the previous week’s dairy (a la Straus Family Creamery in the Bay Area) and stocking up for the coming week. “Because the city of Portsmouth doesn’t permit the sale of unpasteurized milk, it can’t be sold at area markets,” Ellis noted.
• My mother has a CSA (community supported agriculture) and loves it: “Many New Hampshire farmers have embraced the CSA formula for ensuring a steady cash flow and customer base, ” Ellis remarked. “People are treated to in-season fruits and vegetables for an initial cash outlay that is usually less than the value of the produce distributed over the 20 week growing season.” There were 50+ summer CSA’s in her area to choose from. I have to admit I have yet to subscribe to a CSA – it’s rare when my parents take a step like this before I do, especially given my location in San Francisco.
  
• My father has a winter and summer CSA: My father eats a raw food diet, and not only does he support a summer-growing-season CSA, he also has a winter CSA and his house is the drop off point for produce distribution. “Winter CSA’s are a new development in NH where farmers raise cold-tolerant greens in green-houses and also distribute stored root crops from the previous growing season.” Ellis noted.
• Winter farmer’s market: Not only does the Seacoast area benefit from a weekly farmer’s market in the summertime, this year there is a winter farmer’s market every other week where my parents have found heirloom turkey for Thanksgiving (the turkey I mentioned here), locally raised elk  and other meats, local wines, pot-pies made with local food by local chefs, and other delights.

I’m encouraged by this trend and imagine the New Hampshire Seacoast is not the only area where local foods are gaining popularity for good reason. Have you seen this happen in your community?