Deron Lovaas's Blog: Green Enterprise

Green Business in Baltimore

2009-10-22T23:09:48Z

October is conference month, it seems. This week I spoke at two conferences, and next week is bookended by two more. First up is one that may be of interest to you, if you live or work in the Baltimore-Washington region.

The B2B Green Forum is being held at the gorgeous Engineering Club in downtown Baltimore (I used to live near there and there is really nothing comparable to its beautifully designed interior), and attracts participants interested in green business practices and the policies that support them.

Among the speakers will be leaders of sustainability from Johns Hopkins and Delaware Universities, the head of sustainability for Baltimore County (one David Carroll, for whom I worked many moons ago at Maryland's Department of Environment), someone from Baltimore City's Sustainability Office, as well as officials from the environmental protection departments in Maryland and Virginia and the EPA, and a host of business entrepreneurs.

I'll be talking about green fleets policies, including President Obama's remarkable new Executive Order requiring that federal fleets cut oil use by 30 percent, saving as much as 65 million gallons of fuel a year by 2020. There are several other sessions covering recycling, green building design, and current federal and state programs and policies that can help businesses in the mid-Atlantic to make a difference while making a profit.

The Passing of In Business

2008-01-29T15:49:56Z

It's a tough time for print media, with unrelenting competitive pressures from proliferating alternatives for getting news and information on television and online. The magazine In Business: Creating Sustainable Enterprises and Communities became the latest casualty, closing its doors after nearly thirty years in operation.

I subscribed ten years ago, and learned about the activities of socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneurs across the country. I learned about new concepts like thinker Bill McDonough's "cradle-to-cradle" vision for closing production loops, putting waste into new products rather than landfills. I learned about application of this concept in eco-industrial parks and deconstruction rather than demolition of old buildings (a much more useful process than the "deconstruction" I learned about in Philosophy classes). I learned about New Urbanism and ecotourism. I even had the privilege, thanks to support from ever-generous editors Jerry and Nora Goldstein, of writing a few articles for In Business.

What distinguished the magazine is that it focussed on small- and large-scale ways to do good and make good. Business trends and activities in the magazine varied from the work of committed activists to save the first Community Service Agriculture farm in Massachusetts, a modest 17 acres worth protecting, to the multimillion-dollar chocolate bar company that protects endangered species, to a cool nationwide trend of reusing abandoned buildings downtown as art studios. In Business was a one-stop shopping place for stories about innovative business ventures that ran the gamut in terms of scale.

While I look forward to receiving its sister publication, the better-known BioCycle, I will now have to hunt down other means to learn what's new in the world of sustainable business. Huge kudos to Jerry, Nora and the staff and advisers at JG Press for running such a useful publication for nearly thirty years. I will miss it.

My tell-all, or tell-some, account of arguing with industry

2007-11-01T21:50:05Z

The new issue of In Business magazine just hit the streets, and it includes an article penned by me which tells the story of my work with the National Petroleum Council on their new report called Hard Truths. This was an interesting assignment, since it gave me a chance to sit down and discuss issues with representatives of companies on whom we heap opprobrium for damaging the environment, such as Exxon.

I agreed to participate under the "Chatham House Rule" whereby the name or affiliation of the person quoted isn't revealed to allow for frank and open debate (and boy did we have frank and open debates), but I hope the brief tale is interesting even without such juicy details.

Going Green = Making $$$

2007-10-17T21:31:27Z

The University of Maryland just released a review of economic studies of climate change. Here are the five key findings:

Impacts will occur across the country;
Impacts will be unevenly distributed across regions, economic sectors (with ag, energy and transport as standouts) and society;
Negative impacts will outweigh benefits for most sectors that provide essential goods and services;
Impacts will strain public budgets (for example, replacement and maintenance of infrastructure in the face of sea level rises);
Secondary effects can include higher prices, lower income and job losses.

These are sobering conclusions, and presumably the costs will vary depending on the abruptness of the change. After all, there are points at which could tilt the system far enough to capsize the canoe.

On the other hand, there's the potential to create a plethora of investment opportunities and jobs when as a nation we tackle this issue head-on. The "CleanTech" field which would benefit from such a commitment is already growing by leaps and bounds. And a recent study found that additional investment in CleanTech will be $14-19 billion between 2007 and 2010, resulting in 400,000-500,000 new jobs.

Less strain on public budgets? More jobs? Sounds pretty good to me, and I imagine other parents would agree wholeheartedly.

Low-Carb(on) Air Travel

2007-10-16T20:09:32Z

Lord Richard Branson just made a exciting announcement: Virgin Atlantic plans to test a jet plane running on biofuels early next year. Frankly, this matters more than developments that we've seen in the vehicles market, where companies like GM are hyping the potential for ethanol-powered flex-fuel vehicles.

Why? Because aviation is a tougher nut to crack in terms of substitutes for petroleum-derived fuels. For starters, due to the lower energy content of ethanol as a contender, the range of a plane would take a hit. There are also other problems with ethanol-aviation compatibility. For a good overview of the challenges, check out this article.

But we need to figure this out, and bravo for Lord Branson for stepping up to the plate.

Unfortunately, while he is looking to next-generation clean fuels, the Pentagon is investigating the possibility of liquefying coal.

The contrast is remarkable. Liquefying coal relies on technology invented in Germany in the 1920s. It is tired technology from yesteryear. And if you want to bust our carbon dioxide pollution budget, saving oil by using coal for fuel instead is surely it.

In a world where we need our planes to join our cars on a low-carb(on) diet, to paraphrase former President Reagan, in this case government isn't the solution -- it's the problem. The Pentagon should change course, working with Lord Branson and other entrepreneurs to move the country forward to a clean future.