In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

IN BUSINESS WOLRD

In Business, March-April, 2005, Vol. 27, No. 2, p. 4

JOHN ABRAMS GIVES LESSONS ON REINVENTING SMALL BUSINESS
In his new book, The Company We Keep, John Abrams tells how he cofounded South Mountain Company in 1975 on the island of Martha's Vineyard to build all kinds of houses that would be enjoyed

for generations. This magazine profiled his company and business philosophy about 20 years ago. The company has 30 full time employees - 10 in the office and design studio, four in the woodworking shop, the remainder in the field. Of these, 14 are owners. “We do approximately $5 million of work each year - some renovation, some new construction,” explains Abrams, adding: “Relationships are the cornerstones of this business - both internally (among ourselves), and outside the company (with clients, subcontractors, suppliers, consultants, officials, community members). We work with wood (mostly) but we work with each other (always). South Mountain Company is the people who work here.”
The book makes fascinating reading - from cultivating workplace democracy, balancing bottom lines to advancing conservation and practicing community entrepreneurism. Publication date from Chelsea Green is May 2005, hardcover price is $27.50; The publisher based in White River Junction, Vermont can be contacted at (802) 295-6300; or visit: www.chelseagreen.com.

HIGH GAS PRICES IN BRAZIL LEAD DRIVERS TO ETHANOL
Dr. G. B. Moreira, an oral surgeon in Sao Paulo, Brazil, spends much time in his Volkswagen TotalFlex traveling to hospitals. His car runs on either gasoline or ethanol - or any combination of the two. But with ethanol (also called alcohol by Brazilians) selling at half the price of gasoline, it's a simple choice. “I only use alcohol, and I'm probably spending 40 percent less a month on fuel,” Dr. Moreira told a reporter for The New York Times. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians are driving “flex-fuel” cars like the VW Fox - almost 220,000 of these hybrid vehicles were sold in the first nine months of 2004, representing 24 percent of all new car sales. Other makers of hybrids sold in Brazil include Fiat, General Motors and Ford; VW has the lead with 36.5 percent of total sales.
Brazil first started using nongaso-line-powered cars during the global oil crisis in the 1970s, aided by government subsidies and tax breaks. Sugar millers also benefitted, getting funds to refine sugar cane into ethanol. After an ethanol shortage in the 1990s, fewer than 20 percent of Brazil's autos run exclusively on alcohol, but all gasoline in the country has a 25 percent mix of ethanol, the Times reports. According to analysts in Brazil, ethanol consumption is expected to reach 3.58 billion gallons this sugar harvest season. A fuel mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, known as E85, is available in at least 22 states of the U.S., mainly Minnesota and midwestern states. By contrast, in Brazil, ethanol is available at almost every service station. “There's no doubt that flex-fuel technology will eventually be used in other countries,” says an analyst.

BIOFUEL MARKETS EXPAND, NOTES WORLDWATCH VITAL SIGNS
According to Vital Signs 2005, published by Worldwatch Institute, biofuel markets - derived from agricultural wastes and crops - advanced rapidly last year. Fuel ethanol increased 13.6 percent, reaching almost 33 billion liters. Nearly twice as much ethanol was produced in 2004 as in 2000. Ethanol derived from sugarcane accounts for 30 percent of auto fuel in Brazil, but corn-distilled ethanol in the U.S. accounts for just two percent.
The European Union (EU) is the third largest producer of biofuels but the leading manufacturer of biodiesel. Helped by tax breaks for diesel fuel, nearly 1.6 billion liters of biodiesel were produced in Europe in 2003, a 43 percent increase over 2001. The EU hopes biofuels will supply two percent of the fuel market in 2005, 5.75 percent in 2010, and 20 percent in 2020.
Reducing cost of biofuels is critical, points out Worldwatch Institute. New conversion technologies, such as cellulose-derived ethanol made from the nonfood portion of renewables, “could bring significant cost reductions over the next decade. Canada-based Iogen, world leader in this technology, now produces about 100,000 liters a year; several new plants are planned that could quadruple the country's ethanol supply.

ST. LOUIS COMBINES “FINAL FOUR” BASKETBALL WITH RECYCLING
While thousands attended the college finals in St. Louis where North Carolina beat Illinois to earn first place honors, the city let visitors know about the emphasis on recycling, green building, adaptive reuse and sustainable approaches at its City Museum. The Museum Walking Tour Guide explains that adaptive reuse means converting a building from its original purpose to a new one while retaining historic features. “By reincorporating products of demolition or deconstruction into a renovation, even incorporating materials from other places, a clear message is sent that almost everything is reusable. The trick is finding the right reuse. In the construction of City Museum, many materials came from other demolition sites or salvage yards and are reused in a variety of traditional as well as unusual ways. Every time a building is demolished or remodeled in Saint Louis, City Museum finds itself asking the question: how can we reuse the pieces?”

HIGH-RISE WITH SUSTAINABILITY
A new 27-story building called River Terrace in New York City features “green” applications with on-site filtering and recycling of wastewater to flush toilets; high use of construction materials with recycled content and a natural gas-fired heating-and-air-conditioning system. Writes Robert Noble of the Tucker Sadler architectural design firm in San Diego, California who also chairs the San Diego Chapter of the Green Building Council: “High-rise designers are beginning to address worldwide concerns energy consumption, threatened ecology patterns and global warming.”

BAY AREA FEATURES TRASH CAN SCHOOL OF ART
Art made from trash to graphically prove the beauty - as well as utility - of recycling is the goal of the Artist-in-Residence Program at San Francisco's dump. Founded in 1990 by Norcal Waste Systems, the program has involved 50 Bay Area artists who have completed residencies. Two months ago, three current artists-in-residences - Hector Dio Mendoza, Viviana Paredes and Mark Faigenbaum - presented their finished pieces at a special exhibit at the San Francisco Recycling & Disposal's art studio.
Bay Area artists apply for three-month residencies. Those selected by a nine-member advisory board are handed the keys to a 2,200 square-foot art studio at the dump and given access to the city's waste stream. Each artist in residence receives an $1,800 stipend - financed through two cents of the $18.90/month residents pay for garbage collection.