Greening the planet by making green profits and creating green jobs

One of the arguments against capping our greenhouse gas emissions is the effect it will have on the economy. Renewable resources cost more, hit the bottom line, mean less profit, and lower standards of living, the wrongheaded argument goes.

Then there are the businesspeople who see the incredible opportunities in our crisis. It's simply a matter of a paradigm shift.

In March, 2007, at bicycle industry conferences in Taipei and Washington, DC, John Burke, CEO of Trek, delivered for the first couple of times a slide show he developed that showed that the environmental crisis provided huge opportunities for his industry (it's 25 minutes long but you can watch it here).

He talked about four trends:

• Increasing childhood and adult obesity around the world that will never be solved by treatment but can only be solved by prevention
• Traffic congestion that meant people spent 7 billion hours and wasted 5 billion gallons of fuel in traffic jams in 2003
• Limited transportation infrastructure to deal with the daily 180,000 people the United Nations estimates moves into cities every day
• Emission of greenhouse gases and air pollution, 60-70% of which is caused by vehicles.

A partial solution to all of these problems, Burke pointed out, is provided by a single, already-existing technology: the bicycle. Riding bikes burns 500-700 calories and hour, gets people through cities like London faster than cars and public transportation, takes up far less road and parking space than vehicles, and emits no greenhouse gas.

The trick, Burke said, is to convince policy makers of these advantages in order to encourage them to build more bike paths and facilities to make cycling feel safe and convenient. "The best opportunity for the bicycle industry is to create a bicycle friendly world," Burke said. The point of his talk was to convince bike companies to spend a little less on marketing and product development and a lot more on political bike advocacy.

The pay off?

Americans currently take 0.5% of their trips by bike. If that number increased to 5%--and by the way in the Netherlands it's over 30%--bike industry revenue would go from $6.2 billion to $31 billion.

There are so many other industries for which there are also incredible opportunities for green profits and jobs:

• Tens of thousands of construction industry jobs would be created in weatherizing the buildings in New York City alone
• An increasing public transportation infrastructure affords huge possibilities for profit and jobs (the New York MTA, for example, already can't find as many buses as it needs)
• The renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, according to the Environmental and Energy Studies Institute, created 8.5 million jobs in 2006.

What opportunities for green profits and jobs exist in your industry? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

Comments

[Jay, writer MemberSpeed.com]

I think living green pays off in the long run. Why should we prefer spending less on something that would eventually give out on us in the future? I love the bicycle example you highlighted here. Aside from reducing pollution, it leads to a lot of other positive results! We should all learn to think long-term here.

[Biofuelsimon]

Your figure for the volume of gasoline wasted in traffic jams at 5 bilion gals is almost exactly the same as the volume of ethanol produced in 2006, according to the American Coalition for ethanol. The group says that about 20% of the US corn crop was used to do this.

http://www.ethanol.org/index.php?id=77&parentid=25
In 2005, the latest year of figures that I've been able to come across the US used 179 billion gals of gas. ( http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_09.html )

[ian in hamburg]

Count me in as one of those who was green before it was cool. Been riding my bike to work for years, 25 minutes each way, winter and summer.

Have no use for a car, but I don't know whether my efforts will have a positive impact or not. I've read that because all that fresh air and exercise will likely extend my life by about nine years, all the energy saved by not driving a car will be consumed simply because I'll be alive that much longer.

[Everyday Yogini]

The argument that going green is bad for the economy has always baffled me. Going green and creating new technologies and re-engineering old ones would create a ton of jobs, in my estimation. (It would just be bad for the existing big businesses that line the pockets of our politicians...)

Again, a great post with terrific info. I'm looking forward to trying my hand at riding a bicycle here in Rome. I hear that if you follow the motorinos, you get around really quickly...

[Evan]

Most economists I've read are merely arguing against cap-and-trade style policy solutions, in that they would reward current polluters with greater privilege.

Instead they tend to support flat carbon taxation (usually at the source of the energy supplier) which would have the effect of reducing (carbon-based) energy demand, and thus forcing businesses to invest in more efficient energy technoligies -- both in alternative energy sources and more efficient cars, say -- because it's sound business strategy, not because it's government regulation.

[jessica elgin]

it'd be great to see the bicycle industry take off like that! i really believe it is starting to happen, slowly but surely. then again, i'm a bicycle planner.

[Anne]

Everytime I hear that argument about "but it will hurt the economy!" I think about cars in the 1970's and the clean air act. These acts of legislation did cause a temporary slowing in the economies around them, and after the companies (and consumers) adapted, the economy soared -- much faster than could have happened before the changes.

Being green is simply forcing ourselves to be as efficient as humanly possible in every area of our lives. No more leaving messes for other people to clean up. The opportunity in this is to create an economic system that works like nature... at every level of production, a byproduct is produced that is, in turn, consumed by something else. There is no waste in the forest, everything is being used.

I also think of the story of Henry Ford telling his engineers to make him a seamless V-8 engine block. Time and time again they came to him and said "It's impossible!" and he'd respond with something like "do it anyway." And one day, they figured out how. Only by setting ourselves the challenge will we rise to it and reap the benefits.

[Andy in San Diego]

But shouldn't we be aiming for a lower standard of living? Isn't our standard of living too high now? Even your example, more bikes, less cars, is a lower standard of living. Of course, it's a better quality of life, if you ask me.

So I say, "Yes. It [living greener] will lead to a lower standard of living. It's OK."

As for the paradigm shift and jobs it will create, I suspect far fewer jobs will be created than eliminated. Or lower paying, lower profit, meaning less money for us to destroy the planet with. But again, that's a good thing.

[Andy]

It's interesting to see how John used their product and pitted it against the waste figures to their advantage and I couldn't agree more-- the world would be a better place if we used 1 man-power via bike vs 300 horsepower sitting in traffic. I'm with Colin, this year I'm kicking it off Green-style. For those interested, theres a great event right before MacWorld in SF on January 10, 2008 called Energy Camp. Sun Microsystems, who comes in first place for lowest carbon emissions, is sharing their tips to reduce your carbon footprint with a free event with great speakers. Check out www.openeco.org/energycamp for registration info. Peace!

[jeff]

Great post on a topic near and dear to my heart (I pulled my daughter to school in our Burley then rode to work today).

One innocent statement in the post points to the underlying issue of perception in the US. Colin wrote that riding a bike "takes up far less road and parking space than vehicles."

This reveals the American idea that there are bikes and there are vehicles. When we understand that bikes ARE vehicles, then more people will use them that way.

[English Nige(livin in San Fran)]

Amazing post again Colin. I often think when reading your posts that you should be getting this message out Nationally to the masses and unfortunately not just the already converted here on your blog - you are a true inspiration.

There are so many opportunities for "green" jobs. There is a new law that has just passed in the UK in August '07, which ensures home sellers carry out an "energy performance certification" of their property before they sell it. This energy efficiency statement can be seen by the new buyers so can be used as a bargaining tool by the buyer or a marketing tool for the seller, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_British_housing

Can you imagine if every home in the USA had to have an "energy performance certification" by a certified energy contractor - now there is a line of business I would like to get into!!

[Diane Gandee Sorbi]

If we want to save this planet of ours and minimize the damage already done, then we can't continue on without embracing change, or at least tolerating it. Green jobs and corporate responsibility for the environment will be necessary. More locally-based businesses that care about and are involved with their community would be a wonderful thing. I suspect that there are a great many people in this country that are working for a business whose products they don't respect, in order to earn a paycheck. If they could work at a job they knew was helping and not harming the earth I bet getting up to go to work would feel much better. I don't believe for a minute that the economy will fall apart. If businesses want to survive, they will adapt to change as any successful business must, and they will find a way to make it work.

[Jamie]

Great post, I'm glad I stumbled across your blog.

I completely agree about going green meaning more productive and stable economies and it's slightly ridiculous that it even needs to be made clear in this way. You only need to look at Bush's awkward "we need energy security (oh yeah, and reducing fuel use will help reduce carbon)" to see this in evidence.

We need some sort of international new deal aka FDR to ensure that we can share the necessary skills to make it actually happen in time (i.e. in the next 8 years).

[muddilywuddily]

No doubt that riding bikes instead of driving any motorized vehicle will lead to great things, for yourself and the environment. I would love to ride a bike around the city, but there are several reasons why I don't. (I live in Copenhagen, where there are lanes most places and a lot of bikeriders) The reasons are:

Fear of getting hit by a car, esp. by trucks taking a turn around the corner (a common accident in Copenhagen).

It's friggin cold on winter nights, esp. on "below freezing" nights, and when it's very windy (very common here). Also, icy roads have given me a lovely scar on my right shin some years back, that was fun:P

I guess, what I'm trying to get at is, if there was some alternative that would take these problems away, I and other non-bikers would gladly use the bike. As for now, I use public transport and my own two feet to get around and the occational cab. Riding a bike is great greeness, but the average Joe that hates riding the bike in the freezing cold might need some convincing, or some other green alternative...

[Andreea]

Interesting points but none of them solve the one major problem I have had with everyone suggesting biking and walking.

It would take me more than a day to bike from my house to my school. I live at the bottom of a very steep hill that is hard enough to walk, let alone bike. My school and work are at the top of a mountain.

Aside from all that, biking entails being among cars and I'm nowhere near comfortable enough to do that. Moving close to the campus is prohibitively expensive and in huge cities (Vancouver, Canada) the idea of moving close to your job is most often unrealistic.

I'm sure having a bike lane would help, but considering the kind of distances we have no choice but to travel in today's world... bikes aren't going to be the solution for everyone in every city.