So you may have noticed I haven’t been updating this blog too often.  I’ve been writing semi-regularly at TriplePundit.com (which has much bettter traffic, and many amazing writers) and while I used to repost content here, I’ve since learned that’s terrible for search engine optimization (or something).  Google likes original content.  So, while I’m not going to abandon this blog, the conent will be a bit irregular.  I will post links to other content I write here.  And I will also post an occasional insight piece that doesn’t belong on TriplePundit.  For example, people are always asking me about events, so I may post a list of my favorites.

In the meantime, I was at BizTechDay last week, and published the following on TriplePundit that you may enjoy checking out:

• Tips to Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners from BizTechDay

• How to Tweet Like Tim Ferriss

• From BizTechDay: Seven Things Small Business Owners Need to Know to Succeed

• BizTechDay: Helping Start-ups Succeed

Oh, and I have a new kitten – that’s her in the photo!

I’ve just nominated Viv to win an amazing $100,000 grant from American Express and I would love YOUR help to get enough “spotlights” to move onto the judging round.

All you’ve got to do is:
1) Go here: http://shinealight.ivillage.com/sbo-profile/?ProfileID=8611
2) Click “Endorse this story now,” then “register” (which only takes 1 minute, I promise) and then “Endorse this story now”

Here is Viv’s story that we submitted in hopes for this grant:

Imagine a way to drive environmental change, save money and reap rewards, and engage with a community of conscious consumers, all without going out of your way.  That’s Viv.

Viv is an innovative small business that enables you to make every purchase count towards building a thriving, sustainable local community that you, your friends and family can enjoy.  Viv empowers and rewards you for supporting the livelihood and environmental sustainability of your favorite local merchants.  Viv works with small businesses, including cafes, restaurants, bars, and local retail establishments to make eco-friendly changes to their operations while bringing in new customers, driving customer engagement and communicating the business’ commitment to change to an audience of engaged customers.

Viv works in San Francisco, California with plans to engage cities across the US.  Over seventy small merchants currently benefit from the Viv program and 20,000 consumers are members – armed with a loyalty card in the form of a Viv sticker on their credit card. Each Viv merchant commits to making sustainability enhancements to their store (i.e. improving recycling system, adding compost bins, switching light bulbs to more energy efficient CFLs) based on Viv consumers showing their stickers.  Viv consumers drive eco-friendly change by showing their sticker while making purchases at Viv businesses.

One Viv merchant, a sports apparel retail store, loves the Viv program because it gives them a mechanism to share their environmental commitments and progress with their consumers without tooting their own horn.  It also creates a tangible connection between consumer behavior and eco-friendly improvements.

Viv is creating a network of conscious consumers that are empowered to vote with their wallets, and use their purchasing power for good.  Going forward Viv will be enhancing the program with direct rewards for consumers, and mobile technology to inform consumers as they go about their day. Viv is a system by which merchants and consumers can communicate about the importance of resource efficiency and drive and reward change.  The impact of Viv is unlimited: giving anyone anywhere in the US a means by which to vote with their wallet, building a national network of millions of people who care about the future of our planet, building environmentally sustainable small businesses, and driving awareness of the need to conserve our resources and use our collective purchasing power for good.

WANTED: INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO WORLD’S WATER CRISIS
REWARD: $70,000
Business plan challenge opens September 1, 2009

The inaugural Imagine H2O Prize competition is now open for submissions.  The competition offers prizes of $70,000 in cash and in-kind services, which will be awarded to the business plans which promise the greatest breakthroughs in the efficient use and supply of water.

The Imagine H2O Prize is designed to encourage the competitive and ambitious spirits of entrepreneurs, investors, experts, inventors and academics around the world to focus on water issues.  This inaugural business plan challenge focuses on solutions to improve water efficiency in agriculture, commercial, industrial or residential applications, such as water demand reduction, improved water use, water recycling and/or reuse.

Entries will be accepted from around the world beginning September 1 through November 16, 2009. Winners will be announced at a showcase event in early 2010. Future competitions will have different prize topics addressing other critical water challenges. For more details and to participate, go to: www.imagineh2o.org.

Social capital lies “at the intersection of money and meaning” according to Kevin Jones and Gary Bolles, founders of the Social Capital Markets Conference (Socap). Socap08 was about mapping the landscape of the social capital marketplace (also the topic of my first ever TriplePundit post). Two hundred attendees were expected, 600 came.

“Last year we wanted to validate the asset class – prove that social capital is real, large and resilient. Social capital was hurt less than other sectors. It didn’t participate in the bubble and it didn’t cause the bust and has since out performed the traditional capital market. This is partly because so many more risks are factored in, in terms of externalities,” Kevin Jones said.

Socap09 (coming up Sept 1-3, 2009) outlines the roadmap to a new economy, focusing on three themes:

1. The new administration and its focus on social innovation and social enterprise
2. An increasing acceptance of social venture funds and impact investing
3. The impact of disruptive technology

“This market is evolving. Pieces of infrastructure are starting to get filled in. Two years ago it was about discovery and finding our way. Now there is a roadmap. It doesn’t mean it’s a smooth highway. It’s extremely tough,” Jones explained.

The space is becoming more sophisticated, more business savvy as well. Jones described what he sees as the second generation of social entrepreneurs. “The first generation of visionary, heroic social entrepreneurs were pioneers. They provided a solution without a market. The second generation can grow the ventures beyond themselves,” Jones explained. They have a firmer grasp on their customers and their needs, which enables them to scale more effectively.

“We’ve seen that post-economic collapse and with the new administration in place…people have a stronger sense that social capital is a full asset class that is moving our economy and administration towards a brighter and more stable future,” noted Amy Benziger, Associate Producer of Socap09.

The same team behind Socap09 is bringing The Hub, a coworking space for social and environmental innovators, to the Bay Area.

“Good Capital was looking to invest in The Hub and following the success of Socap08 we realized we had the network to make that happen – to house the partnerships, collaborations, and discussions that happened in Socap08…The Socap conference is one time global event, and The Hub is where ideas are carried out on a daily basis,” Benziger explained. Jones, co-founder of the conference and also a partner at Good Capital noted their intent to raise a $3M “Hubcap” fund to invest in high impact, early stage start-ups.

Continue reading on TriplePundit.

Timberland is a pioneer in corporate sustainability, corporate social responsibility or however you describe a business that cares about people and planet as well as profits. I spoke with Jeffrey Swartz, CEO of Timberland, to find out what he’s learned from his experience. You can hear the full interview at Green Business Innovators. But I ended our conversation with more questions than answers. Swartz is not convinced that doing good translates directly into doing well…yet. I discussed with him how he is trying to change that by connecting with consumers.

Swartz has been with Timberland for over 20 years and has served as President and CEO since 1998. Timberland has grown from a $156 million company in 1989 to a $1.4 billion company in 2007.

At the same time, Swartz has built some of the most impressive and inspiring programs I’ve seen at a public company. Timberland employees put in 40 hours of public service hours each year through Timberland’s Path of Service program and annual Servapalooza. Timberland is committed to going carbon neutral by 2010. Timberland’s shoe boxes display nutrition information, which includes information about the manufacturing plant and the impact on the climate and community. And Timberland is starting a green index for all of its products. Just to name a few initiatives. (For more, see http://earthkeeper.com/blog)

But what is the business strategy behind all of these initiatives?

Continue reading on TriplePundit.com

Sustainability is losing its meaning to me these days, as I hear it everywhere. At today’s Greener By Design conference, leaders from Wal-Mart, Sustainable Minds and Clear Standards discuss how they are translating the concept of “sustainability” into success metrics and tools that drive sustainable packaging, design and environmental impact reporting.

Rand Waddoups, senior director of business strategy and sustainability at Wal-Mart described Wal-Mart’s four part journey to sustainability, beginning with consensus building around need for sustainability, moving into an evangelist phase, and then to a clear recognition of the business case of sustainability. The fourth step, where they are headed today, is the ability to measure and track progress with sustainability metrics. They’ve found that suppliers that provide poor products are often also mistreating their employees, and cheating when it comes to factory compliance. So holding suppliers to a higher standard is good for business.

Waddoups explained how Wal-Mart’s packaging scorecard is driving sustainable change at Wal-Mart. The scorecard can be applied to every single product in Wal-Mart stores, and is actually sparking innovation in many suppliers. For example, Yoplait decided to revisit its package and totally redesigned its yogurt cups after they learned they were lagging their competitors on the scorecard.

And how do we communicate these messages and concepts to the every day consumer? As Waddoups explained, “Our average customer does not understand greenwashing…She is struggling to afford her principles.” Wal-Mart strives to give the consumer access to the information they need to make informed purchases, but, “We will not make progress on consumer products without much clearer data,” Waddoups stated.

Continue reading on GreenBiz.com.

When does green design become more than just a “nice to have?” What is driving the many advancements in environmentally friendly product design? A panel discussion at today’s Greener By Design conference brought together experts on
carbon regulation, product toxicity, and sustainable product certification to discuss.

For starters, how will carbon regulation impact product design? Steve Gutmann, Senior Commercialization Manager at EcoSecurities, explained that a cap and trade system will impact companies indirectly by raising the cost of energy. “95 percent of entities will not be directly affected by cap and trade, but their product design processes will be impacted by more expensive energy.” Gutmann advised companies to push on energy efficiency to position themselves strategically as carbon regulation develops.

In the voluntary carbon market Gutmann described a trend of more seamless ways of purchasing credits. Consumers are facing more and more options to make “micro-contributions” of 1 percent of their purchase price to go towards carbon offset projects. Another trend is the emergence of more local offset projects to choose from.

Toxics have recently become a renewed source of consumer concern. Dr. Richard Liroff, Executive Director of the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) speaks of a “toxic footprint” that companies need to understand. “If you want to sell to Wal-Mart and others that will follow their lead, you better know what chemicals are in your products. And ask yourself how to get rid of them,” Liroff advised.

Continue reading on GreenBiz.com.

“Nobody is as smart as everybody. We have all the solutions we need. Yes our problems are big. But if we’re all working together, now that becomes a movement,” David de Rothschild explained at today’s Greener by Design conference.

De Rothschild is the founder of Adventure Ecology and his latest adventure is inspired by the mass of plastic accumulated in our oceans, the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating landfill located between California and Hawaii that’s twice the size of Texas. His goal is to build a boat entirely of plastic bottles and recycled waste products, called Plastiki, and sail it 12,000 miles from San Francisco to Sydney departing in August 2009 as an environmental statement.

De Rothschild has built a team he calls the Smart Collective to combat inefficient design. He brought together a group of intelligent folks who had never built a boat

before to design the Plastiki. And it hasn’t been easy. He related that slick plans did not translate into a slick boat so easily, hence they’ve had some delays getting the ship to launch. They were initially inspired by a pomegranate -  the design of Plastiki attempts to recreate the way a compilation of pomegranate seeds can constitute something as solid but buoyant as a pomegranate. One major difficulty was achieving a solid structure for the boat, until they found a material called SRPET (Self reinforcing polyethylene terephthalate) which is a clean, recyclable plastic that is half the weight of fiberglass and three quarters the strength.

When finished, the Plastiki will be made of 12,500 2-liter plastic bottles collected by Waste Management, will weigh 9 tons, and will have a crew of six. The Plastiki will have a composting toilet, onboard renewable energy and a garden. “People are so shocked that we’re going to grow food on the boat,” de Rothschild mused.

Continue reading at GreenBiz.com.

Soyeon Lee, award-winning pianist and wife of TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky, recently released a new album, Re!nvented.  Not only does the album draw on reused or revisited classical selections, but the album itself is encased in reused/upcycled potato chip bags!

Lee worked with TerraCycle to produce the world’s most eco-friendly CD packaging- made from chip bags collected by millions of school children in North America. Each case is unique; made by compressing the shredded bags. Typical jewel cases are made out of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), an inexpensive petrochemical-based plastic that is notoriously difficult to recycle and is linked to elevated cancer rates among workers and people who live near manufacturing plants.

This is clearly one small step in the right direction – ideally I think music would be distributed online rather than on physical CDs and our data centers would be powered with renewable energy.  But in the meantime, we need to be thinking more and more creatively, searching for ways to use what we already have to suit our needs, as Lee has done with her new album.  Not only is the package a unique conversation starter, but the music is exquisite.  See more photos here.