IN BUSINESS WORLD

n Business, May-June, 2006, Vol. 28, No. 3, p. 4

HOW A 1961 BOOK ON AMERICAN CITIES BUILT DIVERSITY PLANS
Jane Jacobs wrote the book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, in 1961, which came to symbolize how we needed a mix of old and new buildings to have a healthy neighborhood. Jane Jacobs died last month just short of her 90th birthday. Says one city planner: “Her ideas are as pertinent

Itoday as when she wrote. Current problems in urban areas deal with a 24-hour community, residential uses mixing with office uses, different kinds of commercial applications.”
An e-mail from Susan Witt of the E.F. Schumacher Society recalls how in 1983, Jacobs spoke at the Society's Lecture program giving a talk on “The Economy of Regions.” She argued for regional economic diversity, complexity and interdependence. “She imagined a myriad of small industries producing for regional markets - small industries that depended on local materials, local labor, local capital, local transport systems, and appropriately-scaled technology to conduct business.” She pictured the fruits of this regional industry spilling over to support a rich cultural life in the city at the hub of the region.
“Cities don't work like perpetual-motion machines. They require constant new inputs in the form of innovations based on human insights. And if they are to generate (vibrant) city regions, they require repeated, exuberant episodes of import-replacing, which are manifestations of the human ability to make adaptive imitations,” Jacobs explained.
Witt also notes that Jacobs believed that regional currencies were one of the most elegant tools for stimulating production and trade in a region. Writes Witt: “Jane Jacobs championed the ideas that matter, and the people putting those ideas into practice. The world has lost a great intellect. At the Schumacher Society, in addition we have lost an advisory board member and a dear friend. I can think of no finer way to honor her than for us to all foster exuberant episodes of import-replacing in our local economies.”
The full text of Jane Jacobs lecture, “The Economy of Regions.” may be purchased for $5 from the Schumacher Society (www.smallisbeautiful.org).

TAKING AN INVENTORY OF GREEN ACTIVITIES
David and Kim Brotherton of Seattle decided to maintain a markedly greener household and settled on a strategy that focused on buying “nice things that were ecologically sound,” reports a New York Times article last week. When it came to remodeling their kitchen, the couple ruled out a prefab kitchen “from the local big-box retailer,” and instead paid a premium of about 15 percent to install a kitchen featuring “sustainably harvested” cork floors, recycled glass tiles, and sturdy countertops made from recycled paper.
In Palo Alto, California, 14 percent of the households have signed up for the local utility's “green power” option - electricity generated by renewable sources like wind - even though it costs about $10 extra a month. Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director, believes it's time for environmental groups to spread not just anxiety, but useful information about how consumers should set priorities for their environmental decisions.
Neeraj Desai who recently moved from Texas to take a banking executive job in Charlotte, North Carolina, decided to live downtown in an apartment. “I never really thought about my environmental footprint,” but he knew a smaller home would consume less energy and living near the office would allow him to walk to work. But now his “sleek Vespa scooter” for most trips beyond walking distance has come under tighter inspection. “It's Euro 2 compliant - pretty nonpolluting. But I always think, why can't I just take my bicycle the extra two miles and show up sweaty?”
Send In Business your own greening decisions. Send your list via e-mail to biocycle@jgpress.com.

GIVING BIRTH TO AN EARTH COMMUNITY
In his latest book, The Great Turning, David C. Korten outlines what it takes to move our world from Empire to an authentic “Earth Community.” A convergence of climate change, the fast approaching peak and decline in oil production, and the financial instability inherent in an unbalanced global trading system - he writes - will bring an unraveling of the corporate-led global economy and a dramatic restructuring of every aspect of modern life - “whether we like it or not.”
In the summary section of giving birth to this earth community, Korten provides chapters on Leading from Below, Building a Political Majority, Liberating Creative Potential, and Change the Story, Change the Future. “It is within our human means to create a world in which families and communities are strong, parents have time to love and care for their children ... the natural environment is healthy and toxin free, and nations cooperate for the common good.”
Korten stresses that the local living economies we must create are on every dimension virtual opposites of the suicidal global imperial economy we have. To guide us, he lists design principles such as economic democracy, local preference, human scale, living indicators, responsive markets, patient capital, caring family relationships, and understanding that there is an alternative to Empire. He concludes with these words:
“Our time has come to trade the sorrows of Empire for the joys of Earth Community. Let our descendants look back on this time as the time of the Great Turning, when humanity made a bold choice to birth a new era devoted to actualizing the higher potentials of our human nature.”
The Great Turning, copublished by Berrett-Koehler Publishers and Kumarian Press, $27.95. Visit BK Publishers at www.bkconnection.com.

OBERLIN COLLEGE SETS UP ALTERNATIVE FUEL STATION FOR VEHICLES TO RUN ON VEGETABLE OIL
Since January 2003, Oberlin College students led by Sam Merrett and supervised by Kathryn Janda, an environmental studies professor, have been making and using biodiesel fuel from waste oil collected at restaurant grease fryers in this Ohio community. To get their project up and running, they worked with such local groups as Oberlin Design Initiative and the Youth Energy Project (YEP!) to design renewable energy projects, received funding from the American Public Power Association - building a mobile, community-scale biodiesel processor in Oberlin.
Once a week, Merrett fired up his truck, modified to run on pure vegetable oil, and headed out to collect used cooking oil in 5-gallon buckets from local restaurants. The waste oil has powered cars, trucks, a Bobcat loader and Wood-Mizer sawmill. The group won honorable mention in the EPA 2005 design competition last spring, and Merrett won a $36,000 fellowship that enabled him to stay in Oberlin and create a biofuel resource center.
Merrett and his business partner, Ray Holan of Biodiesel Cleveland, have transformed an old Marathon gas station into an alternative fuel station. Since November, a small pit crew has modified more than 20 cars and trucks to run on biodiesel oil. At the pump, customers can select their own blend of fuel, supplied by three underground tanks of 100 percent recycled vegetable oil, regular diesel fuel, and an ethanol blend for gasoline engines. The station is called Full Circle Fuel Center.
“Sam's center is a perfect extension of his work and promises significant community benefits,” sums up Janda. “I encourage students to participate because doing so will give them a real opportunity to learn and make a difference in the community.” (This report is based on an article in the Oberlin Alumni Magazine by Tim Tibbits.)

STATES PASS LAWS TO IMPROVE ALTERNATIVE FUELS MARKET
A renewable energy standard was passed in the Washington legislature last month, making it the second state (after Minnesota) to commit to making biodiesel an integral part of the diesel fuel market. Signed by Governor Chris Gregoire, the bill requires that at least two percent of diesel sales by volume will be comprised of biodiesel, with two percent ethanol in the gasoline market. “We are establishing Washington as a leader of a dynamic, 21st century industry,” emphasizes Gov. Gregoire. “Alternative fuels will help bridge the rural and urban divide; these crops can be grown and crushed in rural regions and put to good use in urban areas.”
The requirement goes into effect November 1, 2008 or when in-state production can meet the demand for 20 million gallons of biodiesel annually in the first year. Seattle Biodiesel reports its capacity to be five million gallons annually. Baker Commodities - a California-based supplier - says it will open a 10 million gallon plant in Tacoma in June, 2007. Another company called Washington Biodiesel plans to construct a plant with up to 35 million gallons capacity in Warden, Washington by September 20, 2007.

NEW INCENTIVES FOR INVESTING IN ETHANOL PRODUCTION
As the list of companies in the ethanol industry continues to grow, the manufacturers are mostly smaller parts of sprawling companies, start-ups or private firms. For example, even though ethanol generates five percent of revenues, Archer-Daniels-Midland has increased its investment by more than 50 percent this year. ADM produced about one billion gallons of fuel ethanol last year, about 25 percent of the industry's production. It has plans to construct a corn-to-ethanol mill in Nebraska, able to make 275 million gallons annually.
VeraSun Energy of Brookings, South Dakota and Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings of Pekin, Illinois - the second and third-largest ethanol makers - filed a month ago to launch initial public offerings. The fourth largest producer is Cargill in Minneapolis which also has expansion plans. Andersons of Maumee, Ohio is reported to have special interests - about $36.1 million - in three ethanol plants. Meanwhile, the stock of Pacific Ethanol of Fresno, California nearly tripled since it announced in November that Bill Gates of Microsoft intends to invest $84 million to build five ethanol plants on the West Coast. And in Shelby, New York, the state has announced that it will provide nearly $6 million to assist Western New York Energy to develop the first dry mill ethanol plant expected to be an $87.4 million facility. Says Gov. Pataki: “The new facility is expected to produce 50 million gallons of ethanol/year and create 58 new jobs.” This year's budget includes a Renewable Fuel Production Tax Credit that makes New York companies eligible to receive a tax credit for each gallon of renewable fuel they produce. In addition to ethanol, the facility will generate two by-products to be marketed: Carbon dioxide for beverage carbonation and freeze drying, and distiller's dried grains, a high-protein livestock feed.
New York state has also announced that it will allocate $20 million for development of a cellulosic ethanol facility. According to a state assemblyman, “investment in cellulosic ethanol illustrates our strong commitment to a long-term energy plan that will expand use of alternative fuels.” Since cellulose materials are the most common organic sources on earth and can be derived from willow, switchgrass, ag and forestry residues, pulp and paper mill wastes, and corn stalks; their use will significantly increase the volume of ethanol production.

PROMOTING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR NATIVE AMERICANS
The Administration for Native Americans (ANA) promotes the goal of economic and social self-sufficiency for American Indians, native Hawaiians, Alaskan natives, and other Pacific islanders including American Samoa natives. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services requests applications for the Social and Economic Development Strategies Program. Areas of interest include renewable energy resources such as bioenergy, hydrogen, solar, hydropower and methods appropriate to the tribes. Some $9 million and 75 awards will be available. Contact Tim Chappelle at tichappelle@acf.hhs.gov.

Copyright 2007, The JG Press, Inc.