Jul 09 2010

The Green Seen

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Employees planting tomatoes and squash on their break? Companies across the country are creating vegetable gardens, with employees taking home fresh produce, serving vegetables in the cafeteria, helping local food banks, and holding team-building activities in the gardens. Google and Yahoo in Silicon Valley put in gardens some time ago, and more companies are joining in. Kohl's department stores in Milwaukee provide vegetables from organic gardens for a food bank and a child care center. In New York, PepsiCo set up a large plot to grow peppers and tomatoes, while in Minneapolis a PR firm sponsored an employee garden and helped start a movement  called Employee Sponsored gardens which have websites and information on other gardens.

Envision Solar, the leading U.S. developer of 1,000-square-foot solar carports generating energy from photovoltaic panels, aims to install solar canopies with charging stations for plug-in hybrids and electric cars. "Parking lots are this wasteland -- they're the last thing that gets attention," says Robert Noble, an architect specializing in sustainable design and founder of San Diego-based Envision Solar. "Here's a market the size of Alpha Centuri that's never been tapped." The company is working on a pilot project with the Department of  Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab and also working with Coulomb Technologies, developer of charging stations.

More shareholders this year voted for proxy proposals encouraging U.S. companies to  lower  greenhouse gas emissions and improve disclosure of their carbon footprints, according to a survey by Ceres, an activist investor group. Of 42 climate-related resolutions voted on at 2010 shareholder meetings, 16 received 30 percent or more of the vote, compared with 6 of 28 that got that level of support in 2009. On average, the resolutions received 24.6 percent of shareholder votes, up from 21.7 percent in  009. "If our portfolio companies are to provide long-term shareholder value, they need to be proactive, not reactive, in addressing climate change and other ESG (environmental, social and governance) matters," says Jack Ehnes, CEO of No. 2 U.S. pension fund California State Teachers Retirement system.

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