The Dallas Green Zine

100 Coal Plants Prevented or Abandoned: Movement Sparks Shift to Cleaner Energy and Over 400 Million Fewer Tons of CO2

Washington, DC: Americans can breathe easier today as Intermountain Power’s
coal plant in Utah became the 100th new coal plant to be prevented or
abandoned since the beginning of the coal rush in 2001. In their place, a
smart mix of clean energy solutions like energy efficiency, wind, solar and
geothermal has stepped up to meet America’s energy needs. Last year 42
percent of all new power producing capacity came from wind; for the first
time the wind industry created more jobs than mining coal. And it’s not just
wind, significant job creation is happening across the clean energy
spectrum. http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=X2ATjVgoKx_zKBEeqBk7gQ.. .

Coming just a week after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced
the city would end coal use by 2020, and announced the same day as a
decision by Basin Electric Power in South Dakota to pull plans for a new
coal-fired power plant, the Intermountain Power coal plant marks a
significant milestone in the shift to clean energy.

“We are witnessing a remarkable transformation toward a cleaner, healthier,
more secure future,” said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond
Coal Campaign. “At the beginning of the coal rush in 2001, it seemed
inevitable that as many as 150 new proposed coal plants would get built.
Since then we’ve seen an incredible change in the way people, businesses and
governments– like Los Angeles– are thinking about energy, figuring out how
to generate and use it more cleanly and efficiently. Coal is no longer a
smart or cost-effective option.  We can create jobs and electricity through
clean energy technology made in America.”

For the past six years the Sierra Club and its allies have been running a
hard-hitting campaign to expose the dirty truth about coal. Tremendous
grassroots pressure, rising costs, and upcoming federal carbon regulations
all contributed to the demise of the 100 plants. Activists with the Sierra
Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign worked on the ground in almost every state to
fight local coal plant proposals, turning out to public hearings, holding
rallies and meeting with officials to push for cleaner and cheaper energy
options for their area.

“I was around for the first coal plant Sierra Club tackled; against all odds
and with literally only a handful of us who believed in fighting the plant.
Now, only a couple of years later, there are thousands of grassroots
volunteers who are helping defeat the construction of polluting coal burning
plants. We are seeing a movement,” said Verena Owen, volunteer chair of the
Beyond Coal Campaign.

That movement has kept well over 400 million tons of harmful global warming
pollution out of the air annually, making significant progress in the fight
against global warming. Stopping 100 new coal plants has also kept thousands
of tons of asthma-causing soot and smog pollution, as well as toxins like
mercury out of our air and water.

As the new coal rush ends in many states, the Sierra Club is working to
replace the existing dirty and unreliable coal plants that are large
contributors to health harming soot, smog and mercury pollution with cleaner
energy options that create more jobs.

“Stopping one hundred coal plants is a huge milestone in our fight to end
global warming, but the coal industry is still pushing forward with plans
for dozens of new plants in places, like Michigan and Kansas, and pouring
money into slick advertising campaigns and lobbying efforts,” said Nilles.
“As we celebrate this amazing milestone, we must redouble our efforts to
stop new plants and replace the existing coal plants with clean energy.”

For more, visit www.sierraclub.org/100coalplants
For detailed information on clean energy job creation in other sectors
visit, http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=l5See79j94jSBGU6uNQe3Q.

This article is from the Sierra Club. For more information, contact: Virginia Cramer, 804-225-9113 x 102

Against a backdrop of growing concern about the environmental impacts of the things we do and the materials we use, the popularity of wood is set to increase. Since time immemorial, mankind has made good use of wood both indoors and out. Wood is a versatile, attractive, and practical material; it is also our only naturally renewable construction resource.

When properties such as strength, beauty, and versatility are required, wood is the natural choice for many applications. However, the compelling attributes of wood are often offset by the susceptibility of many species to deterioration and degradation when used outdoors. Historically, the use of inherently durable tropical hardwoods and the application of toxic chemicals to temperate climate woods have provided partial solutions. As the availability of durable tropical hardwood diminishes and the use of toxins to improve the durability of softwoods becomes subject to increasingly restrictive legislation, the demand for an ultra-high performance, non-toxic alternative is growing. 

Accoya^® wood offers an outstanding solution.  Accoya^® wood from Titan Wood is an ultra-high performance all-natural solid wood, which has properties that surpass those of the best tropical hardwoods, yet is produced using a non-toxic process.

The technology behind Accoya^® wood is based on wood acetylation, a process that has been studied by scientists around the world for more than 75 years. This method of improving wood has been proven to deliver such superior performance that it has long been used as the “gold standard” against which other methods are measured.

The physical properties of any material are determined by its chemical structure. Wood contains an abundance of chemical groups called “free hydroxyls”. Free hydroxyl groups absorb and release water according to changes in the climatic conditions to which the wood is exposed. This is the main reason why wood swells and shrinks. It is also believed that the digestion of wood by enzymes initiates at the free hydroxyl sites - which is one of the principal reasons why wood is prone to decay.

Acetylation effectively changes the free hydroxyls within the wood into acetyl groups. This is done by reacting the wood with acetic anhydride, which comes from acetic acid. When the free hydroxyl group is transformed to an acetyl group, the ability of the wood to absorb water is greatly reduced, rendering the wood more dimensionally stable and, because it is no longer digestible, extremely durable. The process of attaching acetyl to wood is complicated: controlling and measuring the attachment of acetyl while protecting the wood’s strength and beauty is difficult.  With Accoya^® wood, these challenges have been overcome.

The production process effectively increases the wood’s acetyl content, adding nothing to the wood that does not already naturally occur because acetyl groups are present within all wood species. In general, softwoods have an acetyl content of 0.5 to 1.5% and more durable hardwoods have an acetyl content of 2.0 to 4.5%. During the Accoya^® wood production process these levels are surpassed, significantly improving the source wood’s durability and dimensional stability. Increased durability means that Accoya^® wood lasts longer, helping to conserve even sustainable wood sources. Improved dimensional stability (less shrinking and swelling) means that even environmentally friendly wood coatings, such as improved paints and stains, will last longer and need to be maintained less frequently. Additionally, this extended life improves Accoya^® wood’s carbon sequestration advantages and successfully contributes in the battle against global warming. Furthermore, Accoya^® wood is ideal for use in window, doors, and cladding due to its reduced thermal conductivity. This results in reduced energy consumption and contributes to a minimized carbon footprint.

The by-products from the production of Accoya^® wood are a small amount of valuable fertilizer, readily useable terpenes and acetic acid, which is reused thereby limiting the amount of raw materials utilized.

Production facilities follow strict processes to ensure minimal impact. Chemical preservatives (such as oil, ammonia or heavy metal compounds) improve fungi and insect resistance; however, they do not improve dimensional stability. They also risk harming living organisms by leaching into the earth and present challenges for the safe disposal of the wood at the end of its serviceable life. Accoya^® wood presents none of these problems, is 100% recyclable and may be disposed of in the same way as unmodified wood. By using certified sustainably grown wood from well managed forests and improving its properties without adding toxins, Accoya^® wood helps to protect threatened species, rainforests and local environments.

Accoya^® Wood in Action

Accoya^® wood can be used with absolute confidence and is suitable for a wide variety of applications, from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

The patio area of the prestigious London Mayfair offices of Fairfax I.S. has been decked using Accoya^® wood enabling the enjoyment of the summer sun in the city. Accoya^® wood decking was chosen for its beauty, durability and stability.

Accoya^® wood has superb potential in structural applications where it can be used to replace traditional construction materials such as steel. In December 2006, following extensive independent research, Accoya^® wood was chosen as the main construction material for two unique heavy traffic road bridges across the A7 at the city of Sneek in the Netherlands. The bridges, each measuring 20 metres high by 40 metres long, are due for completion by 2009. Accoya^® wood will be laminated in large sections measuring 1080 x 1400 mm. The project marks a breakthrough in the use of durable modified wood in heavy traffic road bridge construction and the bridges will be the first of their kind in the world. Accoya^® wood, with its outstanding dimensional stability, reliability and durability credentials, was the natural choice for the project.

Accoya^® wood’s superior dimensional stability opens up a wide variety of applications for this ‘new wood species’. Successful trials have, for instance, been carried out in Europe for the production of the wooden combs used in harmonicas. Here, Accoya^® wood is particularly valued as it will not react adversely to humidity caused by human breath.

Certain environments are particularly punishing and few are harsher than the banks of canals, where wood is used to hold back the earth. In this application the wood’s exposure to water, microbe rich soil and - most obviously at the waterline - air, is particularly challenging. In the Netherlands, canal linings were traditionally made using tropical hardwoods but, with this no longer being an option, an alternative is needed. Accoya^® wood has been trialed for this purpose with excellent results. Even after 10 years in the water, exposed to all temperatures from sub-zero to the extremes of the summer sun, the Accoya^® wood emerged with no discernible degradation at all.

From sundials that will be exposed to extreme temperature variations, to fun tree houses, garden furniture, signage and more; the sky is the limit with Accoya^® wood. Where quality, durability, dimensional stability and reliability matter, Accoya^® wood is the natural choice.

Starla Middlebrooks is Global Public Relations Manager for Titan Wood Limited in Dallas, TX. For additional information about Titan Wood products, please contact her at starla.middlebrooks@titanwood.com or visit the Accoya site at http://www.acoya.info

Dallas is a great business city. Always has been. The people here are innovative and willing to work hard. The local governments for the most part are business friendly. How do we continue to compete in a global business arena and attract corporate business to our area?

We have a very unique opportunity right now to embrace making Dallas a leader in leading the green movement and leveraging that into attracting great businesses to our area. First of all, reducing your environmental footprint as a business is the right thing to do. We have future generations to think of and this is not our world to ruin. There are many arguments about global warming that we can debate but this is about improving Dallas’s air and environment to attract business to our area. It starts with business owners that presently call Dallas home.

I own The Odee Company, which is a commercial printer that has been in Dallas since 1923. We made the decision to see what we could do as a company to reduce our environmental footprint. The printing industry is a large emitter of greenhouse gases and heavy user of wood products. We have recycled our paper waste for over 10 years. That is the most amount of waste a printer will produce. We then looked for ways to reduce VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) from our inks and press solutions. All of our waste products are recycled but by using more eco-friendly press solutions and vegetable based inks we help greatly reduce our carbon footprint. We decided to purchase carbon credits from the carbonfund.org to make us a carbon free company. We are in the process of changing our lighting to higher efficiency electronic ballast fluorescent lighting. Can you imagine the impact we could have as a city if the majority of business owners adopted more green friendly practices. It could be staggering the impact we could have.

If enough business owners in the community did this and publicized there reductions can you imagine the impact that would have for businesses looking to relocate. Dallas has so many plusses already that it could have a significant impact weighing on decision makers minds.

In my opinion this does not come from city government mandated laws or legislation. In fact that would hurt us. It comes from us as business owners taking a hard look at what we can do to improve our own carbon footprint. It is not expensive. In fact, The Odee Company has found in many cases it has reduced our costs. Going green would be good for all of us but it starts with business owners in Dallas taking the first step to get this ball rolling.

I can be reached at buzz@odeecompany.com and you can find us on the internet at www.odeecompany.com . If you are interested in our green section you can find that at www.odeecompany.com/green-printing.php .

Are you a small or medium-sized business owner interested in understanding your company’s key environmental impacts and developing a sustainability action plan to “green” your operations?  An SSC Green Office Audit will review the current state of your business and suggest ways to become more eco-conscious (and even save money in the process!).  We’ll also help develop awareness programs to encourage staff and customers to get excited about environmental sustainability.

No matter what your timeframe or budget, SSC can help your office “go green”.  Check out the following options:

1.  The SSC Green Office Audit - we’ll identify your key environmental impacts, assess challenges and opportunities, and create a six month action plan to kick-start your sustainability strategy. This option is best for small or medium-sized companies that have decided to make an environmental commitment, but aren’t quite sure where to go from there.  The entire project takes about 10-14 weeks, but can be completed in as little as 6-8 weeks for particularly ambitious companies.  It includes: (1) A two-day onsite visit (2) an employee survey (3) an ecological footprint analysis (4) a carbon footprint analysis (5) a sustainability action plan.  BONUS:  Get a $500 discount if you mention The Dallas Green Zine and make your deposit by September 30th.

2.  The SSC “Mini” Green Office Audit - designed for organizations with less than 25 employees, this service is a pared down version of the standard Green Office Audit above.  If you want to take a strategic look at your operations, but don’t have the time or budget for a full audit, this might be the best option for you.

3.  Workshops and Online Training - we can put together a specialized presentation for your company on a variety of topics.  (Popular options include “10 Ways To Save The Earth From Your Office Cubicle” and “Reducing Your Carbon Impact at Work”.)  This is a popular choice for companies that haven’t made a formal environmental commitment, but want to see what sustainability is all about.

4.  Carbon Footprint Analysis - using an ecological footpring calculator developed by TheGreenOffice.com, we can assess your office’s carbon footprint.  This is a great first step in convincing management that your company does have an impact (and that there are easy ways to become more eco-friendly). 

5.  Attend an SSC Event - we have a number of interesting online “webinars” coming up this fall.  Many companies will pay for these sessions — so be sure to ask your employer about reimbursement options!  Check out our event calendar to learn more.

For more information, please contact your local SSC Associate, Karen Seeh at karen@jihiconsulting.com
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About SSC
Strategic Sustainability Consulting (SSC) provides small and medium size organizations with the tools and expertise needed to understand and manage their social and environmental impacts. Using a combination of traditional strategic planning techniques and cutting-edge sustainable development knowledge, we offer clients a highly customized approach to bridge the gap between organizational values and operational performance. Through sustainability assessments, green office auditing, supply chain management, stakeholder consultations, sustainability disclosure and social marketing, we help organizations embrace their larger societal responsibilities and be the good corporate citizens to which they aspire. As they gain brand differentiation, increased license to operate, reduced energy costs and improved employee loyalty, our clients find that “doing good” is not just the right thing to do—it also makes good business sense.

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Karen Seeh is Principal of jihi Consulting, a Mid-Cities-based sole proprietorship providing business and non-profit development services to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ventures and social enterprises. Prior to her move into independent consulting, Karen worked for 10 years in the public, private, and non-profit sectors both in Washington DC and internationally - starting as an early promoter of the triple-bottom-line and then moving into CSR as well as exploring “hybrid” business models. She has an MBA in International Business and Sustainable Enterprise from UNC-Chapel Hill and a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from IU-Bloomington.

If you’ve been thinking about greening your operations, you’ve probably heard something about environmental management systems (EMS).  But, unless you’re an operations manager, you might not know much about them.  The EMS came about around 15 years ago when the Geneva-based International Standards Organization (ISO) published its 14000 series of standards.  ISO is an international body which creates standards for all sorts of things — for example, 35mm film! 
 
The EMS forms the basis of the ISO 14000 standards, outlining a process for identifying and managing an enterprise’s environmental aspects centered around four core steps: plan, do, check, act.  An “aspect” is a specific term used in the context of an EMS.  An “aspect” creates an impact — simple, huh?  Many companies whose suppliers require it or who believe it will give them an edge in the international marketplace choose to become formally certified to the ISO 14001 standard.  However, for many other companies (and schools, cities, etc.) an EMS can still be a valuable system for managing and reducing the impacts of its environmental aspects.
 
Looking at things systematically can help to prevent merely transferring pollution from one media (air, water, soil) to another and to reduce accidents and fines as well as uncover process improvements.  However, making an environmental improvement in one area might adversely affect quality or health & safety.  For this reason, especially for those in a manufacturing setting, it is more advisable to pursue what’s called an integrated management system (IMS) — which incorporates environmental, quality, and health & safety considerations. 
 
It is also important to make sure that your environmental aspects aren’t merely set around your environmental regulatory requirements.  It’s far more inspiring for employees when they feel that they are being challenged to find more environmentally-friendly ways of doing things instead of being squashed under yet another layer of reporting requirements.  The human element in any sustainability plan is just as important as, if not moreso than, the technical aspects.  Moreover, like anything in life, you will get out of your management system what you put into it:  if you quickly slap a system together instead of taking the time to get organizational buy-in and to ensure that your systems coincides with other systems, procedures, etc. in place in your organization –  you will likely see little or no benefit.
 
Want to learn more?  Here are some resources to get you started:
 
The U.S. EPA has a free “integrated” (it includes health & safety) EMS implementation guide complete with worksheets to walk you through the entire process.  A comprehensive if not a bit dizzying array of EMS resources can also be found on CleanerProduction.com. 

Dr. Robert Pojasek is one of the world’s experts on IMS’s, and lucky for you, he offers a reasonably-priced online course on the subject each Spring via the Harvard Extension School entitled Strategies for Environmental Management (ENVR E-105).
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Karen Seeh is Principal of jihi Consulting, a Mid-Cities-based sole proprietorship providing business and non-profit development services to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ventures and social enterprises. Prior to her move into independent consulting, Karen worked for 10 years in the public, private, and non-profit sectors both in Washington DC and internationally - starting as an early promoter of the triple-bottom-line and then moving into CSR as well as exploring “hybrid” business models. She has an MBA in International Business and Sustainable Enterprise from UNC-Chapel Hill and a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from IU-Bloomington.  She can be reached at karen@jihiconsulting.com

Fall is just around the corner, and you know what that means: the season of conferences and seminars is once again upon us.  Maybe you’ve been making efforts to green your office or to green your operations, but what about greening your meetings or larger events?  No doubt about it — these venues result in an almost immeasurable positive economic contribution, but this comes at a high environmental cost. Adopting green meeting practices is a great and relatively easy way to demonstrate your sustainability commitment to both your employees as well as to your customers and stakeholders. At the one extreme, you might be able to “green” these venues by simply by hosting them virtually.  However, this is impractical for some venues — such as trade shows where seeing the technology is a critical part of the sale or a final face-to-face meeting to win a large contract.  Luckily, conscientious meeting planners have some resources at their disposal (no pun intended):
 
The online resource guide provided by BlueGreen Meetings, a multi-stakeholder initiative created by Oceans Blue Foundation over 10 years ago, is a great place to start for both meeting hosts and planners.   It provides broad guidance as well as a few specific tips for every step of the event planning process — from accommodation selection to communications and marketing — and can be adapted for large or small meetings.  Meeting Professionals International has also recently begun to create a resource center on its website.
 
For detailed checklists, you may want to refer to the U.S. EPA’s It’s Easy Being Green publication or to Environment Canada’s Greening Manual. While both of these publications are ten years old, many of the basic principles still apply.
 
To go the extra step, you may also want to consider giving attendees the option of offsetting their travel-generated CO2 emissions and/or to offset the remaining CO2 emissions of your event.  Carbonfund and TerraPass are just two CO2-offset service providers that you may want to consult.
 
As with so many things, waste and pollution can be prevented with some conscientious planning that doesn’t necessarily require more effort but will initially require you to change your current way of doing things.  Remember that sustainability is a journey, not a destination.  There will always be more that you can do, but the most important thing is to take the first step.
 
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Karen Seeh is Principal of jihi Consulting, a mid-cities-based sole proprietorship providing business and non-profit development services to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ventures and social enterprises. Prior to her move into independent consulting, Karen worked for 10 years in the public, private, and non-profit sectors both in Washington DC and internationally - starting as an early promoter of the triple-bottom-line and then moving into CSR as well as exploring “hybrid” business models. She has an MBA in International Business and Sustainable Enterprise from UNC-Chapel Hill and a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from IU-Bloomington.  She can be reached at karen@jihiconsulting.com

Everyone’s talking about green these days…green this…green that.  Suddenly green is the new cool thing when it seems like not long ago that it was barely surviving.  But while everyone’s now aware of this phenomenon, it’s doubtful whether most people are cognizant of the financial drivers behind the movement.  In the battle to save the planet, it might be business, long maligned as one of the primary forces hurting the eco-system, that ends up as the catalyst that ultimately preserves it. 

Why? 

Gideon Rosenblatt, the Executive Director of the Seattle based environmental action and networking organization, One/Northwest, described in 2004 what he viewed as the environmental movement’s primary failure; an inability to connect with, and engage its grass roots constituency for action rather than rhetoric.  In a strategic position paper called “Movement as Network”, Rosenblatt, a former senior executive manager with Microsoft, stated;
The movement has done a good job of connecting with one-sixth of the public via “high engagement” membership and activism strategies. It must now also build a “low engagement” strategy to connect with the remaining 80% of the public who share environmental values.

Focusing on networking and communication technologies, Rosenblatt’s NPO concentrates on the connections that bind people and organizations in the Pacific Northwest’s environmental movement together, rather than the actual work those groups perform.  In seeking to identify the problems he sees in the movement’s credibility with the general public, he argues for a reorganization of the basic activist model away from comprehensive, all-inclusive approaches, and towards more specialized attention, suggesting that environmental groups should be divided into three primary divisions of labor according to what they do best; people, solutions and resources.

With this increased specialization and collaboration comes his key to reaching the 80% of Americans that he says are in fundamental agreement with environmental causes but not involving themselves in the effort to do anything much about them.  If Rosenblatt is looking for connections that bind people together in trying to save the environment, he needn’t wait any longer.    

The recent launch of the Global Alternative Energy Fund by the Calvert Foundation, (an industry leader in the advancement of socially responsible investment (SRI) strategies and opportunities), released in conjunction with a new survey of American investor’s attitudes towards clean energy and green technologies as viable investment opportunities, has shed light on some astonishing trends.  Sampling nearly 1100 investors nationally, both mainstream and socially responsible, Calvert discovered something that ought to make Rosenblatt delirious with glee.  Once considered by the politically conservative business community as mostly the stuff of hippy lore left over from the 1960’s, democratic politics, and the domain of people with lots of time to worry about things other than economics, American shareholders…the people US businesses most listen to and accommodate…are now overwhelmingly seeing green when they think green.  Environmentalism has joined the mainstream capital markets with those who bet on success with dollars.  Observe these startling results on the opinions of today’s investors;

• 76% of all investors are concerned about the future impact of global warming on them and their families.
• 85% consider investment opportunities in alternative energy and clean power as a legitimate way to profit while helping the environment

On US investor interest in a global alternative energy mutual fund

• 71% say they’ll consider investing in a mutual fund with a focus on global alternative energy sources and technologies, including 58% of non SRI investors, and only 27% said they would not consider such a fund.
• Interest crossed political demographics, with 82% of democrats, 73% of independents and 59% of republicans expressing interest
• Women (77%) outnumber men (66%) for interest in an alternative energy mutual fund.

On types of US investors focused on climate change and alternative energy

• The gap between SRI (79%) and non SRI investors (68%) expressing concern over climate change and alternative energy sources has narrowed.
  

• Politics no longer define the interest; 92% of democrats, 76% of independents and a surprising 59% of Republicans now say they are concerned about climate change.
• Support was gauged “strong and consistent” with all groups expressing interest; SRI investors (87%), non SRI (81%), democrats (90%), independents (87%), and republicans (82%)
• Women (86%) outnumber men (66%) in interest on climate change

On US investors wanting more alternative energy investing choices

• 84% overall want more choices, including;
  
• 92% of young investors aged 25-34, and;
  
• 91% of democrats, 82% of independents, 79% of republicans

As powerful as these numbers are, they tell only part of the story.  The truly significant findings lay not only with investor interest, but with unmet investor demand.  Despite the surge of interest in climate change and alternative energy investments, only 16% of US investors now say they are actually investing in clean energy source technologies, and only one in five who rely on financial professionals for advice have had a conversation with their financial planner or  advisor on investment opportunities.  In other words, this market is ripe to explode.

US companies are aware of all this.
In a research study commissioned by the Social Investment Forum and just released this month by Mercer Investing Consulting in partnership with Calvert and several other industry stakeholders, the SRI sector of the defined contribution investment market was analyzed and the data revealed two startling revelations in the report titled, Defined Contribution Plans and Socially Responsible Investing in the United States. 

First, at the present time 19% of US defined contributions plans already offer SRI funds in their portfolio options, and an additional 41% plan to introduce such options in the next three years, meaning that by 2010, 60% of the companies in America who offer 401k or other defined contribution plans to their employees will offer SRI funds as available investment options.

Second, 60% of those surveyed who did not have an SRI fund available in their defined contribution plan requested one.  The mammoth $14 trillion defined contribution market constitutes 51% of all retirement funds under management in the US.  Clearly this is an emerging growth market with opportunity for enormous potential for an infusion of expansion capital.  With this kind of money flowing into the sector, Rosenblatt’s concern over finding a unifying bond with grass roots constituents is a virtual certainty in the coming years.  People tend to be interested in what they put their money in.
This movement is not limited to individual investors.  The institutional investment market is also exploding.  The United Nations Global Compact recently released their report on the Principles for Responsible Investment, a survey of 200 investor giants holding over $9 trillion under management and concluded that ESG (environmental, social and governance) issues were creating “a sea change in global investing” in which 83% of investment managers had specialized staff dedicated specifically to SRI investment strategies, while 67% of asset owners and 83% of investment managers had  adopted formal policies on SRI.  Another 15% of owners and 5% of managers were planning to do so. 

Clearly the move to social and environmental investment at both the individual and institutional level is significant, and it’s here to stay as more and more companies respond to the wishes of their investors.  Remember the 80% of US citizens that Rosenblatt says are concerned about the environment but not actively engaged in helping create change?  With the availability of socially and environmentally responsible investments filtering rapidly to the public, that number figures to change considerably in the coming years.  As it does, an expanding market for Rosenblatt’s environmental activist model for organizational strategies comprising “people, solutions and resources” will also grow with it. 

Beyond the groundswell in investor participation that is pushing corporate response to environmental concerns, a secondary impact is following close behind.  Attracted to both the potential for profit in green technologies and the promise of environmental change through advocacy organizations, investment leaders like Calvert, Social Funds, Trillium Asset Management and Pax World Funds have lined up SRI funds for investors and helped to push the activist agenda as change agents, thus ensuring increased shareholder interest in driving corporate compliance with environmental objectives.  Meanwhile venture fund organizations with smaller portfolios who are actively seeking partner companies to invest in, and not necessarily established opportunities with brand names.

The web-searchable RISE database (Research Initiative on Social Entrepreneurship) at Columbia University returns detailed information on 38 venture funds seeking investments in companies focused on environmental impact, and 32 looking for investments in renewable energy, some with as little as $2 million under management.  These investors service the startup markets where small innovators have the opportunity to obtain seed funding or grow past early stage development.  Forty green companies already receive institutional investment from this group alone.  These companies and their venture partner investors are part of a small but growing trend as emerging financial support for eco-friendly and clean energy companies builds alongside other SRI investment solutions being looked at by a variety of financial service professionals.

The Internet will drive much of this demand as it continues to morph towards a more seamless communications capability with the merger of globally accessible information with the people and resources that make real time solutions tailored to highly specific interests not just possible, but routine.  As activists for environmental change continue to seek influence with governments and corporations, their voices will increasingly no longer be heard as impediments to business, but as key stakeholders and shareholders instead.  Investors, as they do in every other market, will drive the policies for companies large and small as they bank on green. 

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Mark Lewis is the CEO and Executive Director of the Strategic Business Intelligence Group, a business networking and masterminding organization building a platform to leverage the power of social entrepreneurship in neglected and underserved economic communities in Dallas Texas.  He can be reached at mark@strategicideas.org.