Just coming out of Opportunity Green, a business-of-green conference, in LA, it’s back into conference mode for us. Some of us walked the floor yesterday, and this evening, we’ll be at a booth at Roosevelt Row.

GreenBuild, the largest green conference in the country, turned the spotlight on Arizona –with a little help from Al Gore (”We’ll be able to day that the change started in Phoenix, Arizona … with thousands of builders and developers and engineers and architects..”) in his keynote.

Watch clip here – from AZcentral.com

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What’s the definition of Clean Tech?

The term Clean Tech has been slung around a lot, but to many it’s confusing. So this Friday’s we’re focusing on what it stands for, and why it is such a big topic at the Copenhagen summit next month.

• There’s the Wikipedia definition –which is all about  “renewable energy (wind power, solar power, biomass, hydropower, biofuels), information technology, green transportation, electric motors, green chemistry, lighting, and many other appliances that are now more energy efficient.”

• The Copenhagen Clean Tech Cluster, whose mission is to provide growth, competitiveness and innovation to cleantech players intends to create 1.000 new jobs and 10 public-private sector partnerships and collaborate with 15 international cleantech clusters.

• Cleantech venture network notes that CleanTech”should not be confused with the terms environmental technology or ‘green tech’ popularized in the 1970s and 80s. Cleantech is new technology and related business models that offer competitive returns for investors and customers while providing solutions to global challenges.”
• Martin LaMonica, at Znet attempted to answer the question as well.

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We just spoke to Mark Bowles, CEO of ecoATM, who has some 20 years of experience in the wireless, semiconductor industry. His company that engages in eCycling –technically automated eCycling stations– of cell phones. But phones are not the end goal, as you will see. (or hear –since this was recorded for a podcast iseries at GreenNurture.

So what’s an ecoATM, we wondered. Another green machine? How did the concept come about?

“We are a bunch of hi-tech guys, and we decided to see how we could use technology to solve problems. We had seen a Nokia survey of 100 countries showed how a me 3% of cell phones are recycled. We wondered how we could provide a solution …Girl scouts do cookies. Could boy scouts collect phones?”

Turns out there is a huge collection problem. So Bowles and his team came up with a system to give all stakeholders in the chain an incentive to not just do  the right thing, but make it convenient. “Incentivizing and convenience go hand.”

That’s where gift cards and store credit comes in.

It works like this: Consumer walks into a store with a  couple of old cell phones lying in the bottom of his drawer at the office. He uses a connector in the machine to plug the phones in. Algorithms and cameras in the ecoATM machine ‘grade’ the phones; he drops them into the kiosk and the machine spits out a credit –to be spent at that store.

But beyond the cool factor of trading in or eCycling your old phone, there is a big environmental benefit whenever you do it.

• We collectively buy $180 worth of consumer electronics (500 million devices) every year.
• Some 25 million get retired –stuck in our drawers and closets -  75 tons of phones every year.
• There are 3,600 phone models in the country.
• EPA estimates that the circuits and boards of phones which have gold, cadmium, palladium and copper, generate  3 tons of mining  waste.

None of this makes sense, unless you visualize it., says Bowles, and offers up this visual:

Of 150 million phones shipped into the US every year. That would make 2,000 boxcars of phones coming into the US every year!

Line those up it is a 20-mile long train.

With that as a backdrop, the idea of diverting phones from landfills (and drawers) looks like a viable model. “This is about giving electronics  a ’second life,’ says Bowles.

So how could electronics manufacturers and resellers take up the ecoATM concept and run with it? We know that Dell and HP engage in e-cycling on a large scale. How do other  manufacturing companies  get into an e-cycling game?

Bowles observed how Staples is running a wildly successful Trade-in/Tradeup program for customers’ old printers. For retailers, the ecoATM can simplify this, with a kiosk that doesn’t cost them anything.

So we wondered, why stop at phones? Could the kiosk accept other electronics? That is coming, says Bowles built to be—not just for iPhones, ipods, and cameras but for ‘non-binnable waste’ –i.e. PCs, printers etc. Maybe seeing these eco-ATMs in our neighborhood electronics and grocery stores will change behaviors.

Maybe it would help us slow down that train!

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We’re giving away a Kindle at this conference!

Yesterday we announced that all those send a text to 41513 would be entered to win. Also in a separate drawing, those who register as beta testers of the GreenNurture.com application, would also qualify to win. You would need to drop a business card at our booth before the show ends.

The Kindle, as you know, is as thin as a magazine, has 3G wireless coverage, and holds up to 1,500 books

Speaking of giveaways, we also have pens made from corn. Yes these pens look the part, too!

Our Media Kit – a quick Response Tag: Many people have asked about the curious looking bar code on our business cards. If you have a camera phone, download a simple app that then lets you take a picture of this. [Check out how Microsoft featured it.]  Your phone does the rest –connecting to a digital file.

We use a different tag on the back of our media kit. If you’re an eco-journo, it saves you having to haul back a fat (read: wasteful) packet! After listening to Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff yesterday, aren’t you glad?

Opening Session: Systems by Joe Laur

“”We need to build a system that works like nature, to be as smart as ants, as smart as dirt,” said Laur.

Recycling, he noted, is not going to solve the problem. There needs to be a market for it. We are a supply chain.

I liked the example of Greenopolis, and the ‘reverse ATM’ –something we have featured here on this blog. It’s all about turning consumers into  into suppliers.

Beth Springer, Chlorox: ‘Green is Lean’

How can we navigate from being extreme green to ‘defensive green’ to shaded green. Springer founded the sustainability group in this 100 year old company.

Chlorox ’s Eco Assessment process helped rethink its footprint with suppliers, and stakeholders. They took on, rather than ignored, what she called the ’scary aunt in the closet’ – Chlorox Liquid Bleach chatter. They saw education as an important part of this.

OG25: EcoCradle, Greensulate, and GreenBox were some of the outstanding OG25 companies who were chosen to pitch their concept in one-minute.

And the Kindle winner is…Shams Kazi of Causecast.

A former print journalist, Shams noted the irony of getting his hands on the technology that maybe contributing to the disappearance of newsprint.

Congratulations, Shams!

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DAY ONE

This post will be updated periodically through the day. If you’re following us on Twitter, we’re at @greennurture, and using the hashtag #OG09

There’s so many back-to-back sessions in the first part of the conference, you got the feeling that these speakers were in such high demand, they did not want to put them into breakouts.

Mike Flynn, Karen Solomon and Nurit Katz, who created this conference, introduced Opportunity Green, and were followed by Chris Jordan’s stunning work on the Pacific Garbage Patch.

His photomontages are nothing like you’ve ever seen. The purpose, he says was to “turn the dry language of gigantic numbers into photographs.” This one, for instance, is made up of the plastic we toss out –the toothbrushes, disposable bottles and packaging –that ends up in land fills. Jordan photographed, photoshopped, and  designed a pile of trash to give you a sense of how big our waste looks like!

He ended with a slide presentation (below) on ‘Message from the Gyre’ about the plight of Albatross in Midway island.

Having seen images like this, it’s impossible  to look at plastic the same way again.

Great Jordan quote: “The sacred web of life if being destroyed”

Derrick Mains interviewed by KQED:

Nick Lange, of OnelensMedia caught up with Derrick to ask him about what GreenNurture was all about. The video will be also turned into a podcast.

Breakout Session: “Where sustainable Design and Business Converge.” A panel discussion by Sarah Rich, Yves Behar, Julie Gilhart uand Zem Joachim.

Who woulda thought! The breakout session on design features both high-end design, as well as products from WearPact.com which is reinventing the business of design in … underwear!

Watch the video they showed us. Stunning slow motion and animation.

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Considering our partnership with RecycleBank, it’s worth taking a look at what Recycle Bank does. Watch this:

It’s not only ‘cash for your trash’ but also a way of injecting money into the local economy because of the hundreds of local retail partners who redeedm the points earned.

The raison d’etre for RecycleBank is so obvious. The way to be involved is simple. An average American family generates about 2.5 tons of garbage a year. With RecycleBank’s program, that tracks each family’s contribution to the blue bin using a small RFID chip, the points a famiuly earns from trash adds up. That takes care of People and Profits

As for the third P, the benefit to the planet are staggering. As of today, those participating in RecycleBank have saved some 3,146,123 trees –a number that can be tracked daily, as you keep tab on the points in your ‘bank.’

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If you’re going to be at Opportunity Green conference this weekend, don’t miss this.

It’s a short ‘manifesto’ but it is a clear business case for sustainability. It advocates  “unprecedented approaches to sustainability that are bankable and exciting.”

We like the concept of making sustainability bankable. For more reasons than the third P -profits– in the triple bottom line you will hear a lot about in the next few days.

Incidentally Karen Solomon, a co-founder of Opportunity Green who is behind this manifesto, was honored at the Women Who Mean Business Awards by the Los Angeles Business Journal.

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We’re proud to announce our partnership with RecycleBank!

Being a web-based platform that blends environmental actions, sustainability and new media, there is amazing synergy with the model of RecycleBank.

Essentially, all users of GreenNurture.com will be able to actively earn and redeem rewards points through thousands of retailers and brands.

Check out the social media social press release here for more details.

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We are stoked when we see statements that include the word ‘pledge’ –such as this one:

“The concept is straightforward: Companies pledge environmental patents to the commons, and anyone can use them — free.”

It appeared in a feature in the New York Times, on how several major corporations are using collaborative forums to share environmentally friendly innovations.

Pledging is at the heart of the GreenNurture application.

Speaking of pledges, at a macro-level, world leaders pledged to speed things up, leading to the Copenhagen climate summit.

And at a local level, we see lots of initiatives:

• The City of Chicago created ChicagoPledge as a way to empower its citizens to commit to making small changes in their lives. Check out  those categories, and some more here.
• Nashville has a similar initiative.

Have you spotted similar trends? Let us know.

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