I attended the Green Cities Florida Conference here in Orlando this week. There were some very good sessions and a turning of the switch of a 1 Megawatt solar array atop the Orange County Convention Center. This solar array is now the largest solar array in the Southeast. We also christened the Orange County, FL Climate Education Center. I was impressed with the people attending for their commitment and passion, especially those leading the conference. I was more than disappointed with our state government leaders who had nothing to say and clearly weren’t thinking about how they could leverage our complex systems to bring about change. More to follow on that. (more…)
Archive for May, 2009
Green Cities Florida conference uses open space technology
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
Systems thinking blog — our energy system traps (part 2)
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009Our energy system actually exhibits three kinds of system traps or archetypes. The first is Tragedy of the Commons in two ways:
- No one is managing the atmosphere, so everyone is free to pollute. Everyone keeps polluting until some kind of management of the commons, our atmosphere, is put in place. (more…)
Systems thinking introduction and our energy system (part 1)
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009Humans are linear thinkers and event focused. Our focus on events is natural and fed by the media that provides event after event, usually giving no context of time or quantity. The complex systems of our energy structure do not behave linearly. Broad understanding of systems thinking is pivotal to accelerating the deployment of renewable energies, energy efficiencies, and lifestyle change. The public is perfectly capable of understanding the concepts of systems thinking. However, I am not sure any of us understand the lifestyle sacrifices we have to make to fulfill our moral obligations to the planet and humanity. (more…)
How to break in to cleantech
Monday, May 25th, 2009There are a many managers and executives keen to break into the cleantech sector but who simply don’t know how.
There is a definite (and often correct) assumption that there are barriers to entry for someone without direct experience within the energy or related industry sectors. Unless you have a technical background there are also fewer jobs on offer and so the task of breaking into the sector can sometimes appear almost impossible. (more…)
People moves, renewable energy - May 2009
Thursday, May 21st, 2009UK
Pannone the Manchester based law firm has strengthened its construction and projects team with the appointment of partner Simon Foy.
Foy has extensive experience in the energy, waste and PFI sectors and joins Pannone from Australian waste processing company Global Renewables where he was general counsel. He was in private practice at Simmons & Simmons and DLA Piper where he advised on many infrastructure, energy and PFI projects and was also the European legal director at US power company Edison Mission Energy.
US
Former Carter advisor, author and energy guru S. David Freeman will become the ‘Environmental Mayor’ of L.A.
Freeman helped shape the energy policy of the Carter era, and by funding the first wave of research into solar and wind technologies in the early 70’s helped to kick-start the renewable energy industry.
One of his first projects will be to revive a narrowly defeated solar energy plan for the city. Freeman is the man credited with putting solar panels on the White House. (more…)
Dear job seeker…..
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009Dear job seeker,
I have some good news and some bad news. If you are new to cleantech and are perhaps viewing it (quite rightly) as one of the few areas of the economy that is doing (relatively) well then the good news is that cleantech is an industry and not a technology. What do I mean? As a colleague of mine, Hugh Parnell, put it, it’s not a technology, like biotechnology, but rather a collection of technologies. I would go further and say it’s an industry like, say, the car industry. In fact several clean technologies are being developed by the car industry, such as fuel cells and plug-in hybrids. So the good news is that cleantech is a very broad industry in which you can valuably exploit your existing skills. This is in fact the basis of the various ‘green-collar’ stimulus packages being deployed by governments around the World. (more…)
The rise and rise of green jobs
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009The phrase ‘green jobs’ is one that I have been careful to avoid over the past years. I always believed that it’s connotations were most closely aligned to activists and lobbying and wouldn’t wash with many of our commercial clients. However things have changed over the last 12 months and the green word is becoming accepted across the business world – as such we are learning to embrace the term.
It is now clear that the huge range of political, cultural and commercial drivers for the energy efficiency sector will lead to ‘green jobs’ taking up a much bigger proportion of the UK workforce. Much less clear is the definition of ‘green jobs’, and many seem confused about what the future of a ‘green collar’ workforce really looks like. (more…)
Show me the money! - securing finance in interesting times
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009For great cleantech start-ups, today’s economic climate is both a gift and a burden. Climate change, both in its environmental and economic senses, has brought new opportunities to clean technology. With carbon reduction an ever-increasing priority, and an economic situation where conservative behaviour is no longer an option, the time is ripe for disruptive technologies in the cleantech space. However, the challenge is to make sure that companies with these great technologies don’t drop off the edge just because they cannot find the cash to keep them going.
So what should companies do if they are struggling to find finance? The good news is that there is still money out there for companies who have a strong technology with great commercial potential - it’s just that the bar is higher. The answer for start-ups is firstly to really nail down their proposition, and secondly to target their search for investment effectively. (more…)
Climate Change: symptom or cause?
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009As the so-called fourth industrial revolution arrives, and our latest comic book hero, the “Green New Deal” strides forth to save not just our capitalist way of living but also the whole of planet earth, we may feel that we can start to breathe a sigh of relief again. The sun is shining, there are rumours that the housing market has bottomed out and, bar the imminent relegation of Newcastle United, things are on the whole looking a bit more positive. As a species, we are generally good at adjusting to changing circumstances, and as we get more accustomed to the new economy, so our confidence in the future will continue to build and the good times will roll again. (more…)
Why we need a ‘Renewable Energy Action Plan’ now
Monday, May 18th, 2009Many compelling arguments have been made for renewable energy, although as of
August 2008 renewable energy sources have still only comprised 7% of all energy
sources used in the United States. Out of the total energy consumption, 40% is still
petroleum, 23% natural gas, 22% coal, and 8% of all energy is from nuclear electric
power (EIA, US Energy Consumption by Energy Sources, 2003-2007, May 2008). In
1991 – 18 years ago -, Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl, two writers more known for their
science fiction work, collaborated on a scientific survey piece entitled: Our Angry Earth.
The book starts by giving the political history of the U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf
War, which led to one of the biggest “environmental wars” and disasters related to
politics since Hiroshima was dropped in Japan during WW II. What did it take to finally
get people’s attention? Al Gore losing the 2000 Presidential election so he could create
the Inconvenient Truth movement around the globe, which 8 years of real progress was
lost on the federal level in the United States. (more…)
2050 - will we get there?
Monday, May 18th, 2009Conferences, don’t you love them. We all go and there are just so many we could spend our entire lives listening to “experts” tell us about ‘climate change’ and ‘energy’. I was recently at the launch of the first 5 years’ Research Report by the UKERC. One-day long, excellent venue (IET, 2 Savoy Place), host of well-known folks on the podium, but I fell asleep. Literally. Must’ve been tired.
The UKERC Energy 2050 report is ‘weighty’ - “Making the Transition to a Secure and Low-Carbon Energy System”. You can tell, each word took several committees to determine. It is a “Synthesis Report”, bringing together the research results of a nationwide team assessing how the UK can “move to a resilient low-carbon ’system’”. If the report is not enough, you can wait for the book in 2010. And then maybe if you’re really keen, the film of the book…. The conference was merely the start of this publicity extravaganza.
But now here’s the thing - the research was a mix of behavioural, technological and mathematical, some of it doubtless excellent and new. But it is reported as a series of 23 “scenarios” with such romantic titles - CFH is the “Carbon Reduction Faint Heart” world where the UK achieves only half the 2050 targets; “LC Renew” is an accelerated technology pathway with all technologies delivered fast; “Dread” is the low-carbon world with any new technology ‘constrained’ and “Nimby” is a world where ‘local impact’ has forced the non-deployment of new technologies e.g. wind! (more…)
Corporate Responsibility: a dead parrot?
Monday, May 18th, 2009As the Recession has started to bite, budgets have been slashed and projects mothballed across all sectors and industries. Investments in Sustainability, Corporate Responsibility and Carbon Management have been no exception. For many, who see such spend as purely discretionary, the demise of such, potentially “distracting”, initiatives has been loudly heralded. But is the “parrot” really deceased, or are the obituaries premature?
Is CSR a dead parrot?
The reality is that in cash-strapped times like the present, the principles of Sustainability, applied in a materially relevant way, should be seen as more - not less - important in ensuring long-term organisational survival. Properly planned and implemented, such initiatives can provide a stimulus for all sorts of good business practices, whether cutting costs through targetted reductions in energy use, enhancing loyalty through increased employee engagement, or speeding up planning processes through effective stakeholder management> in all such instances the effective implementation of the right initiatives in the right way can rapidly and meaningfully add to a companies bottom line. (more…)
Announcement - Global Renewable Energy Recruitment Channel Survey & Global Renewable Energy Recruitment Awards
Thursday, May 14th, 2009Global Renewable Energy Recruitment Channel Survey
Renewable Energy Jobs is pleased to announce that it is launching the first Global Renewable Energy Recruitment Channel Survey. Our global survey will explore current and future trends in job seeker behaviour and analyse the effectiveness and popularity of various recruitment channels used across the renewable energy industry and around the world.
If you are currently involved directly within the industry please take part, it only takes 5 minutes.
Our results should benefit everyone involved in the industry, particularly both corporate and agency recruiters keen to ensure that they are utilising an effective mix of marketing resources, and projecting the right messages, enabling them to engage with job seekers on the right level.
We will be collecting data over the next three months and presenting our findings in September/October 2009. (more…)
Green Job Board League Table
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009This blog is not due for launch until next week but I just couldn’t help myself!
I have had several conversations with recruiters and job seekers over the past week all looking for information on the performance of green job sites. There doesn’t seem to be much readily available information and so I thought I would pull some together in the form of a green job board league table.
The league table below is based on web traffic data provided by Alexa. For anyone who doesn’t know, Alexa collects traffic information on all website globally and ranks them from 1 to 25 million(ish), beyond about 25 million there isn’t enough traffic data for them to collate.
Traffic data is the best indicator of job seeker activity and therefore of a sites popularity (and potential value to recruiters).
For the purpose of this league table I have only included green job site, and energy sites where renewable energy makes up at least a significant percentage of their jobs, and therefore traffic. (more…)
