You can’t open a business magazine these days without bumping into an article where some CEO is waxing poetic about Sustainability or The triple Bottom Line – a far cry from four years ago when I first started thinking about an award that acknowledged environmental leadership within the tech community. Back then, there were only a handful of folks sticking their necks out trying to preach the gospel of sustainable technology and green capitalism, with darned few takers in the mainstream economy. Things have certainly changed since
Pasquale Pistorio, STMicroelectronics’ former CEO, received our first Green Hero award, and there’s now so many folks doing good work it’s getting hard to choose a winner.
That’s why I’m asking our readers to suggest their own favorites for this year’s award. But before you drop your suggestions onto our blog, it might be helpful to take a quick look at some of the people I’m considering.
Two of my perennial Green Heroes are the dynamic duo of
Amory and
Hunter Lovins. Their 25+ years of work at the
Rocky Mountain Institute in green tech and green economics have provided the seeds from which hybrid cars, high-efficiency buildings, renewable energy, and so many other things that we take for granted today have sprung. They’re also key players in many important ideas that are still on the edge of the mainstream such as smart, 2-way power grids and a very detailed
strategy to get the United States off imported oil by 2040 and end the nation's use of oil by 2050. But now that they’ve finally received so much well-deserved recognition, including
Time’s "Hero for the Planet" title, would the small dose of acknowledgment that our award could provide make any difference?
Then there are some interesting choices from the unruly cadre of Silicon Valley capitalists who have turned their gaze away from computing and networking to focus on renewable energy and other aspects of building a sustainable high-tech future. Among the most notable (and most noisy) is the irrepressible
T J Rogers, head of
Cypress Semiconductor and the person who helped transform the Sunpower Corporation from a small boutique manufacturer of ultra-high-efficiency solar cells to one of the leaders in the booming solar power industry. But while his market-based vision of re-building our economy on sustainable energy is extremely powerful, is it broad enough to qualify him as a true Green Hero?
I’m also very intrigued by Vinod Khosla, another long-time Silicon Valley resident, founder of Sun Microsystems and major VC player, who was one of the pioneers in green tech investments – primarily in biofuels. His take on using market forces to displace the fossil energy industry is fascinating and even looks like it could work. The talk he gave at the Solar 2006 conference gives you a good idea of how he intends to take on global climate change, promote a fair economy and increase economic opportunity at the same time (click
here for the video).
While his work can’t be described as green-tech in a narrow sense,
Nicholas Negroponte’s little green One Laptop Per Child (
OLPC) computers have enough potential to make a positive difference for the planet that his name has come up more than once as a potential Green Hero. See my December 2007 Editorial
Negroponte’s Miss Makes a Hit for a few more details on the computer and the program behind it. In a similar vein, I’ve considered Wenchi Chen, President and CEO of
VIA Technologies, whose pioneering efforts in bringing energy-efficient, affordable
computers to both
developing economies and the mainstream market have provided a great example of how companies can successfully balance a triple bottom line. On the other hand, is putting computers and communication technology into the hands of the world’s poorest children going to really help them extract themselves from their dire circumstances or is it just a feel-good exercise for relatively wealthy liberal first-worlders?
Every competition needs a dark horse to keep things interesting, and in this case it’s Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric. As a former GE employee who knows something of the company’s business culture, I have been somewhat skeptical of Immelt’s newfound enthusiasm for environmental issues and wondered if it was simply an elaborate marketing ploy. I am equally undecided about whether his
Ecomagination program can really re-structure one of the world’s largest corporations so that (sic.) “its products and services that are as economically advantageous as they are ecologically sound.” It’s hard to say anything bad about GE’s publicly-stated
goals and its increased focus on big wind power equipment, solar energy, and energy-efficient transportation whose total revenues far exceed what the U.S. government invests in renewable and conservation technologies. On the other hand, some might argue that their aggressive expansion of their existing nuclear power business and their new so-called "clean" coal generating technology are not what many environmentalists would exactly call green.
I might still be on the fence about Mr Immelt’s real commitment to the environment had it not been for an unusual
press release I received a few weeks ago from an obscure group called the
Free Enterprise Action Fund, denouncing his eco-capitalist stance as anti-business and a threat to GE profitability. In fact, the rambling screed they sent out to the press came close to branding him as un-American. Intrigued, I did a little digging, which showed that
Steve Milloy, FEAOX’s investment adviser and founder, is a well-known huckster, a so-called junk science commentator for FoxNews, as well as a paid advocate for Phillip Morris, Exxon, and other companies whose corporate citizenship credentials are more than a little questionable. In my eyes, having enemies like this is about as good an endorsement for Mr. Immelt as any environmental award could ever be.
With such a diverse pool of outstanding candidates, it’s tough to pick one who stands out as the true Green Hero for 2007, so I’m asking you for your thoughts. Besides any comments on the people I’ve highlighted here, I’d welcome any others you think might deserve the honor even more.
Comments? Questions? Other Green Heroes you’d like to nominate? Post your comments on our blog or write me at
lhg at en-genius dot-net.
