Industries

Why BioRenewable, Sustainable, Clean/Green Technologies?

 

Biorenewable, sustainable technologies underpin diverse products and services that often deliver superior performance at lower costs, greatly reduce or eliminate environmental impacts and, in doing so, improve and protect quality of life. These profitable, ecologically balanced, environmentally sound or socially responsive solutions "ensure our collective future." They also happen to be fiercely competitive and often extremely profitable.

A practical definition of “sustainability” is securing people’s quality of life within the means of nature. (For a scientific view of sustainability, visit The Natural Step's website, www.naturalstep.org.)

Successful sustainable enterprises focus on using existing market forces to introduce new traditions in business: economically viable and environmentally sustainable products and services, the sharply increasing market demand for such products and services, and the business talent to carry it off.

The emergence of new, breakthrough biorenewable technologies into the commercial arena, many of which are described and profiled on this website, shifts the playing field and gradually "raises the bar" and challenges other organizations to proactively address their environmental risk factors. This is what a sustainable or "biorenewable economy" has in common with the current, global economy: both must generate profit. The difference in a sustainable economy is that the actions and decisions are based on values that include a more precise and authentic accounting of environmental and social impacts.

In other words, sustainable technology ventures are strong businesses in their own right that also happen to deliver environmental and/or social benefit. The seemingly conflicting interests of "profit, people, and the planet" fit together synergistically and sustainably when we include them in our design intentions and success criteria.

By contrast, note that "green" or even "clean" technology can be implemented in ways that are ultimately unsustainable. For example, unprofitable because their design, delivery, or because the operating model becomes more expensive than the market will bear, or because design, delivery or operations may cause unforeseen problems along with their good intentions. This is indeed the case with corn ethanol, which benefits the producers (and ADM) but is not sufficiently innovative to disrupt our dependence on petroleum, let alone help with the price of gasoline; but just as problematic, numerous studies revealing that there is no net CO2 reduction, fertilizer runoff, and other toxic side-effects.

To us, "sustainable" is consistent with "good business" ... ventures that deliver dramatic, lasting benefit to most if not all stakeholders and partners. Otherwise, why do it?

Although there were and still are real benefits to consumers who invest in early, alternative sources of energy (e.g., decentralized solar power delivering clean electricity in remote areas, the health advantages and peace of mind that comes from using a "clean & green" alternative ...), as an investment, the economics of solar panel retrofits remain questionable. That reality is changing. Just as the tobacco industry has fallen down, oil stocks will continue to fluctuate and flatten as renewable energy sources gain strength (view Renewable Energy overview).

At a minimum, smart investors will ensure that the ventures they back do not have such "non-sustainable" drawbacks in the long run – and in some cases, investors can instead play an active role in using our systems of commerce to restore and replenish our natural environment while making a healthy profit. Socially responsive and environmentally-sound solutions are arriving in the commercial market, their number and viability increasing all the time. Today’s new biorenewable technologies must be sustainable (socially responsive and restorative -- or at least environmentally benign) and successful investors look at these new technologies with renewed hope for a future that puts our current environmental risk factors happily behind us. Better yet, set our sites on a restorative economy, not just one that we can keep afloat.

Renewable Energy	Renewable Materials	BioPharma / Life Sciences	Water	BioLubricants, Cleaners and Solvents

Back          Top