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Reducing Your Carbon Footprint And Your Energy Costs Are No Longer Mutually Exclusive On February 21st 60 Minutes aired a segment called ‘The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?’ Which did alot to fuel anticipation leading up to the press conference on February 24th. Especially since the company, Bloom Energy has been unusually secretive. At the Wednesday morning [...]

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This is what was in my mailbox on Monday, February 22!  It’s the new adult glass bottle, from Lifefactory.  When, I opened the bubble-wrapped bag, (it survived shipping intact) my husbands response was “Where’s one for me!”  The same thing happened at my client’s house.  “Where did you get that?  I want one!” The bottles hold [...]

GoodCompany Ventures will announce its 2010 Venture Incubator for Social Entrepreneurs at a launch event next Thursday, March 4th from 6-8 pm in New York City.

I'm excited to be moderating a conversation between some of the most prominent advocates for both early stage investment and social enterprise, including

Fred Wilson, founder of Union Square Ventures, an advocate for early stage investment and author of the influential A VC blog;

Jacqueline Novogratz, author of The Blue Sweater, and the founder of Acumen Fund, a global nonprofit venture philanthropy fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty;

Roger Ehrenberg, founder of IA Venture Strategies, one of the most active angel investors in New York, and author of the blog Information Arbitrage;

and Jacob Gray, a partner at Murex Investments, a leading double-bottom-line venture fund, and a GoodCompany board member.

We'll be talking about the power of capital -- early stage and patient -- to catalyze change through investing in entrepreneurs and their innovations. GoodCompany believes that financial and societal returns are not mutually exclusive.

As Garrett Melby, co-founder and CEO of GoodCompany Ventures said in a press release, "Our mission is to help entrepreneurs and investors reconcile purpose and profit. We are excited to have four such influential and innovative investors come together to highlight new models for harnessing private capital to drive lasting social impact"

GoodCompany's 2009 pilot program in Philadelphia was the first incubator in the country to adopt venture capital strategies to the needs of social enterprises.

The 2009 program attracted social entrepreneurs from around the globe, in fields such as Cleantech, Education, Public Health, Social Finance and Community Development. Several companies from the 2009 cohort will do Ignite-style flash pitches at the event.

Applications for the 2010 GoodCompany Ventures Program will be accepted beginning March 5th.

The launch event is being hosted by GoodCompany Ventures, in partnership with Green Spaces, at their Tribeca co-working facility located at 394 Broadway, New York NY 10013.

Green Spaces forwards the sustainability movement globally through widespread local hubs that incubate social and environmental entrepreneurs.

Advance tickets are required for this event and are available at http://gcvpanel.eventbrite.com.


(Disclosure: I am on the Advisory Board of GoodCompany Ventures.)

The following is a guest post from Liora Engel-Smith. Liora Engel-Smith is an internet writer, a web designer and a scientist.

image credit Free Green

It is often said that "home is where the heart is." However, most of us will agree ... [visit site to read more]

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This has to be one the easiest tips I’ve seen in a long time! Common sense say it should work. By adding a little weight to your flapper not only will it close faster, but I’d assume you’ll have a tighter fit on the valve which should also prevent leaks.

It may not be sexy, but this simple little toilet accessory may save a lot of water. The standard toilet tank flapper can form a leaky seal, or simply lower too slowly to stop water flowing into your toilet bowl. One estimate has leaky flappers wasting an estimated 11 million gallons of water a minute in the USA.

The weighted Greenflush valve closes much faster than the traditional flapper. The Greenflush, which is said to install in 30 seconds, is estimated to reduce a typical 2 or 3 gallon flush to 1 gallon. It also works with newer low-flow toilets.

It sells for $19.95 – but hey if it works it will pay for itself very quickly.

The Alternative Consumer – save water with greenflush

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"Twenty years from now, we will look back on how we get energy the same way we look back at how we got information twenty years ago," Steve Cohen said in launching the first of two cleantech panels at last Friday's Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference 2010.

"Current Trends and Opportunities in Cleantech," moderated by Cohen, an energy lawyer with Morgan Lewis, also featured Dr. Stephen Tang, CEO of the Science Center, the oldest and largest urban incubator and science park in the world, along with Sean Casey from FiniteCarbon, a forest carbon development company, and Sam Gabbita of cleantech investor Element Partners.

Dr. Tang, a Chemical Engineer by training, knows something about the "energy of the future" having earned his entrepreneurial stripes developing hydrogen fuel cells with Millennium Cell, which recently went bankrupt.

"I took Millennium Cell to its IPO in 2000, and left in 2004. Ten years ago hydrogen fuel cells were a major focus of US automakers; at least, that's what they wanted you to believe," said Tang. "What they were really focused on were CAFE standards and keeping them from being lowered. You have to understand the headwinds."

Often those headwinds are political, such as with carbon regulation. "Carbon markets are directly responsive to government action," said Casey, of FiniteCarbon. "And in the US, we want to do it our own way."

Indeed, the energy industry itself may be its own worst enemy. As Gabbita of Element Partners put it, "The biggest challenge in Cleantech is that you're dealing with a commodity market made up of slow-movers."

This is why some believe that we won't be able to move as fast as China in terms of alternative energy adoption.

"The risk isn't that China won't adopt cleantech," Gabbita suggested. "The risk is that China is doing it now and will define the rules of the game for the future."

While China may be slow to start, they have the power of the centralized government to innovate more quickly once the decision is made to move toward adoption of alternative energy sources.

And, while some, such as keynote speaker Pennsylvania State Treasurer Rob McCord, recognize that the "energy sector has massive externalities that require government support," it may be best for entrepreneurs to proceed cautiously in pursuing government funding for their ideas.

"It's great to get government money until you realize they are in your shorts for-ever," said Harrison Wellford of Wellford Energy Advisors in a panel on "Financing Your Cleantech Ventures."

Technologies are available today to help with the transition here. However, as Ravi Barot of OxiCool suggested in that same panel, "Investors and entrepreneurs need to realize that clean technology takes time, more than other investments."

And, as Steve Tang from the Science Center related earlier in the day, "The killer app of today is more important than the platform technology of the future for energy transition to happen."

The followings is a guest post from Jeff McIntire-Strasburg. Jeff McIntire-Strasburg is the founder and editor of sustainablog, the long-running sustainability blog that now features a green shopping portal (which sells organic cosmetics). Elyas Bakhtiari contributed to the researching of this article.

<img ... [visit site to read more]

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Today is my Birthday, so I’d like to share these few minutes with you! To me, there is nothing like the beauty of our world brought to you, and set to beautiful and relaxing music.  Enjoy!  Get something cute as a bug, at Barbara’s Ladybug! Share and Enjoy:

A lot of people that I come in contact with share sentiments with Kermit the Frog and think that "It's Not Easy Being Green." (OK, I really just wanted to crowbar a Muppets reference into a post.)

They think you need to install solar panels on your home or buy a new hybrid car and that if you aren't perfect, then there is no point at all. ... [visit site to read more]

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Dangerous Dynamic Fluid-Structure Interactions Give Rise To Ingenious Green Innovations In 2004, Shawn Frayne, a member of a team from MIT visiting Petite Anse, Haiti, found the fishing village near the coast was not connected to an electrical grid, and the only lighting available was diesel-powered or kerosene-based. Frayne recognized that white LEDs powered by [...]

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Image via Wikipedia Finally, I’m happy to say, there is an answer, to the trash bag problem in landfills.  I received some samples last week, of the new EconoGreen, line of garbage bags, that are now available at Home Depot stores, nationwide. Press Release I have tired the tall kitchen bags, and the Large (33 gal.) Trash [...]

Be sure to Stumble the posts you like, or submit them to other social bookmarking services. Let's promote each other, as well as ... [visit site to read more]

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Instead of buying a box of baking soda to stick in the fridge (which some scientists have argued doesn’t even work that well), just toss your citrus peels in there instead. The peels absorb strong odors while releasing some natural fragrances.

Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/going-green/community-tips/orange-peels-deodorizer

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First, I apologize for not getting this up yesterday, as was planned. Most of you know that I got some teeth extracted on Friday - 2 lower wisdom teeth plus all 4 bicuspids. I have some overcrowding and part of straightening my smile involved those extractions, plus 2 more sometime within the next year or so. Needless to say, I've been feeling very drained the last few days, and am sort of forcing myself to get something up today, as this morning was the worst so far. I'm going to also work on ... [visit site to read more]

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Stefanie had her wisdom teeth and, a few others pulled so some of the updates may come a bit slow to the blog as I will be running it, taking care of her and working until she is up to speed again. Hopefully by Monday things at least here will be back to normal. ... [visit site to read more]

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February 19th's Tip

Skip the gym: Consider how much energy use a gym must have - between all the lights and the machine running all day, sometimes 24 hours a day. Unless you have a green gym in ... [visit site to read more]

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Sometimes Humor is worth a thousand words The spoken word is such a barrier at times… no matter what language you speak. So please watch this video for interesting clarification of my last post. And I promise to get off of the numbers for a little while. BTW, we are going to rate this [...]

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UPDATE I received this added information direct from Earthship Biotecture, for your viewing and added information.  Please got to this link that will take you directly to their site : http://www.earthship.com An Earthship is a radically sustainable home made of recycled materials. * Electricity is from the sun with solar panels and wind with wind modules. * Water is caught [...]

The UN's top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, says he will leave his post after four years, reportedly to take a consulting position with KPMG, according the BBC News this morning.

He will vacate the position at the end of June, only 5 months before 193 countries will get together again for another shot at a climate deal.

But after the failure of Copenhagen, lingering questions surrounding the UN IPPC and its head Dr. Rajendra Pauchauri, along with other scandals making headlines involving alledged scientific data manipulations and other shenanigans, is it time for the UN to get out of the business of climate change?

Wouldn't it be better to put the collective resources spent by the 193 countries involved in climate talks into a massive R&D fund to help catalyze investments in the technologies needed to address the issue?

Is Mr. de Boer himself sending a message by heading to the private sector to focus on climate and sutainability issues?

What we eat, why we eat so much of it, and what it means for our health. Katie Couric talks food with former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler and Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser.

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="500" ... [visit site to read more]

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