In the recent past, there has been a lot of support by banks and governments to encourage individuals and business owners to invest in eco-friendly “green” projects.
Lenders have developed attractive loan packages for home owners and businesses alike, and some of them can finance up to 100 percent of the investment cost. (more…)
With the times passing environmental awareness is becoming a very important part of our society and it’s not a big surprise that eco-friendly structures are gaining more and more popularity as a perfect retail spaces. They are affordable and easier to build than more conventional buildings made of brick-and-mortar and they do a great thing for the community. Putting the economy aside, with a little bit of creativity and imagination you can build a business space that will outshine competition and gain positive feedback from customers. (more…)
With all the increases in energy costs over the past decade, the financial impact of heating and cooling your home has become of real concern for many people, but our cooler climate hasn’t discouraged more domestic and commercial investment in air conditioning systems. (more…)
As a rule, Americans don’t devote too much of their time to learning about trends toward environmentalism elsewhere in the world, even if those trends may be spreading like wildfire. I mentioned recently that The Netherlands is the focal point to a new-found appreciation of walking and bicycling. In the U.S., about 1/10th of 1% of all bicycle sales are electric; in Amsterdam, it’s 37%. Why? It’s an attempt, and a successful one at that, to get cars off the road.
There are other important differences between the Dutch and Americans, one of which is the former’s appreciation for classical music. Here’s a wonderful performance featuring a young girl with a fabulous voice, performing an aria of Puccini: “O Mio Babbino Caro” to a packed audience in an outdoor theater in Maastricht (pictured above); this is something that would be exceedingly rare in the U.S.
Those of us concerned about climate disruption turn to legal scholars for strategies that may be successful in protecting Earth’s atmosphere. Here’s one I just came across, propounded by Mary Christina Wood (pictured), a law professor at the University of Oregon, and author of “Nature’s Trust – Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age.” It’s based on a notion that goes back to Ancient Rome:
Not to take anything away from Ms. Wood’s construct, but one would think that all legal approaches in this space are variations on this theme; it really comes down to the purpose and duty of government to begin with: protection of the people. Regardless of how much or how little government one thinks is a sound idea, the only folks who could possibly object to this concept are anarchists—and even anarchy is based on the concept that groups of people have natural, spontaneous tendencies to build ad hoc social devices that function to protect themselves from harm.
My colleague Glenn Doty writes on my piece Aquaponics, Aeroponics, and Other Concepts in Modern Vegetable Farming:
Upscale restaurants and organic grocers for foodies are one thing. But to analyze where this must eventually end up, and try to find a path from the rooftops of high-end restaurants to large-scale operations that could feed a modest percentage of the human species… There are chasms to cross….It will eventually happen because it must, and once all options start running dry someone is going to throw the Hail Mary. Until then, this is just a high-end and novel form of gardening. (more…)
A reader comments on my article 2GreenEnergy Has A Broad Focus and Results That Are Hard to Measure–But There’s Good News Too…. By the way, very nice piece. I think that the only way we make progress is if people raise their voices and calmly and logically discuss their views. You have done that better than most, and thus had a very big influence on people…..You mentioned the small blue dot in your piece. I know people have a hard time to get their head around that. (more…)
Regarding my recent post on aeroponics and other aspects of sustainable agriculture, senior energy analyst Glenn Doty writes something that is both correct—and illustrative of a large point in clean tech investment:
I believe that the future will rely on vertical urban farming – and most of the farms across the Midwest will have to be glassed in over the next hundred years. But I think that the true gains here won’t be found without massive integration of technologies and demand.
The efforts that would be required to move forward here would never be palatable for a standard investor. Far too much capital would be required at an unproven model, and a small-scale model would have too many inefficiencies and too poor a ROI to attract bigger investors. (emphasis mine)
First, let’s take a few steps back. (more…)
I’ve seen quite a few business plans recently that propose to take a significant amount of investors’ money and build some really cool sustainable agriculture project, i.e., sustainable fish farming or aeroponics used to offer locally grown, organic produce. I just wrote to the person submitting them:
I have no doubt in the basic five tenets here: (more…)
Greenmatch UK has recently published a list of 100 Green Initiatives, awarding the Top 20 Green Bloggers, Top 20 Green Schools, Top 20 Green Projects, Top 20 Green Bites and Top 20 Green Community Initiatives for 2015 in the UK. The winners have been awarded for their efforts to achieve sustainability and for contributing to a more eco-friendly lifestyle.
The listed sites contain nice and useful resources, media, news and initiatives devoted to the environment. The award is a way to recognize the green efforts and to encourage more people to join the environmentally friendly initiatives. You can check the list here: top-100-green-initiatives. (more…)
