In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

EDITORIAL

In Business, May-June, 2006, Vol. 28, No. 3, p. 2

THE BUSINESS OF GREEN, BLACK ... AND RENEWABLE ENERGY
WHO would ever have dreamed when In Business magazine was conceived over 25 years ago to show that the business of green would become a dominant MBA theme - that a single issue of The New York Times (May 17, 2006) would carry these messages:

“What's Kind to Nature Can Be Kind To Profits” - General Electric would like you to know that it makes the world's most efficient electric generators, part of its Ecomagination program of clean technologies. BP, which used to be an abbreviation for British Petroleum but is now the company's official name, is promoting itself as “Beyond Petroleum,” with solar cells and wind.
Under the headline, “Companies and Critics Try Collaboration,” another article explains that “if politics makes for strange bedfellows, global warming, endangered forests, dwindling water supplies and scary new technologies have made for even stranger ones. Environmentalists and corporations are engaging in a new spirit of compromise.” A story about wind turbines in Weatherford, Oklahoma is headlined: “They Tilt and Whirl While Spinning Off Cash,” noting how turbines not only make power but also symbolize the town's devotion to business and the environment. On that same page is “Feel-Good Investing With Profits, Too” that begins by telling big money managers who hope to substitute an “n” for the “d” at the end of “greed” and still come out ahead, they can expect help from the United Nations. And the piece about architects stresses that “Everyone should be designing responsibly, and part of being responsible is thinking about sustainability.”
Big changes are also taking place in renewable energy research and policies. Six years have gone by since BioCycle and In Business organized the first annual conference on Renewable Energy From Organics Recycling. During that time the world has transitioned into a series of petroleum woes that have made sustainable initiatives all the more urgent. Whether sited at operating facilities, company and university laboratories or showing up as hard-won policies in state legislatures, these initiatives will be described at the Sixth Annual Conference to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 30-31 and November 1, 2006.
Our theme, Power From Organics, stresses what it takes to develop renewable energy systems where public priorities, research knowledge and commercial markets come together. Biomass recovery from woody materials, municipal solid waste, crop residuals, manure and food processing wastes must be accomplished now. We can create fuels like biogas, biodiesel and ethanol using anaerobic digestion, fermentation and gasification.
While we continue to be forced to hear platitudes and empty wishes from our nation's capital in Washington, DC, we are reinforced by the actions that come from individual states such as Wisconsin, where a consortium on Biobased Industry is assessing ethanol, biopower, anaerobic digestion and biodiesel. Minnesota agencies and companies are actively developing ways to turn organics - over six million tons annually by 2020 - into renewable energy opportunities. Let's accelerate the pace. We hope to see you in Minneapolis, in October. - J.G.