Eco-Justice

The micro-economics of sustainability are big and important: according to The Brookings Institution, the “clean economy” employs 2.7 million workers, which compares favorably to fossil fuels at 2.4 million jobs.  That figure represents 57,501 firms in the U.S. directly involved in the clean economy.  Of course, I continue to believe many important clean economy jobs in the supply chain are missed in these types of studies.  For example, Shuttleworth in Indiana diversified its customer base from solely electronics customers to now having roughly 30% of its business from solar customers.  While it may be near impossible to capture these nuances in standard Bureau of Labor Statistics data, such examples illustrate even more how the clean economy provides added value for U.S. job retention and creation (see the The Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness report for more information on the diverse firms in involved in the supply chains for many clean energy solutions).

Source: Brookings

Most encouraging, however, are two other key findings: the high growth rate for the clean economy sub-sector related to clean energy – 8.3% from 2003-2010 which is essentially double the growth rate for the entire economy during the same period (4.2%).   Secondly, the report documents the export strength of this sector of the clean economy versus the overall economy:  $20,129 versus $10,390 per job.  To bring us out of the recession and reduce the deficit, we need economic activity that enables us to grow fast and export more.  Look no further than the clean energy economy.   The growth rate validates an earlier study by the Pew Charitable Trusts published in 2009 characterizing the Clean Energy Economy which found a growth rate of 9.1% from 1998-2007.

So, what do these companies need to fulfill their promise?   More than anything, they need a predictable stream of U.S. customers.  So, every time a politician talks about the need to create jobs, reduce the deficit and grow America again, ask him or her what they are doing to create policies that deliver customers to these firms.

By Justin Olsson

Nitrogen pollution is a significant issue facing the environment: Across the U.S. and many parts of the world, large scale farming operations are applying excessive amounts of fertilizers and the unprecedented excess of nitrogen resulting from these farming practices contributes to coastal dead zones, impaired drinking water supplies, degraded fisheries and recreational areas, and risks to human health.

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is working with InnoCentive to try to find and develop solutions to the pressing environmental issue of nitrogen pollution (especially from agriculture).

These challenges form the first part of our Eco Challenge Series – an initiative in partnership with InnoCentive, the global leader in open innovation solutions, to work with companies to identify and solve pressing environmental challenges.  We recently took the first step by putting up reward offers to solve two challenges related to EDF’s agriculture work.

On Wednesday, EDF’s first foray into Challenge Driven Innovation took another step.  The challenge we posted – EDF – Nitrate Capture System – to find a solution to a pressing environmental problem closed its submission period.  In case you haven’t been following the progress, the challenge is an Ideation challenge – the point was to gather as many possible great ideas as we could on a method for filtering nitrates out of irrigation effluent in tile drain systems.

The challenge has a prize purse of $7500, and the final winning submission will be selected and posted no later than August 26, 2011.   The final tally: 244 people signed up to attempt to solve the challenge and we ultimately received more than 40 complete submissions.  These 244 solvers are a part of InnoCentive’s global network of 250,000+ individuals representing 200+ countries world-wide.

This is an exciting step, and we are thrilled about the number of submissions that have come in.  EDF plans to work with our internal staff as well as with external partners and colleagues to pick the submission with the best possible chance for dramatically improving the environmental footprint of nitrogen fertilization.

We’ll be providing additional updates on the process and the outcome as we proceed towards the final deadline of August 26.

In the meantime, please consider becoming a solver!  To do so, take a look at our pavilion and in particular the remaining nitrogen-related challenge to find a solution to farmers’ needs for good on-demand aerial imagery here.  It has a purse prize of $15,000, and the deadline for submissions is August 13^th.

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By Justin Olsson

Nitrogen pollution is a significant issue facing the environment: Across the U.S. and many parts of the world, large scale farming operations are applying excessive amounts of fertilizers and the unprecedented excess of nitrogen resulting from these farming practices contributes to coastal dead zones, impaired drinking water supplies, degraded fisheries and recreational areas, and risks to human health.

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is working with InnoCentive, the global leader in open innovation solutions, to try to find and develop solutions to the this pressing environmental issue (especially from agriculture).

We recently launched the Eco Challenge Series – an initiative in partnership with InnoCentive to work with companies to identify and solve environmental challenges.  We recently took the first step by putting up rewards to solve two challenges related to EDF’s agriculture work.

On Wednesday, EDF’s first Challenge – EDF – Nitrate Capture System – to reduce nitrogen pollution closed its submission period.  In case you haven’t been following the progress, the challenge is an Ideation Challenge – the point was to gather as many possible great ideas as we could on a method for filtering nitrates out of irrigation effluent in tile drain systems.

The Challenge has a prize purse of $7500, and the final winning submission will be selected and posted at the end of August.   The final tally: 244 people signed up to attempt to solve the challenge and we ultimately received more than 40 complete submissions.  These 244 solvers are a part of InnoCentive’s global network of 250,000+ individuals representing 200+ countries world-wide.

This is an exciting step, and we are thrilled about the number of submissions that have come in.  EDF plans to work with our internal staff as well as with external partners and colleagues to pick the submission with the best possible chance for dramatically improving the environmental footprint of nitrogen fertilization.

We’ll be providing additional updates on the process and the outcome as we proceed towards the final selection in August.

In the meantime, please consider becoming a solver!  To do so, take a look at our pavilion and in particular the remaining nitrogen-related challenge to find a solution to farmers’ needs for good on-demand aerial imagery here.  It has a purse prize of $15,000, and the deadline for submissions is August 13^th.

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By Gabrielle Maguire, 2011 EDF Climate Corps Fellow at eBay, MIB Candidate at The Fletcher School at Tufts University

Joining eBay as an EDF Climate Corps fellow for its third year participating in the program, I knew finding fresh opportunities for energy efficiency would be an almost impossible challenge.

I started off my fellowship here by reading last year’s eBay fellow Megan Rast’s blog posts. And it’s safe to say that eBay is no stranger to the concept of energy efficiency. When Megan arrived at eBay last summer, the company had just opened its most efficient data center in Utah, Project Topaz.

Likewise, I recently learned of Project Mercury, another data center expansion intended to push the limits of efficiency possibilities that will be unveiled this summer. Thus, I’ve found myself asking the same question Megan asked when she started at eBay: Where is my value add?

After meeting with employees across the company to seek out lingering energy efficiency projects, my suspicions have been confirmed – the low-hanging fruit is long gone. Nonetheless an interesting project has emerged, addressing the many challenges eBay faces as a fast-growing Silicon Valley company.

eBay, like many of its counterparts in Silicon Valley, is actively working to create an energy strategy that couples its operational need to minimize energy costs with its employee-driven mission to be green. It is challenging itself (and me) with the question: How do you shrink while you grow?

eBay’s growing pains are reflective of many Internet companies who maintain the culture of their days as start-ups but operate as multinational corporations. As I drive my project forward, I’ve come up with a few takeaways off the bat:

Time is relative: At just 15 years old, eBay is still a young company. Things change incredibly quickly. It’s evolving at a pace that exceeds the fast-moving e-commerce industry, and projecting energy use in the long run is difficult. Hence, short-term energy decisions are often prioritized.

The entrepreneurial Silicon Valley mindset is a strength and a weakness: Organizational flexibility allows people to incubate new ideas and develop them into innovative business opportunities. This is how the eBay Green Team was formed with 40 volunteer employees. It has since grown into a team of 2,400 volunteer employees across 23 countries. But this flexibility sometimes comes at the expense of process and infrastructure. Some projects are left to languish when it’s unclear which business unit a project should belong to and from which budget it should be financed.

Employee passion for reducing eBay’s footprint is self-driven: At eBay, I see managers incorporating efficiency decisions into everything they do, often facing difficult conflicts between a project’s long-term needs and business process hurdles. Having efficiency measures more formalized into work-streams is a common desire.

My project is still developing, but it certainly involves further digging into these issues. The next question I’m asking myself is: Will my financial analysis provide the support eBay needs to overcome these hurdles?

I’ll report back next month – stay tuned.

This content is cross-posted on In Good Company: The Vault's CSR Blog.

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By Gabrielle Maguire, 2011 EDF Climate Corps Fellow at eBay, MIB Candidate at The Fletcher School at Tufts University

Joining eBay as an EDF Climate Corps fellow for its third year participating in the program, I knew finding fresh opportunities for energy efficiency would be an almost impossible challenge.

I started off my fellowship here by reading last year’s eBay fellow Megan Rast’s blog posts. And it’s safe to say that eBay is no stranger to the concept of energy efficiency. When Megan arrived at eBay last summer, the company had just opened its most efficient data center in Utah, Project Topaz.

Likewise, I recently learned of Project Mercury, another data center expansion intended to push the limits of efficiency possibilities that will be unveiled this summer. Thus, I’ve found myself asking the same question Megan asked when she started at eBay: Where is my value add?

After meeting with employees across the company to seek out lingering energy efficiency projects, my suspicions have been confirmed – the low-hanging fruit is long gone. Nonetheless an interesting project has emerged, addressing the many challenges eBay faces as a fast-growing Silicon Valley company.

eBay, like many of its counterparts in Silicon Valley, is actively working to create an energy strategy that couples its operational need to minimize energy costs with its employee-driven mission to be green. It is challenging itself (and me) with the question: How do you shrink while you grow?

eBay’s growing pains are reflective of many Internet companies who maintain the culture of their days as start-ups but operate as multinational corporations. As I drive my project forward, I’ve come up with a few takeaways off the bat:

Time is relative: At just 15 years old, eBay is still a young company. Things change incredibly quickly. It’s evolving at a pace that exceeds the fast-moving e-commerce industry, and projecting energy use in the long run is difficult. Hence, short-term energy decisions are often prioritized.

The entrepreneurial Silicon Valley mindset is a strength and a weakness: Organizational flexibility allows people to incubate new ideas and develop them into innovative business opportunities. This is how the eBay Green Team was formed with 40 volunteer employees. It has since grown into a team of 2,400 volunteer employees across 23 countries. But this flexibility sometimes comes at the expense of process and infrastructure. Some projects are left to languish when it’s unclear which business unit a project should belong to and from which budget it should be financed.

Employee passion for reducing eBay’s footprint is self-driven: At eBay, I see managers incorporating efficiency decisions into everything they do, often facing difficult conflicts between a project’s long-term needs and business process hurdles. Having efficiency measures more formalized into work-streams is a common desire.

My project is still developing, but it certainly involves further digging into these issues. The next question I’m asking myself is: Will my financial analysis provide the support eBay needs to overcome these hurdles?

I’ll report back next month – stay tuned.

This content is cross-posted on In Good Company: The Vault's CSR Blog.

Subscribe to receive our blog updates by email, like our page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

By Gwen Ruta

I don't live on a farm, or anywhere near one. So I know that my mental picture of a farmer–a guy wearing overalls, driving a tractor and consulting the Farmer's Almanac for advice–is right out of the 1950s. Today's farmers are plugged in, tech-savvy, and globally connected.

The Iowa Soybean Association has teamed up with Environmental Defense Fund to develop the next new thing in farming technology. Using a new on-line Eco-Challenge Series, EDF and the soybean growers hope to solve some real-world environmental problems, while making farming more efficient and more profitable. The series is hosted by InnoCentive and taps into the company's global community of more than 250,000 scientists, entrepreneurs, inventors, and other creative "problem solvers" in nearly 200 countries.

So what's the problem we want to solve? It sounds crazy, but there is too much fertilizer being put onto fields. Yes, fertilizer helps crops to grow–it's a good thing. But as is often the case, too much of a good thing can be bad.

Currently more than 50% of fertilizer applied to commercial crops in the U.S. is not absorbed by the plants and is instead lost to water and air, causing dangerous environmental and health impacts. Excess agricultural nitrogen (one of the main components of fertilizer) is a main cause of dead zones–literally, places where fish cannot survive–in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay. Excess nitrogen can also change forms and become a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

One "rule" for innovation is that the best ideas often come from unusual sources, so we're looking for new ideas to help us solve the problem of excess nitrogen. We've posted two specific Eco-Challenges, and are looking for "solvers" to work on them.

The first Challenge deals with tile drains–these are porous pipes that lay beneath many farm fields and are used to keep the land well-drained. Unfortunately, they also provide an efficient route for fertilizer to pollute rivers, lakes, and drinking water supplies. We're looking for ideas on how to capture or treat the nitrogen in those pipes. The second Challenge is to find new ways–including remote sensing and real-time monitoring–for farms of all sizes to evaluate the effectiveness of their fertilizer management practices for crop growth and yield.

So if you've got a new technology, and monitoring system or even just a great idea, sign up now to help compete for the cash prizes and help to solve these important environmental problems.

We hope that by showing that even tough problems like widespread nitrogen pollution can be addressed, more companies and organizations will turn to open innovation and crowdsourcing to find solutions to their toughest sustainability challenges.

This content is cross-posted on Fast Company.

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We Texans love our cars. Statewide, we drive more than 644,882,192 highway miles every day. That love affair comes at a price though in the form of poorer air quality.

To help clean up our air by inspiring changes in driving behavior, Texas Department of Transportation recently kicked off its annual “Drive Clean” campaign and plans to give away a 2012 Ford Fusion Hybrid, donated by the Dallas Cowboys Football Club.

While industry contributes significantly to our state’s air problems, personal vehicles are also a major source of pollutant emissions. These rising emissions can cause us to lose billions of dollars in federal funds and more importantly, add to the rising costs of treating lung disease, one of the fastest-growing causes of death in the United States.

All of us share some accountability for worsening air pollution. Currently, nine Texas areas do not meet clean air quality standards: Austin, Beaumont-Port Arthur, Corpus Christi, Dallas-Fort Worth, El Paso, Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, North East Texas, San Antonio, and Victoria.

However, there are ways we can all chip in and do our part. Straight from the campaign website, here are five easy tips that collectively, can really make a difference in our Texas air quality:

1. Keep your vehicle in top shape. Proper and timely maintenance of your car or truck will conserve fuel and reduce emissions.

• Keep your car or truck engine well-maintained to lower exhaust emissions.
• Keep your tires properly inflated.
• Regularly change air and fuel filters and service air conditioning.
• Seal your gas cap tightly, refuel during late afternoon or evening, and don’t “top off” the tank.
• Lighten your load by removing roof racks and emptying your trunk of unnecessary weigh

2. Drive less. Reducing the number of vehicles on the road, especially during peak periods (rush hour), means less traffic and less exhaust.

• Combine your errands into only one trip.
• Carpool, vanpool, or ride public transit.
• Work an alternative/flex-time work schedule so you don't have to drive in congestion.
• Become a telecommuter or start a telecommuting program.
• Take a bicycle or walk when at all possible; it is good for your health.

3. Buy a "cleaner" vehicle. Help make the air healthier for yourself and others by considering the purchase of a fuel-efficient or low-emission vehicle such as a new, hybrid-electric car. For more information, visit www.fueleconomy.gov. Or, enter for a chance to win a new hybrid vehicle at www.DriveCleanAcrossTexas.org.

4. Drive the speed limit. At high speeds you'll burn more fuel per mile driven, thus creating more harmful pollutants in the air. It is safer to drive the speed limit, too.

• Accelerate and decelerate slowly and smoothly.
• Anticipate stops and coast to a stop gradually.

5. Reduce idling. Idling wastes gas. In fact, turning off the car and starting it again uses less gas than idling for thirty seconds or more.

• Park and go inside rather than using the drive-thru at the bank or fast food restaurant.
• Anticipate delays and take an alternative route to avoid stop-and-go or stand-still traffic… or travel earlier or later when congestion is less.
• After starting the engine, do not warm it up; modern engines do not need it.

By: Adam Hart, 2011 Climate Corps Public Sector Fellow at Mecklenburg County, NC; MBA candidate at Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

Meet the stars of the “Crab, You’re It!” project, a group of fiddler crabs helping North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County employees reduce energy consumption in a lasting way. The creative folks behind this idea are Mecklenburg County’s Land Use and Environmental Services Agency. They are using community-based social marketing in the form of the crab project to help employees become better environmental citizens.

Community-based social marketing is a behavior modification strategy developed by Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr, a Professor of Psychology at St. Thomas University. The basic idea is that once you identify the barriers and benefits to a sustainable behavior, you can use behavior change tools to create a new social norm.

Mecklenburg County launched a pilot project, “Crab, You’re It!,” to encourage 350 county employees to turn off lights after leaving workspaces during business hours. The behavior change was driven by attaching a stigma to leaving the lights on. Employees were encouraged to spot colleagues who forgot to switch their lights off, and give them a big plastic fiddler crab. They could only pass on the fiddler crab when they found another employee wasting energy.

Each of the fiddler crabs had the following message written on it:

The Fiddler Crab is attracted to light. So, if one of your coworkers forgets to turn off their workspace lights when they leave for more than 15 minutes, “CRAB” them for wasting energy! If you return to find a crab on your desk then “you’re it;” your goal is to get rid of the crab by finding another coworker who needs a reminder not to be crabby about turning off the lights.

The gaming aspect of the campaign made it catchier than just asking people to turn the lights out. That catchiness created accountability and a new social norm in the offices. Before the crabs were introduced, lights were turned off only 60% of the time in empty workspaces. After “Crab, You’re It!” was introduced, over 90% of lights were switched off.

Community-based social marketing can have a lasting impact on individual behavior, and this project will lead to more energy saving campaigns for Mecklenburg County.

EDF Climate Corps Public Sector (CCPS) trains graduate students to identify energy efficiency savings in colleges, universities, local governments and houses of worship. The program focuses on partnerships with minority serving institutions and diverse communities. Apply as a CCPS fellow, read our blog posts and follow us on Twitter to get regular updates about this program.

Today, the EPA announced that all 136 of the industrial facilities across the state that had flexible permits committed to bring them into compliance with federal law. While it seems only logical that air permits issued to facilities comply with the Clean Air Act, this has not been the case in Texas.  Since 1994, when the first flexible permit was issued, many facilities in Texas have been operating under permits that make it nearly impossible to track facility compliance.

 What was wrong with flexible permits?

As we’ve said many, many, many times before, here is a summary of a few of the problems with flexible permits:

 1.      Flexible permits eliminate pollution limits designed to protect public health.   Flexible permits eliminate federal, unit-specific, pollution limits that are intended to assure that public health is protected from industrial pollution.

 2.      The flexible permit pollution trading system is unenforceable and fails to protect public health. Flexible permits allow sources to lump hundreds of pieces of polluting equipment under a single pollution limit, or cap. Because most of the equipment is not monitored, it is almost impossible to determine whether or not companies are complying with their pollution caps.

 3.      Flexible permits prevent the public from their right to know.  The federal Clean Air Act protects neighbors’ right to know about, and voice their concerns with, pollution increases that may affect the safety of the air they breathe.  The flexible permit program allows industry to move emissions around, and increase pollution from some units, without notifying neighbors, or even state and federal regulators.

 4.      Flexible permit emission caps allow so much pollution that they aren’t limiting industry emissions.  The pollution caps in flexible permits are so high that they don’t serve as a real limit on pollution, and certainly don’t reflect the best that industry can do.   The same companies that operate in Texas operate in other states under permits that meet federal requirements and include significantly lower emission limits. 

 What now?

Facilities have committed to a timeline to transition to legal permits – permits that meet both state and federal law. It will take a while, but eventually, all 136 companies will have new, legal permits.

 A quote from Al Armendariz, Region 6 Administrator on the announcement:

“It’s great that Texas businesses would meet the challenge so quickly,” said Armendariz. “Here we are – one year from beginning to work with the largest 40 permit holders – and we have significant progress with no disruptions, no job losses, and numerous commitments from companies to obtain Clean Air Act compliant permits through a transparent process. Several companies have reached the first milestones ahead of schedule. People living in cities and towns across Texas will benefit from the hard work of EPA staff and these companies.”

It’s clear that industry recognizes that certainty in regulation is better than the legal limbo that they’ve been facing ever since the Bush Administration. And we thank Texas industry for making the right decision to follow the law. Local communities will have greater confidence that they are receiving the protections afforded under the Clean Air Act. Health is everyone’s issue. And meeting the laws that help protect clean air should never have been optional.

By Jonathan Huynh, 2011 EDF Climate Corps Fellow at VivaKi, MBA Candidate at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business

As I walked around the various floors of Chicago’s Leo Burnett Building, I could not help but notice posters and advertisements for a variety of familiar brands  As an EDF Climate Corps fellow at VivaKi this summer, I’m working to weave the value of energy efficiency into everyday life here just as these media and marketing agencies have weaved the value of these iconic brands into my everyday life for years.

My objective for the summer is simple: Identify and create valuable energy efficiency projects for the Leo Burnett Building. The building is a 48-story skyscraper above the Chicago River’s west bank. When it was built in 1989, it was the 12^th tallest structure in the city.

During my first couple of weeks, I focused on getting to know the gargantuan building better. This involved roaming the building after hours, climbing on desks to examine lighting fixtures, and surveying office spaces for energy guzzling devices.  Equipped with an arsenal of energy efficiency tools and a support network of 57 other Climate Corps fellows at leading companies across the country, I was ready to attack.

Fortunately, after discussions with my supervisor and building management, I realized most parties here were on board with investing in energy efficiency projects.  They understand the economic and intangible benefits associated with these projects and were excited about my task. For example, the property manager I met with indicated that demand for LEED certified properties in the area has risen and  tenants are constantly seeking ways to lower operating expenses.  As a global media and marketing organization, VivaKi understands the benefits of energy efficiency investments in terms of enhanced public relations, competitive positioning and employee morale.

So why did the company hire me? Turns out, VivaKi faces the same barriers that many corporations of its size and position seem to grapple with. As we learned at the EDF Climate Corps training earlier this year, the first step to overcoming barriers is identifying them. So I’m on the right track. Here’s what I’ve found thus far:

• There is a lack of dedicated resources focused on energy efficiency initiatives.

Although energy efficiency is on the radar for many folks, it simply loses momentum in the face of other high priority tasks.  For example it takes considerable resources to ensure that my 1.12-million-square-foot office building operates smoothly.  Elevators need to zoom from floor 1 to 48 safely, ventilation changes depending on the weather, and offices are continually rearranged.  Additionally, there tends to be no “typical” energy efficiency projects in corporations as large as this because projects need to be tailored to each building’s unique office space and culture. A lighting retrofit project may work in the Leo Burnett building but not at the other VivaKi building across the street. It’s needs are entirely different.  Without dedicated resources to make energy efficiency a higher priority and develop customized projects, the adoption of new programs will remain slow.

• “Greening” the office often entails something that employees can touch and feel.

“Greening” programs such as a company recycling program or encouraging the use of reusable coffee cups are often most successful because the results are visible and obvious.  Since one can see a recycling bin pile up and a direct cost benefit from no longer purchasing disposable coffee cups, these types of programs sometimes take priority.  While these programs deserve merit and are indeed helping VivaKi become more environmentally friendly, energy efficiency projects will need similar measurable results so that employees are engaged.

• Multi-tenant buildings create even higher coordination challenges.

It’s clear that coordination challenges exist within companies to implement energy efficiency upgrades.  Employees from Finance, HR, and Facilities need to collaborate in order to make these upgrades successful while ensuring that worker productivity is not affected.  And multi-tenant buildings simply amplify these challenges.  Building-wide projects such as general lighting or HVAC improvements affect all tenants in the building, not just the tenant championing the improvement.  As such, all key tenant decision makers need to be involved. Just one dissenter can slow down the effort.

At the end of the summer, I am hoping that my work will ultimately build enough momentum to carry more energy efficiency projects forward across the entire portfolio of VivaKi agencies in Chicago.

Despite the barriers highlighted above, I am confident I will find straightforward recommendations for energy efficiency and communicate their value as effectively as the brands adorning the walls of the Leo Burnett building.  Like any successful branding effort, overcoming these barriers will require a simple message that people can relate to.  The goal of energy efficiency needs to be crystal clear: Do more with less.

EDF Climate Corps matches trained students from leading business schools with companies to develop practical, actionable energy efficiency plans. Sign up to receive emails about EDF Climate Corps, including regular blog posts by our fellows. You can also visit our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter to get regular updates about this project.

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