10 Favs; 10 Years: The Coming Disruption - Lead It or Lose It

Back in 2011, disruption was very much on my mind -- personally, professionally, and economically. Reading that post now -- in the wake of the current social unrest and new revelations about the banking system -- I wonder if plummeting down the same cliff. The questions I ask in this post still seem relevant and worth asking. The answers, alas, are still a way off. The disruption, I suspect, has already begun. Here is my post from October 2011 on "The Coming Disruption":

I feel like our economy -- our very way of life -- is in a simultaneous state of suspended animation and free fall.  Like a cartoon character that has run off a cliff and hasn't yet realized there is no ground beneath it.

As I said in my talk at SXSW ECO a couple of weeks ago, I don't know whether we're going to go all the way down or we're going to catch ourselves and scramble back up top.

It seems clear we're headed for a major disruption. The question is, will we instigate that disruption or will we let it happen to us?

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests are indicative of this coming disruption. In many ways, it's a welcome and refreshing sign that Americans are no longer complacent, apathetic, hedonists whose sole purpose is to consume.

My fear is that OWS gets co-opted and becomes a kind of anti-Tea Party movement for the left. I fear that when I see folks like MoveOn.org, the unions, and extreme environmentalists jumping on board and trying to grab the reins.

Partisan ideology on both sides is getting in the way of facing the systemic problems of our way of life.

Our country is failing because we reward people who fail, cheat, and game the system. We bail out institutions that fail to add value to the world. And we let others create the world they want for us.

It's a perfect storm of deeply entrenched special interests, leadership incompetence, and redistribution of wealth. (Yes, that's right, I'm against redistributing wealth -- to either the one percent or the 99 percent. Wealth needs to be earned the old-fashioned way: by creating value and hard work.)

Some are calling for stronger regulation, which would inhibit financial institutions being innovative. Meanwhile, banks sit on their money and make big payouts to incompetent managers who are asked to leave and start charging fees for purchases made with debit cards to squeeze more revenue from customers.

How is that going to grow our economy?

Unfortunately, innovation in financial services is getting a bad name. The innovations of the past decade or so -- much of what got us in the mess we're in -- were driven by regulatory or credit ratings arbitrage, and were increasingly complex, opaque, and focused on quarterly results or success for those who could manipulate the game.

Now it's time for financial innovation that is conducive to sustaining economies – to value creation rather than value destruction, and that drives a new kind of prosperity.

I've been thinking about financial services as an engine of change because we're not going to make real and lasting change – or build a new economy – if money can’t be made while doing it. Altruism is great, but it won't trump greed.

So what if financial services firms clearly demonstrated their community, social and environmental impacts?

What if banks told their customers what they did with their money?

What if customers were rewarded for making sustainable choices?

What if there was a greater connection between money and values, and management was compensated for maintaining or growing that connection?

What if profit and purpose were more equitably connected?

What if sustainability wasn't an add-on, but was part of the DNA of our enterprises?

What if, instead of a triple bottom line, we talked about a single, redefined bottom line that encompasses all three: profitability, environmental health, and social well-being?

Is it even possible for us to make this shift without regulation or with better regulation or, better yet, with self-regulation?

Whatever the answer to the above questions, it's clear a disruption is coming.  We need to decide whether we will lead it or lose it.

 

Should the EPA Have the Right to Regulate CO2 Emissions? Green Skeptic on FOX Business

I sat down last week with Stuart Varney & Company of Fox Business News to talk about the Senate decision to reject the measure preventing the EPA from regulating CO2 emissions.

Here's the video:




And if your browser doesn't support the player, here is a link: Green Skeptic on FOX Business.

San Diego's Cleantech "Collaboratory"

San Diego has a lot going for it: beautiful weather all year round, a great coast, and...well, the new StockTwits HQ on Coronado.

And now, after several years of investment, hard work, and a smart Republican mayor, Jerry Sanders, who saw and seized the opportunity, San Diego has an emerging cleantech community.

"We're here to serve as a catalyst," says Holly Lepre, vice president of CleanTech San Diego, a non-profit formed a few years ago to promote San Diego as a world leader in the cleantech economy. "We're trying to stimulate the demand that drives and attracts new companies."

When I visited in May, CleanTech San Diego was about to announce that the region has reached 700 cleantech companies.  Earlier in the year the organization ranked number seven in the Cleantech Network's global "Top 10 Cleantech Cluster Organizations for 2010."

San Diego is also fast becoming a hub for next generation biofuels.

In June, the California Department of Labor granted $4 million to the region to develop a job training initiative for the emerging biofuels industry in both San Diego and the Imperial Valley

And earlier this month, the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, received a large part of a three-year, $9 million federal Department of Energy grant, and a consortium of seven companies, including San Diego-based Sapphire Energy, General Atomics, and Sempra Energy, are providing an additional $3 million to finance research and development.

Sapphire is developing what it calls "green crude," a 91-octane gasoline made from CO2, sunlight, and photosynthetic microorganisms. Last year, Sapphire attracted BP's former head of global refining, Cynthia Warner, to be its president. Warner saw the writing on the wall and decided "it was a lot better to create the key to the future than to nurse along the dying past."

Sapphire is not alone among next generation biofuels companies attracting dinosaur industry interest.   J. Craig Venter's La Jolla-based Synthetic Genomics recently launched a new greenhouse facility as a part of a multi-year partnership with Exxon Mobil Corporation.

But it's not just biofuels in sunny southern California. There are, according to Cleantech San Diego's Lepre, 176 solar companies in the region, including Spanish turnkey solar manufacturer Siliken, which has its US headquarters here, and Envision Solar, whose "solar trees" are starting to sprout up in around the country.

Envision is based in the Kearny Mesa district and housed in EcoHub, the area's first cleantech incubator. Yves Perez, founder of the Eco Investment Club, formed a partnership with Mark Mandell of property management company Square One Development, to start the incubator in a 12,000-square foot office plaza.

"We're in a secret race for the cleantech capital of the world," says Perez. "Win this secret race and we could double the number of San Diego-based cleantech companies and startups, and 700 becomes 1400 or more."

Bob Noble, president of Envision Solar explained why his company became one of the first in the EcoHub, "We wanted to be in a space where the building owners not only understood our mission but wanted to be part of it. Being surrounded by like minded-professionals opens up new avenues for collaboration and partnership."

That collaborative spirit is a key to San Diego's success, according to Lepre. "San Diego is a natural setting for a clean tech 'collaboratory.'"

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MIT Energy Conference 2010 - China: The Cradle of New Energy Technology?

One of the best conferences I've been to in a long time was the MIT Energy Conference in March. As I have written on this blog, there was an excellent panel discussion about China's role in the New Energy Economy. Here is a video of the panel (it's an hour or so long, but worth every minute):



Excellent insights from inside and outside China. Thanks MIT!

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Green Skeptic on StockTwits TV with Howard Lindzon

I'm in San Diego and dropped by the StockTwits West studio to sit down with Howard Lindzon to talk about cleantech, oil and gas, and just have some fun:

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