Altgate

Environmentalism Goes Mainstream

I saw this picture in an article about a German company signing a contract to produce wind energy in Africa and I just had to share.  What's happened over the past few years is that, what used to be an industry driven by passion and personal motivation has turned into a huge financial opportunity.  As a result, it's brought together two groups you never would have expected: tree huggers and Wall Street.

I suspect this odd-couple marriage of convenience is going to have a few bumps after the honeymoon period wears off.  I bet that there are a lot of projects that will be mis-managed due to inexperience and a lot of money will be invested and wasted.

Alternative Energy

Well, here's a photo you don't see every day.  It's from the University of Michigan Solar Car Team blog.  At the beginning of June, the team spent a few days of practice on the actual race route in advance of next month's North American Solar Challenge.  In the picture, you can't see the actual car, just one of the support vehicles (the black hybrid SUV with the #2 on it).  So here's a car powered only by the sun driving down the freeway and what's passing on the left?  That's a giant blade for a windmill that will soon be producing electricity.  How about that!?

Go Green @ Work

After several months in the oven, I am thrilled to announce the launch of my new venture, Viridus, a community for business professionals to discuss and advance corporate sustainability. 

Viridus is a practical "how to manual" for issues everyone faces at work.  Our belief is that everyone has a "green collar" job and it is how you do your job that actually makes it green or not.  An accounting department working on reducing paper billing, an engineering group designing for recyclability, a purchasing department seeking to reduce the ghg footprint of their supply chain, a facilities department looking to reduce energy or water consumption and especially those who work in corporate sustainability will all find value at Viridus.

Viridus is a members-only site with 100% user-generated-content.  We feel that an environment of business professionals who have responsibility for the sustainability of their organization is particularly valuable.  This way members don't have to worry about being solicited by vendors, press, regulators, NGOs, etc.

We are strongly committed to improving the sustainability of businesses everywhere and look forward to building the Viridus community.  We are currently in invite only private beta.  If you would like to request an invite, please sign up here.  In the meantime, please feel free to send us feedback, comments or questions.

And lastly, over the next few weeks I'll be posting more on my transition from EIR back to entrepreneur, so stay tuned!