Why the Big Apple Can Be the World's First VERGE City

January 25, 2012

A full summary of Andrew Shapiro's panel, "Can New York Be America's First VERGE City?" at GreenBiz Forum NYC.

As if recent football results weren't enough to heat up the rivalry between New York, Boston, and San Francisco, add to the contest the quest for title of "greenest city."

At the GreenBiz Forum 12 in New York City today, this rivalry took the form of a panel question: Can the Big Apple be the first VERGE city in the U.S., or maybe even the world?

Of course, New York has a long history of leadership in finance, media, and fashion. But green? Why not Masdar, or one of the new built-from-the-ground-up green utopias, asked session moderator Andrew Shapiro, co-founder of GreenOrder.

Full article: GreenBiz

IF11: 4 Ways to Find Innovation Outside Your Company

October 17, 2011

A full summary of Michael Ellis's workshop "Finding Innovation Outside Your Walls" held at GreenBiz Innovation Forum.

In many ways, a culture of collaboration helps to propel companies along their own personal environmental innovation journeys. While much of it takes place behind the scenes, a growing number of companies are reaching beyond their four walls to find sources of innovation.

During a workshop held on the last day of GreenBiz.com's 2011 Innovation Forum, Michael Ellis, a principal with consulting firm Green Order, and John Wilbanks, vice president of science at Creative Commons, showed how a range of companies, including Nike, GE and Coca-Cola, are using new forms of collaboration to spur innovation, sometimes with mixed success.

"These are all just tools," Wilbanks said. "If you think of them as magic bullets, you'll probably shoot yourself and not the problem. But if you can define the problem cleanly enough and find a community of solvers who are actually going to do the thing, it may have a pretty good chance of working."

Ellis and Wilbanks broke down the collaboration pathways into the four following categories, along with examples of what has and hasn't worked, and when companies should or shouldn't use these methods.

Full article: GreenBiz

It Takes More Than Smart Meters to Make a Smart Grid

August 30, 2011

Truman Semans was quoted in an article on Cisco's Technology News Site about the importance of engaging customers with the smart grid.

Without time-of-day pricing, instant readouts of usage and smart appliances that can react to price changes, the consumer benefits of the smart grid are limited. So are the benefits to utilities. It's cheaper for them to pay users to temporarily curtail usage during peak periods than it is to build new capacity.

"Physical infrastructure isn't enough," says Truman Semans Jr., a principal at GreenOrder, a strategy and management consulting firm.  "Only an ecosystem approach is going to work."

Microsoft and Google recently shut down their Hohm and Power Meter, their energy-saving software projects, in part because consumers weren't interested. In an article at GreenBiz called How to Succeed in Energy Management Where Google, Microsoft Failed, Semans advised utilities to make efficiency "fun and fulfilling" for customers—or to make it easier by, for instance, inviting customers to sign up to have their usage automatically rationed.

Semans said: "More and more research out there that shows that a lot of people are not really interested in energy efficiency. So how do you get people involved in something that they don't care about, or isn't costly enough to make a difference on their bill?"

Full article: Cisco

3 Rules for Creating Smart Marketing for the Smart Grid

By Yakov Berenshtyen
May 2, 2012

Once seemingly distant from consumers, utilities are now fighting for customers' attention and developing business models to improve engagement. Increasingly aware that they need customers on their side to deploy smart meters and other infrastructural upgrades, utilities are expanding their marketing programs, signaling a fundamental shift in the way utilities have traditionally done business.

Read more: GreenBiz

Green Lessons from Military Leaders

By Dan Saccardi
April 27, 2012

Gas prices continue to be a central focus on the presidential campaign trail, as demonstrated by last month’s posturing over oil subsidies. Regardless of your politics, however, the taxpayer dollars at stake pale in comparison to the benefits of energy policy choices now being made by our military leadership.

The U.S. military is the world’s largest industrial consumer of oil, so a major shift in its energy policies would have an impact not only on the amount of oil consumed today but also on technologies that could begin to replace fossil fuels tomorrow.

Full article: Politico

NY Auto Show: Cleaner, high MPG cars have staying power

By Adam Happel
April 19, 2012

The 2012 New York International Auto Show featured some exciting new car reveals and awards, including "World Green Car of the Year." A key message in New York was that plugs are not going away, but the introduction of new clean diesel models and overall increased fuel efficiency from traditional engines gives a glimpse of the variety in high-efficiency, low carbon emissions vehicles to hit the market in the coming years.

Read more: GreenBiz

EEI Annual Convention 2012

Electricity: The Future Starts Here

June 3-6, 2012 | Orlando, FL | Beth Lowery and Truman Semans attending

AGRION: Smart Cities Executive Evening

Financing Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

June 14, 2012 | New York, NY | Michael Ellis attending

The Conference Board

Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Conference

June 20-21, 2012 | Washington DC | Beth Lowery, moderating panel: "Sustainability Reporting: Transparency and Risk"

Managing partnerships in the future will require new skills and techniques. New ESG linkages will forge unique relationships between finance, transportation and manufacturing functions. Multi-dimensional roles, integrity, intellectual property and due diligence will circumscribe the strategic value of ethical social responsibility. This conference will look at such issues in the developed and emerging world markets with an eye to  helpful and  disruptive technologies and social forces and the impact on the business model.

A pre-conference (click here for details), pragmatic seminar on sustainability reporting, will discuss integrated reporting, risks and transparency and highlight best practices from leadership companies. Additionally a post-conference workshop (click here for details) will devote 1/2 day to evaluation and metrics for ethics, sustainability and compliance management.

GreenOrder Recognized as "Smart Innovator in Independent Research Report"

August 23, 2010

GreenOrder, an LRN company, is recognized as a "smart innovator" in a new research report on environmental sustainability consultants. The "Smart Innovators: Specialist Sustainability Consultants" report - which provides a detailed independent assessment of leading firms that provide sustainability consulting services - was released by Verdantix, a research firm focused on climate change, carbon markets and business sustainability.

Press Release | PDF 94KB

US PREF: Top Banks and Investors Partner to Inform Energy Policymakers

September 14, 2009

Alliance of Finance Experts to Act as Resource to Federal Government on Renewable Energy Policy
The members of the U.S. Partnership for Renewable Energy Finance ("PREF") are pleased to publicly announce the creation of a new organization consisting of a group of financial institutions, other large firms and companies, renewable energy investors, and thought leaders that will offer expertise and knowledge about renewable energy finance to the Obama Administration, government agencies, Congress and others who are shaping renewable energy policy in the U.S.

Press Release | PDF 156KB | www.uspref.org

Leading Green Strategy and Management Consultancy GreenOrder Named "Ideal Choice" for Green Growth Opportunities in Independent Research Report

February 04, 2008

GreenOrder, an LRN company, today announced it has been named "an ideal choice" for companies "seeking revenue generating advice on innovative product offerings" in the Green Quadrant: Climate Change Consulting USA (Green Quadrant). The independent research report was released by Verdantix, a business research firm focused on climate change, carbon markets and business sustainability.

Press Release | PDF 136KB