Green Chip Living is a blog by Green Chip Stocks focusing on Green and Sustainable Living
The fate of California cleantech will be placed in the hands of voters this November.
A power grab by a pair of Texas-based oil companies is currently masquerading as a job creation initiative in California. And if it is successful, it could spell curtains for the state's burgeoning cleantech industry.
It could even start a ripple effect that would seriously threaten the country's cleantech sector as a whole.
In 2006, California passed a monumental climate change bill — Assembly Bill 32 or AB32 — that set stringent emissions standards and renewable energy requirements.
The hope was that by 2020, California's emissions would be back down to 1990 levels — a 25% reduction. Another goal was for the state to get one-third of its power production from renewable energy.
It had broad bipartisan support from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratically-controlled state congress.
Proposition 23, which citizens will vote on in November, would effectively kill AB32 and undo the progress that has been made since 2006.
A new report by the Clean Economy Network explains why and how Prop 23 “will jeopardize a half million cleantech jobs, 12,000 companies, and billions of dollars of private investment in California, creating a domino effect that will harm U.S. competitiveness.”
The report goes on to argue that repealing AB32 would most certainly gut California's highest growing economic sector and send those jobs elsewhere — specifically China, the nation the U.S. is perpetually lagging behind in cleantech.
In the years right after AB32 was passed, the green economy added jobs at a rate of 5% while the rest of the statewide economy sputtered along at 1% growth.
Famed venture capitalist John Doerr praised the initiative: "Since the passage of that bill [AB32], California has pulled far ahead of the rest of the country... in the number of new energy innovation and conservation jobs created."
Prop 23 would suspend those landmark regulatory measures until California's unemployment rate drops below 5.5% — and stays there for at least a year.
To the 12% of Californians that are unemployed, this may sound like a reasonable proposal. I mean, if we can just stave off the current economic crisis, get people back to work, then we can work on this sticky climate change issue, right?
There is one glaring problem with that philosophy: California has maintained an unemployment rate under 5.5% only three times in the last 40 years!
So what Prop 23 really seeks to do is shift jobs from the cleantech industry back to the old, environmentally unsustainable oil industry... Which would make some oil company bigwigs very, very happy.
Bankrolling the Proposition are two Texas energy companies, Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp.
Both companies are threatened by the positive growth in renewable energy sources that emerged after AB32 was passed. They want back in on the action...
Those companies both know that even the threat of Prop 23 will put a serious damper on investor confidence in cleantech. There is nothing investors hate more than uncertainly.
China already has a commanding lead in the cleantech sector. They led the world last year with clean energy investments of $34.6 billion — compared to the $22.5 billion invested by the United States...
“There is no question that other countries and governments want these jobs and industries for the same reasons we do,” said Jim Watson, CEO of CMEA Ventures in California.
“And they are willing to do anything to get them. China's government is offering tremendous incentives.”
So while China has its gaze set on the future, here we are threatening to turn the clock back to 2005!
And for what? Backers of Prop 23 say it will help battle unemployment and curb high energy costs.
But according to at least one study, energy costs will actually rise if voters repeal AB32.
UC Berkeley Professor David Roland-Holst found that not only will energy costs jump by a third, but that as many as 500,000 Californians could lose their jobs if the state remains beholden to fossil fuels.
There is widespread opposition to the measure, as over 250 businesses have already lined up against Prop. 23. Just yesterday, famed San Franciscan hedge fund manager Thomas Steyer announced he will donate $5 million to the No on 23 committee, a group apposing the ballot measure.
Steyer, a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, has joined with Ronald Reagan's former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz as co-chair of the No on 23 committee — giving the organization a bipartisan appeal.
"Proposition 23 really boils down to one thing," Steyer said in a news release.
"Do we want California to continue moving forward as a leader in a clean energy economy, including continuing to create new jobs, new economic development and new investment, or do we want to allow two Texas-based oil companies … to take our state backward and see the clean energy jobs, business and investment in our state go offshore to a place like China?"
If you're a regular reader of Green Chip Living, you know our answer: Hell no!
You can read the Clean Economy Network report “Going Backward” here.
Be Well,
Jimmy
A study commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and The Nature Conservancy this month revealed that one-fifth of the world's mangrove population has been lost in the last 30 years.
North and Central America lost about 690,000 hectares and Africa lost 510,000 hectares over the last 25 years.
Mangroves are being destroyed up to four times more quickly than other forests.
Since 1980, the groves are being destroyed at a rate of ~0.7% per year across the globe, due to shrimp farming, coastal construction, salt extraction, and other human activities. Basically, aquaculture, agriculture, and urban land use are the mangroves’ greatest threats.
Mangroves are the salt tolerant evergreen forests found along coastlines, lagoons, deltas, and rivers, in more than 120 tropical and subtropical countries and areas.
Mangroves are an important natural resource, as they allow for variety in plant and animal life that inhabits water and shore to coexist while creating structure between the coast and the water, buffering coastal erosion.
Mangroves are one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet because of their location between land and sea and their ability to grow in a saline habitat with rot-resistant wood. They provide wood, food, medicinal plants and honey, and fodder.
They act as a line of defense during floods, cyclones, and tsunamis; according to the report from the UNEP, there is evidence in some places that mangroves reduced the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Mangroves are important not only to the coastal ecosystem, but as with any tree, as a source of atmospheric control; the swamps help control carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions.
"Mangroves are important forested wetlands," said Wulf Killmann, director of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Forest Products and Industry Division, two years ago when the United Nations addressed the issue of mangroves deforestation.
"If deforestation of mangroves continues, it can lead to severe losses of biodiversity and livelihoods, in addition to salt intrusion in coastal areas and siltation of coral reefs, ports, and shipping lanes. Tourism would also suffer."
This latest report from the UNEP and The Nature Conservancy focuses on making the nations with the largest mangroves aware of the urgency of this situation: Brazil, Nigeria, Australia, Indonesia, and Mexico together account for around half of the world’s total global mangrove area.
These countries can — and must — do more to ban the conversion of mangroves for aquaculture, agriculture, and urban development, and protect them from further retreating.
In Sierra Leone, lawmakers are actually working to create a bill for a seven-nation effort to protect West Africa’s mangroves.
The region once boasted 3 million hectares of mangrove swamps; the bill will seek protection for the 800,000 that remain, but that are being gobbled up mainly as a direct result of the salt extraction process — by the demand for fire wood needed for the process and the erosion that is happening as a result.
"If the mangroves disappear, fishing will be in crisis," said Wetlands' West Africa coordinator Richard Dacosta.
"The saltwater tide will invade river estuaries and coastal areas. Local communities on the coast will have to move."
The effort in Sierra Leone via The West African Mangrove Initiative is helping nations rehabilitate mangroves by planting trees and finding alternative methods of salt extraction and wood sources for the process.
Malaysia has taken action to reduce the retreat rate of mangroves by allocating state ownership of the mangroves to better manage and control their population.
"Countries need to engage in a more effective conservation and sustainable management of the world's mangroves and other wetland ecosystems," Killmann said.
Brigid
While the ultimate environmental impacts of BP's Deepwater Horizon Oil spill won't be known for ages, reports are already emerging about immediate damage to the Gulf's natural food chain.
Researchers at the spill site are speaking of a “ripple effect” resulting from the spill.
When 180 million-plus gallons of oil contaminate an area with as diverse plant and animal life as the Gulf, it has a two-fold effect.
The first is the most obvious: it's killing off a slew of animals. The second is less visible: the oil is increasing the prevalence of certain species, ones that are more adept at surviving in toxic environments.
It begins at the lowest levels of the food web, with tiny phytoplankton. The oil slick has blacked out the sunlight that the tiny creatures need to survive. Phytoplankton feed the smallest fish, which in turn feed larger fish like red snapper... and while I'm no marine biologist, I can easily see how this pattern could continue on to rather devastating effect.
One species that is dying off in record numbers is the pyrosome — a kind of half-jellyfish, half-cucumber organism. Researchers found thousands of the creatures dead and bloated, floating around the spill site.
a pyrosome
The endangered sea turtle relies on the pyrosome for food, as do larger fish like tuna. So continues the ripple effect...
According to an AP report, there is currently no other explanation for the rise in pyrosome deaths other than oil toxicity.
That while that toxicity is killing off organisms like the pyrosome, it's actually causing certain types of bacteria to thrive. Vibrio parahaemolyticus, for example, is a microbe that feeds off of oil.
"You can feed it exclusively oil," Jay Grimes, a University of Southern Mississippi marine microbiologist told the New York Times.
You may have experienced the business end of Vibrio parahaemolyticus if you've felt a bit queasy after slurping back some raw oysters. So it stands to reason that explosive growth of such a bacteria could imperil the Gulf's already reeling seafood industry.
Microbiologists like Grimes seem uncertain as to what effects these changes will ultimately have on the Gulf's delicate food web.
Time will tell, but the fact that researchers have already seen such a dramatic shift doesn't bode well for the Gulf's natural equilibrium...
Be Well,
Jimmy
Last week, GE announced its $200 million contest, the GE Ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid.
The GE Ecomagination Challenge is “a call to action for businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, and students to share their best ideas and come together to take on one of the world’s toughest challenges — building the next-generation power grid to meet the needs of the 21st century,” according to the contest’s website.
GE is promoting the Ecomagination Challenge with other venture capitalist partners, including Kleiner Perkins, Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, and Rockport Capital.
The Challenge encourages entrepreneurs, start-up companies, and technologists to share their proposals in three categories: the smart grid, renewables, and eco homes and buildings.
Participants may enter as many ideas as they wish within the three categories over a ten-week period, from July 13 to September 30, 2010.
Entries must include a detailed proposal of a smart grid technology that is both innovative and proprietary.
"Innovation is the engine of the global effort to transform the way we create, connect and use power," GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said during the unveiling of the Challenge on July 13.
“ … This challenge is about collaboration and we are inviting others to help accelerate progress in creating a cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid. We want to jump-start new ideas and deploy them on a scale that will modernize the electrical grid around the world."
Entrants and visitors to the website can view, comment on, and vote for promising ideas. The candidates for a commercial relationship with GE will be judged by a committee made up of GE and partner representatives.
The best ideas will be then go on to be judged by a panel made up of GE execs, Challenge advisor Chris Anderson (Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine),and leading technologists and academics who can provide input on the proposals.
Five ideas will be offered the opportunity to work with GE and to expand and execute their ideas, as well as receive a $100 thousand Innovation Challenge award. These select entrants will have the chance to develop a commercial relationship with GE through:
"The Smart Grid is a new platform and a new market that is just beginning to be explored. Great ideas on how to do this can come from anywhere, so this competition is designed to tap the widest possible range of innovators, from big companies to entrepreneurs to students," Anderson commented last week in San Francisco when the Challenge was announced.
Visit GE’s website for more information on how to enter an idea, as well as check out proposals from others around the world.
Brigid
When I entered Whole Foods earlier this week, it wasn't the splendorous array of organic produce that first caught my eye.
It was a beautiful Peruvian woman holding a woven basket.
“Would you like a chocolate?” she said, flashing a smile.
To tell you the truth, I'm not a huge chocolate fan. But her smile and soft Latin cadence left me with little choice but to try it. Plus, she was offering dark chocolate, which is rich in antioxidants and — according to some health experts — can even lower high blood pressure.
The enchanting young woman was a representative of La Orquidea chocolate, Spanish for the orchid.
I popped the small sample into my mouth.
The chocolate had a nice, bold flavor. I thanked her and she handed me a pamphlet detailing the company and its mission. As I flipped through it, I noticed an intriguing headline on an accompanying Time magazine article, “Drug Lords vs. Chocolate: From Coca to Cacao in Peru”.
It detailed recent attempts by agricultural co-ops to swap their illegal coca crops for the legal cocao plant. 
Now, the first thing to cross my mind was how anyone could convince coca farmers to replace their super-profitable crop with a product that is far less valuable...
I mean, it doesn't take an economist to see the gap between the price of the two products.
And considering that Peru is second only to Colombia in terms of overall coca production, it seemed like a uphill battle, to say the least.
But the triple threat of violence, prosecution, and intimidation is enough to at least tempt some Peruvian farmers away from coca long enough to take a shot at cocao.
The trade could become even more profitable if Peru can position itself as the premier cocoa location in the world, much akin to what Colombia has done with coffee (though it's worth noting the cocaine trade still thrives there).
As far as positioning is concerned, the country is off to a good start.
Last year, the Salon du Chocolat in Paris awarded the Tocache Agroindustrial Cooperative, located in Peru's San Martin region, the prestigious award for the “Most Aromatic” cacao beans.
Peru beat out several South American neighbors, including Ecuador and Venezuela, for the coveted number one spot.
"We used to be known for making cocaine paste, but now we are known for chocolate," Elena Rios, secretary of the winning co-op, told Time.
"There were only 12 of us when we started; now we have hundreds. Our success is contagious. No one wants to grow coca in Tocache. Everyone is thinking about chocolate."
Annual exports of cacao beans has already jumped from 16 metric tons to 250 metric tons since 2006. Some estimates put Peru in line to export up to 600 metric tons this year.
So it was within this context that La Orquidea started business in the San Martin region. And besides shifting agricultural production into the realm of legal markets, La Orquidea also boasts an admirable record on social responsibility and the environment.
The company's website claims to ensure fair wages to the local, small scale farmers they contract with.
La Orquidea has also set up two preservation funds in order to preserve Peru's unique biodiversity. One fund helps preserve an area of rainforest that is home to the vulnerable spectacled bear, known for its ability to climb the Andes' highest trees.
The other fund protects an indigenous orchid, the company's namesake.
And while La Orquidea doesn't yet boast official Fair Trade certification, I dare you to name a global cocaine cartel with a better worker-rights platform...
So while the cocaine trade doesn't look to be going anywhere anytime soon, empowering initiatives like the one taking place in Peru can serve as an example to other farmers who are tired of the constant stress, dread, and intimidation associated with the global drug trade.
And if Peruvian chocolate continues to win international competitions, the more legitimate an alternative it becomes to Peru's most infamous export.
Be Well,
Jimmy
In 2002, agitprop magazine AdBusters released a manifesto for their new, 100% recycled tennis shoe.
Dubbed the “Blackspot”, it was to be the first “earth-friendly, anti-sweatshop and cruelty-free” sneaker.
The shoe was created from recycled tire, vegan leather, and black hemp. It seemed like such a revolutionary idea at the time that AdBusters marketed it as the anti-Nike “Unswoosher”.
Adbusters' Blackspot Unswoosher
Well, the company was dead wrong about killing Nike — but Adbusters was dead on in its design philosophy.
With so many valuable materials heading to the landfill each year, why not put them to good use?
Now, nearly every major footwear company is coming out with an earth-friendly product line.
Timberland is the latest shoe maker to jump on the green bandwagon. Their new Earthkeepers 2.0 line are actually designed for disassembly after their “first-life”. Customers are encouraged to drop them off at the local Timberland retailer:
To be recycled, Timberland® Earthkeepers™ 2.0 footwear will first be taken apart. The worn out Green Rubber soles made of 42% recycled rubber will be sent to the Green Rubber factory to be ground up and de-vulcanized, ready to be made into something new.
The leather uppers on returned Earthkeepers™ 2.0 footwear will be used to make new footwear at Timberland’s own factory in the Dominican Republic. Polyester components will be recycled into new polyester products at Teijin in Japan, the only company that currently recycles polyester chemically.
Not only is it a great way to be environmentally responsible, but it's a shrewd business move by Timberland to get those customers back into the store after their sneakers are worn out, when they'll inevitably need a new pair of shoes.
Timberland's Earthkeeper 2.0 Boatshoe
Let's take a look at how Timberland's new shoe stacks up to the competition.
As the self proclaimed “world leader of sustainable shoes”, Simple started their sustainability push in 2004 — when they "had an epiphany", which they share on their website:
When it comes to being planet-friendly in our industry, the status quo sucks. Nobody's playing nice with Mother Nature, and we're just as guilty. If we're going to change the world, shouldn't we start with ourselves?
The company's site details the sustainable materials used in Simple's footwear. To line the shoes, Simple uses post-consumer foam from carpet padding; the treads are formed from recycled inner tubes. And the laces? Polyethylene Terephthalate, better known as recycled plastic water bottles.
Perhaps the most whimsical material are the buttons fashioned from coconut husks: “We take the coconut shell and use it....because it's renewable and plentiful but no, it's not edible.”
Like the Blackspot, Simple also eschews leather in their line of vegan sneakers.
Simple's Hemp and Organic Cotton "Toemorrow"
And what about Nike, the reason AdBusters developed the Blackspot? Due to its immense size, Nike's carbon footprint has always been an issue with environmentalists. To mitigate that issue, Nike has started several programs over the years, most importantly the "Reuse-A-Shoe" program.
Like Timberland's new program, Reuse-A-Shoe asks customers to return their worn-out sneaks (they accept most sneakers, not only Nikes) to one of the specified drop-off locations. The shoes are separated into three parts: rubber from the outsole, foam from the midsole, and fabric from the shoe's upper half.
The materials are then introduced into the "Nike Grind", where they are ground into granulated materials, which are then used to create sports surfaces like basketball and tennis courts, playgrounds, and running tracks.
But it wasn't until 2008 that Nike unveiled the Trash Talk Shoe — the "first performance basketball shoe that has been created from manufacturing waste."
The only problem was that Nike limited the initial production run to a measly 5,000 pairs.
Steve Nash's Nike "Trash Talk"
And despite Nike's growing environmental awareness, a large cloud still hangs above the athletic gear giant's head in the form of widespread human rights abuses exposed in Nike factories in the 1990s. And socially responsible consumers often have a good memory for such indiscretions...
So thanks in part to Blackspot's threat to give unsustainable shoe companies "a swift kick in the brand", those socially responsible consumers now have plenty of options when it comes to sustainable footwear.
Be Well,
Jimmy
Swedish home appliance manufacturer Electrolux is launching a new campaign to raise awareness of plastic waste and recycling initiatives with its most recent vacuum model.
The “Vac From the Sea” initiative aims to bring attention to the plastic that ends up in marine environments, ultimately harming sea life and disrupting ecosystems.
The program also serves in addressing the issue of the disparity between supply and demand for recycled plastics necessary in making sustainable home appliances.
Vac From the Sea actually relocates plastic salvaged from ocean garbage islands and relocates it to people’s homes — in the form of a vacuum cleaner.
The vacuum is effective physical reminder for consumers that the plastic bags for and packaging of things they buy end up somewhere — most often in a defenseless marine habitat. It is also an example of a sustainable plastic home appliance made from recycled materials.
One of the world’s largest floating garbage islands exists in the Pacific, and this is precisely the site from which Electrolux will take the “materials” from which to make their vacuums.
Materials will also be harvested from the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, as well as smaller bodies of water, such as the Mediterranean, North, and Baltic Seas.
The plastic will literally be dove and fished for, and scooped up during tides by volunteers and other local experts.
Electrolux’s green range vacuum cleaners are 70% recycled plastic, but the Stockholm-based company strives for more…
Engineers are working on building 100% recycled models for all ranges.
“There are plastic islands, some several times the size of the state of Texas, floating in our oceans. Yet on land, we struggle to get hold of enough recycled plastics to meet the demand for sustainable vacuum cleaners. What the world needs now is a better plastic karma,” Cecilia Nord, Vice President of the Floor Care Environmental and Sustainability Affairs department for Electrolux, explains.
“This issue is much too important to leave to politicians. Companies, consumers, and politicians are equally accountable for the situation. Since our company delivers appliances to millions of homes, we have an opportunity to raise awareness and affect consumer decisions,” Nord says.
And if not for the fish and gulls, consumers could at the very least be concerned about the inevitability of plastic making its way back to the supermarket and dinner tables eventually.
Plastic breaks down in water into smaller pieces after time — water that animals are swimming and feeding in. The same plastic Coca-cola bottle that was tossed into the bay or made its way from the edge of the expressway and down to a river bed eventually comes back to the top of the food chain…
Us.
The Vac From the Sea initiative notes that land supply of recycled plastic is significantly lower than the demand. What this means is that if we could all do a better job of keeping plastic from becoming a piece of an ocean garbage island, it is much more likely to become a part of a recycled-content consumer product.
“More recycling directly translates into more sustainable appliances and homes. Our engineers have managed to get our green range vacuum cleaners up to 70 percent recycled plastic but our ultimate vision is of course 100 percent, and for all ranges,” says Jonas Magnusson, Product Marketing Manager at Electrolux.
Check out Electrolux’s promotional video for Vac From the Sea:
Brigid
Believe it or not, the company that started as a wholesale door-to-door cheese business in Chicago in 1903 is now making great strides in waste management and reduction through ambitious efforts in recycling, waste-to-energy projects, and composting.
Kraft has cut its net manufacturing waste by 30% and recycles or reuses 90% of its waste.
The Illinois-based company announced goals to cut net manufacturing waste by 15% by 2011 back in 2005… It has far surpassed this goal, doubling waste reduction.
What’s more, Kraft boasts nine manufacturing plants that don’t use landfills for waste management.
The five facilities located in the United States, a U.S.-based distribution center, and three plants in Canada have achieved zero-waste status by finding alternative uses for garbage, re-envisioning how to recycle waste using local energy facilities, and cutting down on waste in general.
Kraft reports the company’s European plants have next to zero net waste…
With a presence in more than 155 countries worldwide, improving packing and energy efficiency and recycling in plants in even a small way makes a big difference in overall waste.
Kraft’s Australian facility was able to reduce waste by 125 tons last year, simply by increasing the efficiency in the peanut butter manufacturing line.
Mustard seed hulls leftover from the manufacture of Grey Poupon are being used as animal feed in Pennsylvania farms where they are sent from the Allentown plant.
Kraft (NYSE: KFT) is the United States’ largest food, beverage, and confectionery corporation and the second largest in the world, after Nestlé.
The company announced its “six areas of focus” for sustainability, using 2005 as its base year, with the goal of improving efficiency and reducing waste and energy use by 2011.
We’re concentrating on the issues most relevant to our business and the areas where our support can make a difference: agricultural commodities, packaging, energy, water, waste, and transportation and distribution.
Aside from Kraft’s goal to reduce waste at manufacturing plants by 15%, the company pledged to:
• Reduce energy use in manufacturing plants by 25%
• Reduce energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in manufacturing plants by 25%
• Reduce waste at our manufacturing plants by 15%
• Eliminate 150 million pounds (68,000 metric tons) of packaging material
And based on the company’s 2005 baseline, Kraft has cut packaging in its products — in everything from salad dressings to Life Savers to Teddy Grahams to its famous Macaroni and Cheese — by 174 million pounds.
Greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 17%; energy use by 15%; water consumption by 32%.
The company is the largest purchaser of coffee and cacao beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms, a New York-based organization working to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainability in agriculture and business and consumer practices.
And while Kraft is comprised of numerous plants, distribution centers, and found in nearly every supermarket chain and independently-owned grocer in the world, the company has managed to cut 50 million miles from its global transportation network.
You can read Kraft Foods’ Responsibility Report, “Working to Build a Better World,” right here.
Green Chip Living has reported on sustainable corporate behavior before, and we are only happy to hear and write of more news of continued efforts by large corporations who find that corporate social responsibility and sustainable practices are good for ethics, the bottom line, and the world to which they’re selling.
Brigid
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