Sustainable Business Venturing Class

This may be a little late, but if you're a student at the College of Charleston (or know one) and you're still looking for classes for fall, consider the new class I'm teaching. Here is a course description and list of learning objectives:

MGMT 360-002: Sustainable Business (Venturing)

Fall-12358 – Hansen, T/H 1:40

Course Description

This course approaches environmental problems as entrepreneurial opportunities and sees entrepreneurs as influential in creating social and economic change. This course will help students recognize opportunities to create new businesses that move us towards a more sustainable economy. Industry sectors with strong representation the Lowcountry with a high need and/or possibility for improvement in environmental sustainability will be a particular focus. Students will learn about these sectors through speakers, case studies and industry research. Students will also learn about the business case for sustainability and about creating value for all of an organization’s stakeholders. Students will work in teams to develop a well-defined sustainable new business concept.

Outcomes & learning objectives:

• Understanding of the importance of sustainability/ impact of business on the environment
• Understanding of consideration of value creation for all stakeholders
• Knowledge of locally-represented sectors of sustainable business
• Ability to recognize sustainable business opportunities
• Development of a well-defined sustainable new business concept
• Four written reports, with accompanying presentations: sector report, market research, existing sustainable business, team final business concepts (will include updates of first two)
• Graduate students will conduct a review of the sustainable entrepreneurship literature

Investment in Green Tech

I've been reading a few articles lately about the increasing volumes of venture capital money flowing into green tech ventures. John Doerr has been the central character in just about everyone one of them. This morning I read about a speech he gave this weekend at MIT. One quote I found interesting is "There's too much money chasing too few good ventures, despite the size of this problem." In that speech and other articles, like this one in Fast Company, Doerr describes the green tech sector as bigger than the Internet. The problem is that while the problems being addressed by green tech are considerably large and have enormous market potential, they will take considerably longer to materialize compared to Internet companies. Hopefully investors will have the stomachs to hold on long enough to see the returns and we won't experience a collapse similar to the dot-com bubble.

Upcoming Events

Just a reminder that the next event will be this coming Monday. Same time, same place (4:30-7:00 at the Tate Center). The focus will be on green building, but you are all free to discuss whatever you want of course.

Also this Sunday will be the Eat, Drink and Be Green event. It will take place from 4:00 to 8:00 at Patriot's Point. Proceeds benefit green initiatives at the College of Charleston. While there are plenty of green events going on this month, this one's unique in the fact that it's been organized as a class project. I hope you all will come out and give a little support to the College (and of course stop by Margaret's Ecolibrio jewelry booth).

My apologies to Jason and Green Drinks for not promoting the event this week. It was an interesting one with a presentation by CCL regarding the 526 extension. I'll have more to say about it in a future blog (once I'm caught up with grading), particularly what I think it means for local businesses.

Plastic Bottle Recycling

A student provided a link with information about plastic recycling today and I found it quite interesting so I thought I'd share. You can see plastic bottle recycling rates. Rates have been going down. However they're going down only in percent of sales. That is, the actual amount of plastic bottle recycling is going up, but the sales of plastic bottles is going up even faster, as this image shows. What I find surprising is that rates were at about 1/3 just a decade ago (but are now down below 1/4). A comparison with Sweden's rates is also interesting. Clearly something happened in Sweden in 1995. Something happened here too. Per capita waste started shooting up in 1995 - about the time bottled water started catching on. There is plenty more information about other container recycling, have fun with it.

Party for a Purpose

Update: The event is postponed until Wednesday, April 16th. Same time and place, though there will be a backup plan to hold it in the Stern Center ballroom in case it's raining again.

If you're around the College of Charleston campus tomorrow (Thursday) check out an event going on: Party for a Purpose. It will run from 12 - 5 in the Stern Center garden. There will be entertainment and vendors (including my wife's EcoLibrio jewelry) and perhaps a few speeches, including one potentially from yours truly. The event is being organized by Green Team Entertainment, which is run by Adam Chase, a Green Business Networking regular.


Here are the details:

On Thursday, April 3, 2008, from 12pm to 5pm Green Team Entertainment will host Party for a Purpose at the College of Charleston. With the help of students and staff we have determined some of the key issues faced by the school and will be using this first event to raise awareness about those issues while offering practical solutions. Local artists and musicians will be joining the cause providing entertainment and interactive art projects to engage students and attendees. Go Green coffee shop, Kronic Coffee, of James Island, will be providing food and drink which will be served on biodegradable plastic-ware, which will be composted by our Green Team Entertainment clean up crew. For more information or to get involved, you can email us:
info@greenteamentertainment.com

Greening Your Office

There's a good article today over on GreenBiz.com about creating The Zero Waste Office. Waste has been one of my primary concerns going way back to grade school in the 70's where I was taught to "waste not, want not" and "reduce, reuse, recycle". The latter of which is hierarchical. That is, try to reduce first, if that's not possible, reuse, then recycle. It seems too often people jump right into recycling without trying the others first. Being one that pretty much abhors waste, I'd like to see people begin bragging about how much they've reduced and reused before they talk about their recycling efforts. Which gets me back to the article. It's one of the few I've read recently that actually brings up the old reduce, reuse, recycle concept. The thing is, it makes perfect business sense. Reducing and reusing saves money, recycling usually doesn't, and in fact may even cost money. Any organization, whether it's a for-profit business, a non-profit charity or even a family, can benefit from saving money by reducing and reusing.

Greener Wine: Shipping by Sail

As a recurring theme here, one way businesses need to work to make their products more green is to improve the shipping process. Here's a story about French wine makers going back to the way they used to ship wine - by sail. I've said this on numerous occasions in discussions - we used to do things without the use of oil or major machinery and it would be wise of us to go back a reexamine those old ways. Shipping wine by sail, a product that does not need to rush to market, is a great example. Of course if the journey takes too long there might be a few cases missing by the time the boat reaches its destination.

Green Builder Directory

For those that haven't already seen the press release or heard about the directory that was discussed by Niall Cytryn at the most recent Green Business Networking event I'm posting it below. On a similar note, due to the popularity of green building we will focus the next event on the topic. More to come soon.

The Sustainability Institute Introduces Green Building Directory

A one of a kind innovation for South Carolina, a new service that illustrates the growing green building industry throughout the state, is here. On March 7, the non-profit, North Charleston-based Sustainability Institute began accepting entries for the South Carolina Green Building Directory. This is the first online resource of its type in the state allowing instant access to information on sustainable products and services. The directory will be fully operational in April, and is available free of charge to businesses and non-profit organizations who register with the site.

Three South Carolina state government agencies – the Department of Health and Environmental Control, Department of Commerce, and Department of Energy – are supporting the Sustainability Institute project through grant funding. The Institute has designed the online service to help create markets for green building materials and services within the state. The web site has space for hundreds of companies to exhibit information on their products and services, creating a virtual free market for the regional building industry.

“The Sustainability Institute and its state agency partners are proud to offer the Green Building Directory as a cutting-edge tool to the building industry,” says Bryan Cordell, Executive Director of The Sustainability Institute. “We believe that it will become a valuable tool to building industry professionals across South Carolina and the southeast region. The Directory will connect customers with companies offering sustainable products and services in a unique way that stimulates green commerce.”

“We owe a great deal to our Project Manager, Niall Cytryn, and our Web Developer Laura Addis, who have contributed to making the Directory a reality,” adds Cordell. Sustainability Institute staff and consultants maintain the site.

The Institute is emailing electronic postcards to prospective participants. A news release will be sent to the media during the week of March 17 targeting homebuilders associations, chapters of the US Green Building Council and the American Institute of Architects, professional industry associations, and individual businesses.

Cordell believes the Directory is a boon to companies seeking to showcase their products and services to prospective clients and contractors. Information on companies can be viewed for free, with links and summaries on each company and non-profit listed on the site. According to Niall Cytryn, The Institute’s Project Manager for the SCGBD, “For building professionals, the Directory will offer the highly-sought after ability to search for products by type, applicability to LEED credit, CSI Division, and proximity to site location.”

Cordell concludes, “We envision that the use of this directory will result in much greater utilization of sustainable products and services throughout South Carolina and the southeast.”

For more information on the South Carolina Green Building Directory (SCGBD), contact the Sustainability Institute by phone at 843-529-3416, email: info@scgreenbuildingdirectory.org, or online at www.scgreenbuildingdirectory.org.

Government Money to Help Small Businesses Develop Green Technology

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is something that is always included in lectures about alternative ways for start ups to get money besides the more traditional funding from FFF (family, friends and fools), angels and venture capitalists. However for my students it's often just an interesting note since it is focused on high tech, like nano- and biotechnology, which undergraduate business students are not likely to be involved with. But now, as GreenBiz News reports, SBIR seems to be working with the EPA to offer a set of grants specifically focused on green technology, which includes "pollution prevention, biodiesel and ethanol, solid and hazardous waste, air pollution control and homeland security" in addition to nanotech. Grants are $70,000 and will be given to 25 companies. Proof of concepts are due by May 21.

However, GreenBiz doesn't provide a link to the news source and I can't find the solicitation on the SBIR website. I'll keep looking into it, but if anyone knows more about the program please leave a comment or contact me.

Skysail Results

Last month in one of my blogs about ports I mentioned a project to add sails to a shipping freighter. Well, the first trip has been completed and the results are in. On a trip from Germany to Venezuela the ship cut fuel by 20%. That's, according to CNET, 2.5 tons of fuel, or in economic terms, $1000 per day. There's been plenty of talk that being more green makes business sense. When you get numbers like this, it's hard to refute that notion.