Video: The Financial Opportunities from Sustainability

In this video Sarah Slaughter, the Associate Director for Buildings and Infrastructure at MIT, address the challenge of sustainability. Many organizations feel overwhelmed by the prospect of being more sustainable. Slaughter addresses the question of who needs to be at the table to build a Sustainability strategy. Sustainability is an important issue for communities and government officials, but is is also a key part of what CFOs need to consider when looking at risks and opportunities. As Slaughter says, if CFOs can find new ways and new products and new services that provide new market opportunities, it's like found money on the sidewalk.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

Video: Sustainability is Driving Competitiveness

According to National Business Initiative (NBI) program manager Steve Nicholls, Environmental sustainability is an important business driver for competitiveness.

© 2012, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

Video: Business Opportunities from Combating Climate Change

This video reviews business opportunities associated with efforts to combat climate change. The video concludes by going into a bit of detail about carbon farming.  In the order in which they are presented here are the six areas of opportnities:

1. Changes to business models
2. Innovative technologies
3. Clean and renewable energy
4. Financial markets like carbon trading
5. Service industry
6. Carbon farming (sequestration and emissions avoidance

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Video: Green Opportunities: Energy Technology and Efficiency

We have deep pools of capital that are waiting to be deployed, however to unleash this capital we need to put a price on carbon. We need corporate America to measure and quantify carbon. Corporate America is now driving this train, but politicians are the laggards.

In this video best selling author Peter Fusaro reviews green opportunities. It includes excerpts of Fusaro speaking in presentations and panel discussions on business opportunities, both in the energy sector and related to climate change.

Fusaro is an energy industry thought leader focusing on emerging energy and environmental financial markets. He co-founded the Energy Hedge Fund Center and created the highly acclaimed annual Wall Street Green Trading Summit. He focuses on carbon and emissions trading and finance, clean energy technology, renewables and fossil fuels for hedge funds, venture capital funds, investment banks, software companies, energy companies, and law firms. He is also a well-known expert on Asia Pacific energy and environmental markets.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Sustainable Business Is Growing But It Still Has A Long Way To Go

Despite the growth of sustainable business, this extrordinary transformation has only just begun. The combination of regulation and demand will color the future a much darker shade of green than what we see today. Whether you are a passionate supporter of efforts to combat climate change or a science-hating denier, everyone will have to contend with a business environment that will be unmistakably greener.

The core features of the new green economy are here to stay and will keep growing. This includes things like efficiency, conservation, waste reduction, pollution prevention, supply-chain management, environmental reporting, biomimicry and cradle-to-cradle products.

Although the green economy is a permanent fixture, companies will continue to rise and fall as new technologies emerge and old technologies are rendered obsolete. But the core features of green business will be with us for generations to come.

More and more companies are adopting greener practices and environmentally oriented consulting services are very much in demand. However, the green market is still very young.

The vast majority of businesses have yet to adopt sustainable practices. According to the Sustainability & Innovation Survey by MIT’s Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group, small business has been especially slow to adopt sustainability. Their survey revealed that 82 percent of small companies have yet to go green, and 66 percent of large companies have yet to embrace sustainability. That leaves a lot of room for growth.

The green market is now estimated to be worth $5.27 trillion (£3.2 trillion) worldwide. In the next couple of decades the clean energy market alone is expected to be worth more than$13 trillion.

Today the green market may seem big, but the business world of tomorrow will be much greener.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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The Fate of the Democrats is Tied to Green Jobs

Obama laid out his clean energy plan in his State of the Union address. The President indicated that he would like to see 80 percent of US power coming from “clean” sources by 2035, including renewables.

Federal incentives help renewable energy to grow and creates jobs. In the US, government incentives would enable the country to compete against Europe and China, where governments have provided lavish incentives and strong financial support.

The federal government along with many state governments see green technology as an engine of economic growth and job creation. There are millions of jobs and trillions in revenue emerging from the green economy. Fast-growing clean technology is the only sector that can offer such a significant number of new jobs.

As President Obama said, "there is perhaps no industry with more potential to create jobs now and growth in the coming years, than clean energy."

State regulations have helped the renewable energy industry in California and other states helped the industry establish itself.

As China and other nations are investing massively in renewable energy, it would be disastrous for America to ignore this colossal opportunity.

The Democrats need to see an improvement in the jobless rate for political reasons. Like the Democrats, Obama's political future is tied to green jobs, as no President has ever been reelected with an unemployment rate above 8 percent.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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