Wal-Mart is also driving the green economy. The company now requires suppliers - numbering more than 100,000 companies - to submit data about their environmental footprints. That has created a business opportunity for London-based Intertek, which found 50 new clients in the past six months as a result. "Wal-Mart suppliers are scrambling not only to adhere to new rules, but to proactively use the environmental data to design new products and services," Khan said.
In many cases, he added, Intertek's new clients are not just looking to meet Wal-Mart's requirements. They want to reengineer their entire business for sustainability.
Even start-ups are finding growth opportunities in a sober economic environment. Energy efficiency was a boom industry in 2009, with more than $1 billion invested in energy efficiency start-ups, according to Cleanedge. The sector should eclipse solar this year in terms of investments and growth, the company said Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials, is mining this hot market by selling cost savings of green building retrofits and a one- to five-year payback of his insulated windows.
"Climate policy matters to the planet," Surace said. But for Serious Materials' growth, policy is no matter.
"Good companies have already figured out that green is green," he said. "Saving energy and CO2 in the lifecycle pay back in the manufacturing process and/or for your customers."
That's a sentiment echoed by many gathered last month at the State of Green Business Forum in San Francisco. For those betting on the market and concerned about climate change, the mood is determined - and cautiously optimistic.
"Something will happen federally," said Sarah Skikne of The Climate Group, a nonprofit organization working internationally with business and government leaders to advance a low carbon future.
"It has to."
Heather King is a San Francisco-based writer and a board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. DailyClimate.org is a nonprofit news service covering climate change.
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7 Comments
Add CommentWhy are articles like this, especially from sources like this, being published in SA? Is it just for the purpose of trolling?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo the extent that a "Green Economy" is related to advancements in technology, and it certainly is, it is unstoppable. The "Green Economy" will ultimately be about efficiency and saving $$$, something that nearly everyone agrees to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould the industrial revolution have been stopped - or, for that matter helped, by political action? Probably not.
Yes - SAVING dollars. Most want to, but there is also the governments' need to look green - it's a vote-winner. This is demonstrated nowhere better than by the way in which they apparently continue to "invest" in "windfarms" - and now "off-shore wind". Neither of these "technologies is anywhere near self-sustaining - for well understood reasons - but does it stop them pouring Our money - Our resources - into their political campaign. And getting a pat on the back for it >? - why the hell should it !? If they were serious, about anything other than PC-ness, ships would be sprouting some kind of sails - that actually worked, that is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut what did we see ten ? years ago ? - some genius level tosser getting a huge grant to stick alluminium-pole sculptures out into "sailspace" on some small ship or other.
The "idea" - at least - seems to have long-since sunk beneath the waves. I wonder why, after all they probably were about as viable as a "modern windfarm"
Maybe the "relationship" isn't quite that direct. A "Green economy" will be directly related only to sensible uses of "advancements in technology",.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBefore our "technology" all was "green".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEff and alt energy is going to grow because it has to to supply what we need at a reasonable price.
The big problem is the subsidies coal, oil get which makes it hard for 'green' to compete. If they had their full, real cost in them instead of in our income taxes, health care costs, infrastrucure maintaining costs in them, RE, eff, 'green' would be the low cost energy source by far without any subsidies at all. And that doesn't even include CO2, GW costs.
Wind, solar, CHP, CSP for homes, buildings are cost effective now but no one will build CHP, CSP units for us. These are all simple machines that last 30-50 yrs
But even without correct policy, fossil fuels are going up making 'green' the way to go.
I've been working with a research group on biomass pyrolysis for twelve years. All our funding came from donations. No private investors were interested until recently, when we went commercial. If we could have obtained state funding we could have gone to market ten years ago! Our business is now earning cash, and removing CO2 from the atmosphere. We have other green projects which could also benefit from state R&D funding, which would remove carbon from hydrocarbons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWEll nice-one eco-steve ! You don't have to tell me about it. Since the mid to late '80's I have struggled-on with research into the possibility of a self-sustaining wind-energy system. One that returns several times as much energy during its life as is required to build another, that is. It seems that it IS possible !. I estimate around 5% p.a. of cost is available in very many sites, and much m,ore in some others. This is about 40 times that returned by "modern windfarms". The government's response : Like someone cut the phone lines ? bertdotwindonatgmaildotcom for details.
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