Sustainable energy, check; low emissions, check; hundreds of rows of parked cars, huh?

If you haven’t already heard of Abengoa, which is based in Seville, southern Spain, you soon will: it’s coming to the U.S. in a big way. The multinational tech company is currently building two major solar thermal power stations, both due for completion in 2013. One of these, Solana in Arizona, will be the largest of its kind in the world with a stratospheric budget of $2 billion. With an output of 280MW, it will be able to power 70,000 homes. It will also give a massive jolt to the local economy, and spur some new office space.

As you know, we love poking our heads into OPC (Other People’s Cubicles). What we’ve discovered is that high-tech companies these days tend to lead the way in offering quirky, stimulating workplaces for their employees. While the headquarters of this technology company gets the thumbs up in terms of sustainability, it’s not as creative as you’d expect for a modern, cutting-edge company. It also has some unexpectedly backwards policies in terms of fume-spewing and clock-watching.

Abengoa’s Campus Palmas Altas (meaning: Tall Palms) makes their own electricity using a variety of methods, including photo-voltaic panels, parabolic troughs, and a tri-generation plant (which produces electricity, heat and cold). In all, they produce 70% of the energy they consume. Impressive – this is 164,000 square feet of offices we’re talking about.

Their premises – seven low-rise blocks – are cooled using vigas frias (chilled beams), metal pipes that run through the ceiling, filled with cold water. The temperature of the liquid adjusts to the air, keeping the 2,500 boffins at a comfortable, constant temperature. That is no mean feat in Seville, where summer temperatures often top 115 degrees.

Other ways of dealing with the fierce Andalucian sun include self-shading. The buildings are arranged in a linear layout so that each block protects the next from those rays. But they make the most of natural lighting, thanks to glass walls; there are also horizontal shades, and some buildings have huge fixed-position glass screens, which cut the glare by up to 40%.

Such is the sustainable nature of this complex that’s been certified as LEED Platinum, the first to earn this distinction in Europe. It also won the Excellence in Design Award from the American Institute of Architects’ UK Chapter.

However, some aspects of the campus strike us as strange, from the uninspiring buildings to the wholly un-ecological transport situation. Unnerving, too: the monitoring of employees’ movements. I’m talking, spooky, Big Brother-type monitoring.

In terms of the building’s design, as award-winning and sustainable as it may be, it leans towards the prosaic rather than the stunningly visual. Architect Richard Rogers, Pritzker Prize winner, maverick designer of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and, closer to home, World Trade Center Tower 3, says the scheme “creates a new model for the business park, one that is… more compact and urban than conventional business parks”.

Moreover, since Abengoa required such a large site, the offices are located in a dead area next to a freeway. As such, public transport is virtually non-existent thus creating a major sticking point. How is that such an ostensibly green company could end up with a gargantuan car parking area sprawled out next to it? It’s as big as the campus itself and a visible reminder of polluting emissions and personal accountability thereof.

The spaces closest to the offices (under them, in fact) are for pregnant women, those with young children at the on-site nursery (highly innovative in backwards southern Spain), and those with mobility issues. Social awareness 10 points; pollution control, 0 points.

To be fair, the company is trying to implement various alternative transport ideas – cycle lanes, carpooling, free shuttle buses – but for a visitor, the first impression of this company, whose motto is “innovative technology for sustainability,” smacks of, “we heart fossil fuels.”

With an on-site gym and restaurants, Abengoa is doing its best to keep its 2,500 employees around all day – it’s very unusual in Andalucia not to nip home for lunch at ones mom’s place (most under 35s live at home) followed by a siesta. You might be thinking, and…so what? But for a Spaniard, that comes as a major culture shock. All activities, including restaurant visits and photocopying, are monitored by their electronic ID tag. Any and all transgressions are penalized.

These curtailments in movement have led to the nicknames “Centro Penitenciario Abengoa” and “Palmatraz” among staff.

Abengoa is a force to be reckoned with in the solar power world. They’ve just secured $400 million of funding from a U.S. private equity firm and are behind a $2 billion solar power project in the Mojave Desert. Indeed, they are showing us the way forward in the green economy. But let’s hope they sort out some buses soon – and advance their work/life initiatives into the 21^st Century.

Images: Panal Lira; Mark Bentley Photography; El Mundo; David Aureo

The post ‘Palmatraz’: Inside the Cubicles of the World’s Leading Green Tech Company appeared first on EcoSalon.

ExclusiveLast month, we began a series of articles looking at progressive issues in the world of equity investment. Our first piece, VCs, Angels and Investing in Women: What Are They Not Thinking?, explored the female business community’s relationship with those groups that play such a major role in driving our economy and business values. What follows is the second article in the series. It focuses on entrepreneurial investment in clean tech and green business.

At the opening of what would become the legendarily (and to some, notoriously) “pro-business” 1980s, President Ronald Reagan took clear and immediate steps to show his commitment to supply-side capitalism. He weakened and busted unions, initiated an unprecedented deregulation movement, and changed tax law to favor corporate interests. He was the champion of “trickle down” economics and, depending whether one sees the man as heroic or demonic, his legacy casts a bright light or dark shadow on us to this day.

In the shadow department, Reagan took an extremely dim view of alternative energy and the budding green movement, in general. This was in part evidenced by his halving the Solar Institute’s budget from 1980 to 1982 and, in 1986, symbolically removing solar panels from the White House.

The panels were clearly a symbolic gesture in the first place. President Jimmy Carter had placed them on the Pennsylvania Avenue mansion in 1979 as a display of American ingenuity and to send a message to that we, as a nation, were committed to exploring environmentally friendly ways to wean ourselves off foreign oil (a national addiction that continues to grip us 30 years later and would, less than a year after the panels went up, play a key role in Carter losing the Presidency). At the installation ceremony, Carter said: “No one can ever embargo the sun or interrupt its delivery to us.”

What was Ronald Reagan saying to the entrepreneurial community when he ripped those solar panels from the roof of the White House – and, through his policies, the nascent alternative energy industry up by its delicate new roots? How did this figure into a free market proposition? Was it a really pro-business? Or simply pro-existing-business?

Better Late than Never

Thirteen years after Ronald Reagan took office, Nancy Floyd got into the green-energy investment business. It was 1993 and it was, as she puts it, “a lonely game.”

Floyd had the chops: In 1982, she founded NFC Energy Corporation, one of the country’s first wind development firms. There she put together more than $30 million in projects and three years later sold the company for a 25-fold return on the original investment. Then, in 1985, she helped found PacTel Spectrum Services which was sold to IBM in 1987.

Yet despite the financial gravitas of the messenger (and a few others like her), the question in the early 1990s remained: when it came to raising green funds, were investors ready to listen?

“At the time, the only market driver was the deregulation of utilities,” remembers Floyd. “There were really no other players or considerations. And though the political winds had changed [with the entrance of the Clinton Administration], our crisis memories are short. OPEC, gas lines, all of it had had been forgotten. Gas was cheap, consumers were apathetic, and the climate crisis was anything but mainstream. Right now, only 50 percent of people believe that [global warming] is real. You can imagine what it was like 20 years ago.”

But Floyd and her small community set out to educate investors as to the possibilities. It was a forward-thinking proposition, but some saw the opportunity (read: a looming crisis) and a discussion around clean tech and “doable” alternative energy began to take shape. This discussion was broad based, and included both environmentalist concerns as well as ROI to be realized by dealing with national and global energy challenges.

Slowly, things began to change, and as we entered the new millennium, says Floyd, forces subtle and less so had brought some hard realities to consumer (and thus investor) consciousness. From Al Gore to Osama bin Laden, climate and cultural realizations had exposed a powerful new marketplace. For investors, an opportunity for “doing well by doing good” had arrived.

“We were [by 2004] and continue to be at a true inflection point,” says Floyd. “Globally, the status quo is untenable. It’s not a spot crisis any more. Big issues have to be resolved and they represent [market] drivers that will play out over decades. It’s not a matter of politics or tree hugging. This is about national and consumer requirements, and business – not on an ideological level, but on a bottom line level.”

Indeed, green investing seems to have come of age. According to Cleantech Group, 13 percent of all venture capital dollars are now going green – making it the largest sector in VC. Comparing just the last quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of this year, investments in clean-tech deals were up 26 percent (54 percent over the same time period last year). Since January, green companies have raised $1.1 billion, and a accompanying surge in green technology jobs appears to be in the wings. Not bad for a down economy – if it wasn’t clear just a few years ago, it’s clear now: this once “progressive” investment arena has achieved lift-off.

For her part, Floyd is no longer a lone wolf. She is founder and Managing Director of Nth Power, a “nothing else but” green tech venture capital firm focused on “energy technology, materials and other related businesses.” The San Francisco-based group currently manages $420 million that’s invested in 58 companies, including “market leaders” in renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, etc.), energy efficiency, smart grid, clean transportation and green buildings.

And while her efforts clearly target the “doing good” part of the equation, “doing well” for her investors remains paramount. “Our investors are big pensions and corporations,” she points out. “’While we’re differentiated as clean tech, consciousness is a small issue. What they want from us is to look at teams, strategies and execution plans. What’s important is money. And it can be made in clean tech.”

The Game Board – Clean Tech and Double Bottom Line

To understand today’s robust, green equity-investment community, it helps to understand two primary investment angles – “clean tech” and “double bottom line.”

Floyd’s Nth Power is a VC firm dedicated to clean tech. “It” believes that “the way society values and uses energy is in the midst of a significant transformation will lead to the widespread adoption of energy technologies and the creation of new companies led by a new breed of energy entrepreneurs. With the growing consumer demand for reliable, digital quality power, questions regarding the viability (and price volatility) of coal, oil and other fossil fuels, and the growing threat of global climate change, the opportunity for technology innovation in the energy sector has never been greater.”

Quite a mission/vision/pitch. But the bottom line is that there are clean tech markets to be tapped and mastered. Aside from those market leaders mentioned earlier, these also include biofuel, conservation, recycling and waste reduction, sustainable agriculture and manufacturing, and much more.

The other camp, or investment approach, is the much-discussed double bottom line (or triple or quadruple or whatever the case may be). This view says that one should measure the pay off of investments in more than one way: hence the – at least – “double.” Cash return on equity remains the driver, of course. But another measurement might be, say, job creation, or literacy or poverty alleviation – or an environmentally positive impact. (We’ll further explore the broader benefits of double bottom line investing in an upcoming article in this series.)

A perfect example of such a VC firm is DBL Investors, which was created from the spin-off of the Bay Area Equity Fund I from JPMorgan in January 2008. The group’s double bottom line strategy is “to invest in companies with the potential do deliver top-tier venture capital returns while working with [its] companies to enable social, environmental and economic improvement in the regions in which they operate.”

One of the firm’s two Managing Partners is Nancy Pfund. Formerly a Managing Director at JP Morgan, her financial background and focus on wealth creation is matched by her commitment to outcomes such as eliminating poverty. She explains her firm’s relationship with green investing: “Our second bottom line is having a positive impact on the communities where our companies end up doing business. That can be a positive environmental impact, and that can be by creating jobs though clean tech. Many of our companies do many positive things, not just one.”

Her partner, Cynthia Ringo, is formerly a Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners. “We play in the venture capital space, which is of course driven by innovation,” she says. “Any venture capitalist is looking for disruptive companies that will displace incumbents and generate wealth. We also happen to be looking at poverty alleviation – sort of giving a lifeline to people. Clean tech is fantastic at that.”

As it was for Floyd, 2004 was an important transition time for Pfund and Ringo’s double bottom line approach. “Our target was $75 million,” says Pfund. “It took us a few years to do it but we did close in 2004. We had lots and lots of investors, including banks, pension funds, foundations, etc. At that time, clean tech was not what it is today, so we didn’t focus our marketing on that, per se, but we did focus on a broader double bottom line. In the end, though, 60 percent of the fund went toward clean tech.”

Says Ringo: “Clean tech is perhaps the most obvious way to accomplish our mission, because we will not take a reduction in a financial return in order to accomplish a social goal, and this concept is well understood in this sector. The business factors related to clean tech are very strong.”

Raising their second fund in 2008 was even tougher, given the economic environment. “But we just had our final close,” says Pfund. “It was for about $140 million, so we almost doubled the size from the first time around. Part of that is because our focus is now on the Western United States and not just Northern California and the other part is out strong track record. But, still, 50 percent of this fund will be green focused.”

The reasons for success in clean tech investment are increasingly consumer driven, and they’re not just about climate change. “Where’s that consumer pull coming from?” asks Ringo. “Maybe it’s because people want to reduce the amount of money that they’re spending on their utilities or on transportation. Maybe they are concerned about the health impact of certain types of products. Looking back [prior to the changes of the early ‘00s], there was not a lot of consumer pull and those that were making demands were called tree-huggers and other derogatory names like that. It was a much smaller demographic than it is today. Now, if you speak to a panel of mothers who range in age from 25 to 45, how high do you think their concerns around issues of health for their family go? Very.”

Where Angels Come to Play

Whether the focus is in pure clean tech or double bottom line, angel investors are, of course, also in the green mix. By definition, however, these have traditionally been individual players in arena, gathering their own contacts and research to make smart decisions. But one group, Northwest Energy Angels, is taking a pooled intelligence approach to mining these rich opportunities.

The Seattle-based non-profit is a membership organization of private investors that only funds clean tech entrepreneurs. They believe that through such investment they can find “the intersection of our desire to make successful angel investments, our personal values and the world we want to leave our children.” The group is comprised of “seasoned angel investors and venture capitalists, as well as new angels learning by participating in a cooperative and supportive environment” that place “a high value on sustainability, the ecosystems that support life on earth and social responsibility.”

Kiki Tidwell is a leading clean tech angel investor who sits on the Northwest Energy Angels board of directors. Last July, she was admitted to the Kauffman Fellows Program, “a highly sought-after two-year program dedicated exclusively to the world of venture capital and the cultivation of new high-technology, high-growth, high-impact companies.”

Her background leaves little question as to why she’s sought out that clean tech sweet spot where making a profit meets making a difference.

“I was in computers back in 1982, teaching people how to use the first mini-computers,” she recalls. “I was right there during the start up of that industry and to me clean tech has the same vibe. We don’t know what will be the next Microsoft but there will be huge winners. On the philanthropy side, I’ve seen how renewable energy and our tremendous natural resources can have a major impact, especially in rural economic development. (Tidwell has lived in Idaho since 1981 and is the president of the Tidwell Idaho Foundation, as well as Idaho Land & Pine, Inc.)

“When I was serving on the board of the Idaho Community Foundation – the Governor’s Council on Families and Children – I saw these tiny farm communities struggling to meet their social service needs and keep their farms going year round, even when the cost of irrigation pumping runs into the millions. Approaches using geothermal, solar, wind and biomass resources are going to be critical to these farm communities.”

Tidwell says angels face a different investment proposition than VC investors. “I think one of the main differences is that because it’s our own money we [angels] are investing, we have the luxury as to invest in the one out of a hundred opportunities that looks good to us. And we don’t have to deploy capital in a ten-year timeframe. That said, the venture capitalist has resources devoted to understanding some of the issues, as well as more time to devote to helping companies post-investment.”

The point of her group, then, is to deal with some of these issues by promoting clean tech and educating angels around some of the science and business issues that are in play.

“By banding together, we can share a lot of information,” she says. “We have speakers who come in to address specific technologies. We have discussion groups between investors about issues in our portfolio companies. We have presenting companies giving us pitches once a month.”

A Leg Up

Whether it’s clean tech or double bottom line investing, VC or angel money, what was once a cutting edge approach to equity investment is now not only big business – it’s big politics and policy, too.

“It’s a very complex sector,” says Floyd. “There are so many considerations given the policy and regulatory overlay. Federally and globally there are a multitude of regulations to be aware of and, of course, there’s a whole world of incentives out there.”

Mastering these polices, regulations and incentives thus becomes a major value-add for groups like Nth Power and DBL. For green investors, working with the likes of Floyd, Pfund and Ringo is like having the combination of a good agent who knows the people you should know, and a good financial specialist who knows how to work every regulation and incentive detail to your monetary advantage.

DBL realized this early on during their first play. “It started with the first fund and actually morphed into a big idea,” says DBL’s Pfund. “We had to think of what’s in it for a company to site in a low-income neighborhood. And so we thought, well, when you go into these targeted economic zones like Richmond or parts of Oakland [California] you can get benefits in terms of tax treatment or low interest loans or even grants at times. We saw that worked very well, so we kind of layered on other ways to navigate that public/private sector interface to the benefit of both parties.”

This approach is particularly important in the green sector. “You are being watched by everyone from the local chapter of the Sierra Club to the mayor to the governor, and they can either help or hurt your business,” explains Pfund. “Reaching out and embracing that is part of what we advocate; we have been able to show how that’s beneficial and companies end up doing it themselves once they get off the ground.”

Shifting Winds

It’s no secret that this thriving arena has been the beneficiary of a type of affirmative action in recent years, with government playing a helpful role and, in some ways, simply getting out of the way. As the nation has warmed to the notion that Washington and State Capital USA do have roles to play in encouraging clean tech and environmental protection, the flames of this investment community are stoked.

Conversely, as seen during the ’80s, a lack of attention and accompanying incentives can allow those flames to all but die out. And it’s also no secret that there’s clearly a different political climate now than there was just two years ago when Barack Obama took office – and, incidentally, replaced the solar panels on the White House.

Yes, enter the Tea Party and science-deniers and the success of campaigns well-financed by a Supreme Court-loosed, corporate political-giving system that’s hostile to those potentially “disruptive” entrepreneurs that DBL’s Ringo speaks about. Add to that a growing public intolerance for government subsidies – at least for those that are on the agenda of media savvy interests – and, well, what’s a well-meaning, robust-but-still-requiring-incentives investment community to do?

“The pitch of the entire discussion [around green tech and the development of green-friendly business] has to change,” says Pfund. “We have to ask, what’s the subject matter that we’re speaking and thinking about when it comes to green investing? Certainly it’s very political and we get huge questions about the role of the Tea Party or the Republican Congress on a lot of the programs that are subsidizing clean tech. And those are good questions that are not easy to answer, so you have to develop a plan B. Clean tech is cleaner and getting cheaper, but it’s not as cheap as coal and natural gas. We just aren’t there yet, so that’s not the story.

“It gets back to this notion of connectedness,” she says. “I made a speech at Stanford [University] recently on large-scale solar in the deserts and [Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan] George Schultz was in the audience. He more or less said ‘I agree with you but you should ditch the environmental argument and just focus on energy security and our over-dependence on foreign oil.’ He’s not alone in saying that.

“Some Republicans, and some Democrats for that matter, hate the clean tech argument. They like the energy security argument, so he is saying face facts. The Republicans are a potent political force, so we need to speak their language. You do whatever you can to get it sold. And you don’t want to be pigeonholed into saying that this makes sense only from a global warming point of view and have people not want to talk to you. You don’t want to sabotage your argument by making it unnecessarily narrow.”

All told, it’s like any effective marketing strategy. You size up your audience and figure out what will be most appealing message. Says Tidwell, who is particularly interested in smart grid technology, about positioning: “This is not about tree hugging. This is about financial gain for investors, consumer benefit and energy security.”

The Color of Money

In the end, it might be counterintuitive to think mindsets that have been saddled with identifiers ranging from “progressive” (the most diplomatic) to “environmentalist wacko” (dismissive) could not only point to money-making propositions, but to the money making propositions that have the power to drive our economy and national security for decades to come.

Looking back, Ronald Reagan’s (and other “pro-business” leaders like him) commitment to existing enterprise at the expense of entrepreneurial activity was shortsighted on its surface. Forward-thinking government support, if not outright incentive is the cornerstone of what it means to be pro-business. 

For now, the Floyds, Pfunds, Ringos and Tidwells of the world go to sleep dreaming about two kinds of green.

“What I wake up thinking about is what any entrepreneur thinks about,” says Floyd. “The challenges faced by individual young companies.”

Image: quinn.anya

The post The Color of Money: VCs, Angels and Green Investing appeared first on EcoSalon.

With the arrival of netbooks and the iPad, computers are getting smaller and smaller – but compared to what we’ll be sporting five years from now, they’re still downright clunky. The computer of the future isn’t just teeny tiny – it’s a wearable fashion accessory that gets its power from our daily movements.

The HOLO 2.0, dreamed up by a group of designers as the next-generation computer in the year 2015, looks sort of like a sporty bracelet but performs all of the same functions as your laptop.

Its battery is charged by the kinetic movements of your hand, and it includes an interactive holographic display that projects photos, chat, web browsers and other computer functions. Need a bigger display? No problem, say the HOLO 2.0 designers – you can simply hook it up to the included desktop docking station.

It’s streamlined, sexy and green – what’s not to love? Well, there is one catch: a lot of the technology included in this concept is still entirely theoretical. As of right now, there’s no mobile device that can project 3D holographic displays into thin air. Still, it’s intriguing enough to make us cross our fingers that it all works out and preemptively ask, “Where can we get one?”

Images: tuvie

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Want to ditch the headphones and the batteries when you head out to the pool or the beach this summer with your iPod? Wind-up gadget chargers and those big bulky backpacks covered in solar panels aren’t exactly the coolest and most convenient ways to power up your MP3 player on the go, but a brand-spanking-new gadget might be just what you need: check out the Soulra Solar-Powered iPod Speaker.

Just released on May 7^th, this iPod dock – which also works with iPhones – is powered entirely by the sun, with a relatively unobtrusive fold-up solar panel. This mini green sound system can get up to five hours of continuous playback per charge. It’s got a water-resistant exterior, bass boost and a remote control.

While we haven’t gotten a chance to try it yet, and it is a bit pricey at $199, the Soulra iPod Speaker certainly seems to be a step in the right direction for portable green-powered tech and a potential addition to our favorite solar-powered gadgets.

The post Summer Fun Goes Solar with the Soulra iPod Speaker appeared first on EcoSalon.

Back when car phones were suitcase-sized and small portable telephones seemed impossibly futuristic, cell phones were far from a necessity. Fast forward twenty years, and it’s hard to imagine life without them. But along with all the convenience has come mountains of toxic electronic waste and heavier energy consumption. Could phones with sustainable wood cases, apps that encourage renewable energy use or even chargers that convert WiFi signals to energy be the answer? Check out these seven brand-spanking-new phone innovations and decide for yourself.

AT&T ZERO Charger Slays Vampire Energy

By now most of us know that, as long as they’re kept plugged in, phone chargers are notorious for continuing to draw power even when not in use. But it’s annoying to constantly unplug chargers, especially when outlets are located in inconvenient places. AT&T has come up with an interesting solution called the ZERO Charger, which zaps that vampire draw by shutting down automatically when your phone isn’t actively charging. It’s not available quite yet, but you can sign-up to receive an email as soon as it’s available in stores from the AT&T website.

LG Goes Green with Remarq QWERTY Phone

The newest green cell phone to hit the market is the LG Remarq, a slider handset with a full QWERTY keyboard so you can get your text on a whole lot easier. The Remarq is made from 19 percent recycled plastic, contains no hazardous materials, and 87 percent of its parts can be recycled once it has lived out its (regrettably short, as with all cell phones) life. Other eco-features include a low-energy charger and an app to measure your carbon footprint. The phone also has a 1.3 megapixel camera, a MP3 player, a microSD card slot, stereo Bluetooth and a personal organizer. Get it May 9th for $19.99 with a two-year Sprint service contract and a $50 mail-in rebate.

RCA AirPower Charger Steals Energy from Wi-Fi

So maybe you zapped those energy-sucking vampires at home, but when you’re out and about, how can you power up your phone without plugging it in? Be a vampire yourself. The RCA AirPower Charger actually absorbs energy from WiFi signals – whether they’re your own or not. Some might call that stealing, but hey – you’ll never have a dead phone.

Originally developed as an emergency power supply, this technology is still being refined and RCA hasn’t explained exactly how it works other than to say that the portable device would be fully charged after about six hours of exposure as you pass through or hang out in hotspots.

iPhone App Measures Wind Speed

You’d have to be really dark green – and a bit of an eco geek – to need this app, but hey, when it comes to iPhone apps, there really is something for everyone. Just hold your iPhone into the air with the microphone pointed in the direction of the wind for at least 20 seconds, and the app will calculate the wind speed based on the decibel level. It’s potentially useful for people who use small mobile wind turbines to provide power on the go.

NTT DoCoMo Touch Phone Made of Surplus Wood

Perhaps the most annoying thing about modern gadgetry for eco-minded people is all that plastic. It’s impossible to avoid completely, but some new phones are cutting it back dramatically. The NTT DoCoMo is a touchscreen phone with a case made from sustainable surplus wood, from trees cut during thinning operations to maintain healthy forests. It also contains no artificial colors or paints, has a slim profile and a smooth and shiny surface.

Roto Charger Powers Your Phone with Your Muscles

Why plug in a charger at all when you could simply use the power of your own muscles? Okay, so the Roto Charger isn’t practical for everyone, but this manual wind-up charger – developed for use off-the-grid and in remote places – could definitely cut back your electricity consumption. For a wind-up device, it’s actually unusually efficient, providing 30 minutes of standby time or three minutes of talk time for every one minute of winding.

Recycle Your Old Phones at Target for Earth Day

Got a bunch of old cell phones, MP3 players or other small electronic devices sitting around waiting to be recycled? Take them to your local Target. The retail chain has launched a new recycling program in all of its U.S. stores in honor of the 40th Earth Day. Target is a bit late getting into the recycling game, as this is the first time they’ve offered any kind of recycling bins at all, but it’s a welcome change. They’ll also be taking used printer cartridges and the requisite paper, glass and plastic.

And starting soon, consumers will have a much bigger incentive to recycle old phones – money. A new venture called eRecyclingCorps, founded by former executives at Sprint and Radio Shack, will partner with wireless carriers to offer credit toward a new phone when old ones are turned in for recycling.

Images: Pink Sherbet Photography, ATT.com, Sprint.com, DVICE.com, EcoGeek.com, Ecofriend.com, Envirogadget.com, Patrick Hoesley

The post Eco Shiny! 7 New Green Cell Phones, Apps & Gadgets appeared first on EcoSalon.

A newsletter from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) this December predicted that 80% of shoppers would purchase new electronics over the holidays. Meanwhile, the gadget-loving blogosphere has fanned the flames of this worldwide appetite, with a flurry of year-end picks, pans, on sale and what’s next lists.

Hard to believe we’re not yet sated. In 2009, the worldwide sale of DVD players alone has already reached 115 million units (worth some $15 billion) according to GfK Retail and Technology. Add to that the last minute sales of the latest Wii, PS3, Xbox, iPhone, RIM Blackberry, Motorola, and hundreds of other electronics and appliances, and we’ve got a lot of potential landfill.

At least there’s hope for a shift to greener electronics manufacturing and American purchasing habits.

A new study by the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith school of business, The 2009 National Technology Readiness Survey, found that U.S. consumers given a choice between “two equally priced big-ticket consumer electronics products,” like a TV or computer, where features and functions are identical but one is “manufactured in a way that is good for the environment,” 92 percent choose to buy the one with the green advantage.

The average shopper is willing to pay 11 percent more – $55 on top of a $500 price tag – for a “big ticket electronic product that is manufactured in a green friendly manner,” the study also found. And consumers who label themselves as “leading edge” in adoption of green tech are willing to pay even more.

Among all shoppers, not just tech geeks, the survey found 40 to 50% of U.S. consumers identify as either “green oriented” or “sympathetic to the green movement.” But what will it take to get manufacturers of – well, everything – to step up?

P.K. Kannan, a marketing professor with the team that conducted this survey, explains: “If market shares in the range of 20-30% [of American consumers] are sufficient for a break-even, then product manufacturers should be able to cover the costs of going green easily.”

While he didn’t have numbers from the electronics industry, he did say that cleaning product manufacturers typically add a 5-10% manufacturing cost to go green.

Kannan offers advice to brand managers and companies on the brink of an eco evolution. To succeed with the new green-minded market, he says, they have to “Make a sincere effort – not a gimmicky one.” Some of the respondents that his team surveyed indicated that “they are willing to pay extra for green products, but were disappointed with the overall quality of those they have had experienced so far.”

That applies to everything from low-tech soaps and paper goods, to hybrid vehicles and electronics.

Read up on what’s hot, green and not, and make your demand for greener gadgets known.

Basic Reading:

“Finally, a rechargeable battery that delivers as much juice as disposables. PowerGenix took high-power-producing nickel-zinc chemistry, typically too short-lived to be useful, and increased its life span 10-fold by using a water-based electrolyte that doesn’t dissolve the vulnerable zinc…”- Popular Science, from a collection of 100 best innovations of 2009, including green electronics

“The new web site and iPhone application Goodguide empowers consumers to make informed purchasing decisions that impact people and the planet. By entering a product’s name, or scanning the barcode of an item using the app, customers can learn about the health, environmental, and social effects of their purchases.” – Mashable’s short list of “social good” tech trends of 2009, including social media and mobile apps you can use on your (hopefully green) gadgets

A guide to electronics, their toxic contents, recycling and shopping for greener gadgets from the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, GreenerChoices.com

Further Resources:

A ComputerWorld review of desktop PCs that claim to use less energy than competitors

A 2009 green gifts for techies list by Re-Nest.com

Sustainablog’s guide to buying a used laptop that works

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of EcoMeme, a column featuring eco news, tech and business highlights by Lora Kolodny.

Image: Rev Dan Catt

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