NEW YORK, May. 20 /CSRwire/ – The inaugural class of NYU Polytechnic Institute’s Clean Tech Exec Program graduated this week after presentations of Applied Projects by each member of this select group of New York State’s clean technology leaders. “The Clean Tech Exec Program helps fuel the need for strong leadership and expertise to expedite the growth and implementation of clean energy innovation,” says Michael Shimazu, Project Manager of Clean Energy Research and Market Development at NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority), which helped to fund the Program. “Companies, investors, and government agencies alike see that the need for leadership talent in the burgeoning cleantech industry, a key bottleneck for the growth of new ventures and new businesses in this sector, especially in New York City,” says Clean Tech Exec’s professor, Mel Horwitch.

“Among my Applied Projects were the greening of NYU’s Rogers Hall, and the structuring of a cleantech commercialization conduit (a.k.a. C3) to help new technologies get beyond tipping point where they often fail to scale up,” says Clean Tech Exec grad and CEO of Earth Advertising, Martha Shaw.

Under the leadership of Martha Shaw, Earth Advertising has become a major player in the prosperity of green businesses, products and services in the New York area. A founding member of the Sustainable Business Network NYC chapter of BALLE, Clean Energy Week, board member of the New York Solar Energy Society, and active participant in the growth of NYC’s green economy, CEO Martha Shaw also recently participated in the May 10-19 UN Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD-18) in hopes of setting the stage for a successful Rio Summit +12. Commission of Sustainable Development (CSD-18) concludes at United Nations May 19.

The Commission is responsible for reviewing progress in the implementation of Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development; as well as providing policy guidance to follow up the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) at the local, national, regional and international levels. CSD is the high-level forum for sustainable development within the United Nations system.

“The themes at the United Nations CSD over the last week covered a full gamut of issues faced by each country and group represented,” says Martha Shaw. Among them were chemical and waste management, over-consumption and over-manufacturing of goods, fisheries depletion, food shed contamination, and the inequality of the distribution of earth resources including water and agricultural products. Many of the NGOs, including women and indigenous peoples, voiced concerns of poverty caused by lack of control over natural resources that are consumed and polluted by others.

Many CSD-18 attendees sought to redefine the notion of sustainable development to “green economy” and much discussion took place around what the word “economy” means to whom.

It was more evident than ever that the environment is not just about saving the planet, it is a social topic. The consumption of resources is not evenly distributed. It is the poor, women and children, and indigenous people who suffer most from scarcity of healthy food and water, and contamination, imposed on them by the privileged lifestyle of others, and corporate practices. The CSD is a rare opportunity for all voices to be heard.

Under Secretary General Sha Zukang of the United Nations opened the CSD Prep Conference by letting all participants know that he would not tolerate lack of cooperation among entities, in no uncertain terms.

A blossoming of green and sustainability gatherings.

Every day of the week, all over the world, executives, academics and NGOs convene on the myriad of topics around the environment, from food, to energy, new fuels, climate change, waste, chemicals, governance, mining, transportation and inequities. The number of sustainability events and professionals is growing exponentially.

In the last few months Shaw has attended CERES, The Economist “Doing Well by Doing Good,” Clean Energy Week, ReTech, Manhattan Chamber of Commerce Green Committees, Go Green Expo, Solid Waste Advisory Boards, Clean Economy Network, State of the Planet, IESES, ACCO, Beneath the Sea, Sustainable Business Network NYC, Slow Food, Wings Worldquest, Recycle Awareness Day and others.

“We are in the business of information gathering and transfer as much as advertising. By having a finger on the pulse, we can engage companies and customers in authentic dialogue, and help all stakeholders make better informed decisions,” says Shaw. “We are gatherers. From our research we devise creative ways to communicate and create mindset shifts, and often times, consensus.”

Baby steps?

Don’t you love that expression? This is the expression people use to explain why they haven’t gone green even though they are sustainability preachers. “Baby steps.” One foot in front of the other. “One thing a day,” I heard one evangelist preach. One thing a day? Why not all day? “But, we’re only human…” What does that mean? Help, my head hurts. An undisclosed green preacher once told a crowd as she launched her book, “Now I’m not saying you have to change your toilet paper, we all like nice soft toilet paper, but how about your fax paper? It should be at least 30% recycled content.” And nobody laughed. It’s ok to wipe yourself with old growth forest, but not to waste our forests in a fax machine? This is why I keep my thoughts to myself. If I stick my neck out, I myself will be decapitated. For instance, I drove to this conference. I would have missed the opening remarks otherwise, because I had to take my kid to school on time… THIS is why everyone loves the mantra “baby steps.” Turning down the air conditioner, for instance, can serve as a sense of relief…like confession.

I’m suggesting a full on diet of less waste. Pulling in the belt. Take a mug to Starbucks. Get your pizza on a cloth napkin carried in your pocket. This is no joke. We have to do this. It’s crazy not to. There is no time for baby steps.
Every single thing we can do, we must do. It’s like going on a diet. No, you don’t need the cream filled donut. You just want the cream filled donut. But you think of your thighs and you don’t eat it. If we thought of the health of the very planet that sustains us, maybe we’d bring our own mug. Or buy 100% post consumer tp. As kids we played a game like giant steps and it was fun.

There is a whole population that gets little attention: addicts of information, the knowledge-needle users. We get a shot in the arm every time we hear someone doing something remarkable and inspiring and innovative. Excuse me a moment while I order another workshop. I know, I know I’ve already had 3 today.

Last month I went to “Conference Attendee Anonymous” and when they circled the room and got to me, I felt compelled not to open up and share. “When was the last time you went to a conference? Tell me where and when.”

All eyes looked down so as not to shame me. People were twiddling their thumbs. “Yesterday,” I said sheepishly, “it was in Barcelona at IESE Business School of Navarra at Doing Good By Doing Well with Net Impact. It was the forth conference I went to by the same name (which is a grammatical error, incidentally) by completely unassociated organizations, none of them to be confused with the esteemed Mark Albion’s book on tape series.”

“Go on,” they said.

“The other was at Columbia University.”

“And before that?”

The Economist Corporate Citizenship Conference “Doing Well by Doing Good” at the NY Public Library by the same name. Oh, you should have been there. Bill Clinton talked about Haiti, Proctor and Gamble talked about delighting people with product, and Jeff Hollender of Seventh Generation objected to companies making efforts to be less bad, and claiming to be saving the environment. “I’m a polluter,” he said, which woke everybody up. He advocated authenticity before any of us can move forward. He acknowledged, however, that the big companies can have the most impact so when make little shifts the results are tremendous….”

Sometimes at conferences, the heads in the room begin to nod. But not the, “yes we understand” kind of nod. Nodding as in … nodding off.

My thoughts return to the receptions. At the Economist event I met a woman organizing the women in her village to take control of the energy deprivation, with solar ovens, wind power, and solar power commit. Donorchoose was there. It was exciting. Blood rushing, hope, praise. Even the audience questions give me a buzz. The Care2 founder is one of my heroes. Randy Paynter.

I’m reminded of how exciting it was to meet Cathy Zoi, Director of the EERE (Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy) at the DOE (US Department of Energy) at the Clean Tech Week, and then Michael Eckhart, founder of ReTech gave his best speech yet. The cleantech engineers from China seemed more verbal than the US engineers.. I’m pontificating.

What we need is to interact, not just leave 5 minutes for questions because we ran out of time. The audience is well-educated with a wealth of ideas. Why are conferences modeled after the feudal system. Speakers get in free, the peasants pay and listen. It wasn’t supposed to be like that.. The speaker went over because someone got stuck in a cab.

Congragreening in Manhattan.

I don’t know about you but it’s hard for me to turn down conferences, webinars, and seminars. I think I need convention intervention.

I’m congregational.
When everyone is in a room together it’s like Sunday School as a kid. We’re together. In my case, we’re convening always around the planet, the environment, water, air, energy, agriculture, or tuning up on communication skills: social media, seo, database management, streaming, linking, rich media, gaming…

Why we convene.
When we convene we feel satiated temporarily by not ignoring our miraculous, generous, nurturing, beautiful planet. We are almost spiritual about it. In awe of it. People don’t all worship the same solutions but there’s a good chance everyone is praying for the same thing. Prosperity in Clean Tech for instance. Whether it’s water desalination, hydrogen fuel, solar-chargeable electric cars or software for the smart grid.. even fuel efficient food production, we’re placing our hopes and dreams on feeling okay when we die that we didn’t let down our grand kids. Or, in my case the dolphins and elephants. Have you ever had eye contact with a dolphin? It makes you cringe. I tried to make eye contact with an ant and it wasn’t the same. But back to our grandchildren. We don’t want them to look down at us. We want to have been a role model. This appeals to our inner ego.

It does not, however, I have noticed mean that we convene sustainably. I’ve been photographing the mess left behind at the refreshment stands, for instance. Plastic creamers, plastic twirlers, wooden stirrers, cups, bottled water, juice bottles, napkins, plastic plates, plastic utensils shrink-wrapped in more plastic. All in the name of a sustainability conference. We never ask what’s that tie made of, how do you dry clean it… Can we see the label in your suit? Where did you get those shoes? We don’t want to be rude.

Much of the action at the CSD-19 takes place in informal discussions in the United Nations Lawn Building’s Vienna Café, its lounge areas and during the various side events.

Because the CSD-19 is concentrating on a global green economy, sustainable consumption and production, and related issues, there is more focus on business than ever before.

I was able to catch up with Felix Dodds, Executive Director of the Stakeholder Forum. It was a good opportunity to get to the bottom of one topic that has been on my mind lately. That is, how the pioneers, leaders, local enterprises and entrepreneurs of triple bottom line businesses could be included in the process, as the Member States struggle to facilitate a new global green economy. I asked Felix how how green business leaders might help lead the world closer to a global green economy, the goal of Rio+20 in June 2012.

“I think we need to make it more attractive for companies to become involved as we look at the issues through the different lenses of energy, water, agriculture and food security, and cities,” said Felix Dodds. “There are lots of good positive examples where companies are bringing new ideas to the challenges we face.”

“It’s very difficult to represent global businesses in their many different forms. Note that many global organizations that do exist tend to represent multinational corporations. Entrepreneurs and small and medium sized businesses are less represented without an obvious place to have a voice. But, the approach of the UN is not to exclude the others.”

As background, The Working Group at the CSD-19 which represents business, is called Business and Industry. It is comprised presently of three organizations: International Chamber of Commerce International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Counceil of Chemical Associations (ICCA) and the United State Council for International Business.

For Rio+20, the UN has cast a wider net. Originally under the direction of Chad Holliday, Chairman of the Board of Bank of America, a group called BASD 2012 was created as a coordinating partner for business, a temporary coalition of business organizations to ensure that the voice of business is heard in Rio. BASD 2012 is a joint initiative of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBSD) and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).

So, how can other organizations, like the business supporters and partners of the American Sustainable Business Council, for instance have a voice in the negotiations?

The importance of capturing the triple bottom line vision and perspectives, experiences, ideas, innovations, and policy recommendations of pioneering green business leaders would be an essential contribution to the Earth Summit 2012. The Summit serves as an important opportunity and rallying point for the world community to accelerate and scale-up the transition to a low-carbon, more resource efficient and ecosystem-conserving global green economy. This Guardian article captures both the potential opportunity and possible pitfalls that the Summit represents.

At this juncture, the usual global multinationals, through the various industry associations mentioned, are poised to provide the dominant business perspective and input to the Summit on their vision and recommendations for a transition to the global green economy. What is sorely missing are the lessons and the perspectives of pioneering green business leaders and entrepreneurs who have shown early vision, leadership and commitment to transforming the sustainability of industrial processes:

These companies need to voice and demonstrate that their sustainable ‘green’ business models can drive both the bottom line through consumer demand and the ‘top’ line
through innovation, new markets and new business opportunities.

Felix Dodds suggested that new groups should be welcome to join the dialogue, and noted that The Stakeholder Forum was founded to help stakeholders stay informed and become involved in processes such as Rio+20 do (www.earthsummit2012.org ).

As the Commission on Sustainable Development works laboriously for two weeks on a framework and set of principles for a green economy, they are blazing new trails through unknown territory, and are bound to face some resistance from some well-funded entities that might be resistant, because of legitimate restraints in our present system, to letting go of business as usual. It’s going to take all hands on deck, and perhaps a major consciousness shift among both consumers and business. An eco-system in which 20% of the people consume 80% of the resources will collapse quickly. This may be the biggest challenge man has faced in evolution.

In wrapping up our conversation, I asked Felix Dodds, who just published his new book Biodiversity-and Ecosystem Insecurity: A Planet in Peril, what a green economy would look like. “I think that no one understands the green economy yet,” said Mr. Dodds. “There are many components and we must put our heads together.” So, there we have it. A call to action, a call to “create a vision” of what a fair and just economy could look like, and what it will take to build it.

http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/28778-Clean-Energy-Week-Groundswell-of-Partners-Nationwide

Clean Energy Week Groundswell of Partners Nationwide

Submitted by: Earth Advertising

Categories: Clean Technology, Events

Posted: Jan 29, 2010 – 10:32 AM EST

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