Tag Archives: sustainability

Sustainable Business Meeting

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First a potential funder of a project should know the purpose of your business.  What is your method of sustainability, will you be building / and or installing PV grids, are you in the car market, SREC’s, alternative fuels?  There are so many opportunities out there; therefore your mission should be clear to the potential financier. He/ she would not want you be distracted.

Second, what is your company’s background?  Have you taken on a large similar project before and been successful.  If not…why not?  This is a good time to use a SWOT analysis.  What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?  What are the projects?

Next, real money and business can be discussed:

If you had any years or quarters of loss….be prepared to explain.

Be sure to explain

• The rate of return of the project
 • Present, annual, and future worth of the project
• Before tax vs after tax cash flow of the project
• Net Present Value vs Projected Value of the project

Finally close the meeting by expressing the significance of the project to your market (and if possible the investor!)  Make sure that they know that there is a demand for your project.  

Ask if there are any questions, explain, and be sure thank everyone.

http://www.consultants-on-line.com/img/SWOT%20Analysis%20Example%20Template.jpg.  

-Reichart

Reichart Lesson 3 – Energy Efficiency

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1. What types of policies on the part of government could promote energy efficiency?

The government has a prime role to promote a policy which would drive the economy towards energy efficiency and sustainability. Businesses which are functioning within their proper niche would have no reason to promote or create energy efficient products unless a large changed needed to be made. It is only through a combination of major policy changes, and consumer demand that businesses will make a transition towards more efficient products.

For example:

  • Residential buildings REQUIRE certain amounts of insulation throughout the home (policy change) AND homeowners like to be warm and save money on heating during the winter (demand). Therefore businesses such as CertainTeed are doing well selling insulation.
  • To the contrary, limited to my locality, there has not been a demand of strictly electric cars. Although there are tax breaks (policy change), finding a charging station would be a major inconvenience as the closest one is about 40 miles away (lack of demand).

Finally one of the coolest things that the government is doing is promoting low energy and sustainable building policies. Look at the Department of Energy’s Race to Zero. The program itself was designed to:

2. How would you develop a business that has the potential to move this idea forward?

I feel that consulting firms will have a giant market in the future. Energy prices will continue to rise and homeowners/ businesses will continue to use more energy in spite of having energy efficient items (see chart below). We are reaching a point that there will be a major demand seeking the knowledge of energy efficiency on both a small and large scale. Through a combination of energy auditing, life-cycle cost analyses, and up to date knowledge of sustainable tax incentives a consulting firm could do quite well.USA compared to China historical energy use

-Reichart

Rosling, Hans. Gapminder World. Vers. 0.0.7. Stockholm: Http://www.gapminder.org/, n.d. Computer software.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory & Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “BUILDERS CHALLENGE GUIDE TO 40% Whole-House Energy Savings in the Cold and Very Cold Climates.” BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM (n.d.): n. pag. Feb. 2011. Web.

“Residential Buildings Integration.” Residential Buildings Integration. Energy.gov, n.d. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.

Getting to Know Liston Jackson

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Hello class,

My name is Liston and like many of you, I’m an ESP student. This will be my sixth semester at World Campus, and while I still have about a year to go, I’ve been steadily making progress. I am originally from northern Virginia (the D.C. suburbs) and I’m currently serving active duty U.S. Coast Guard and stationed in Chicago. I am still in the process of figuring out what career I will pursue. As I’ve taken courses in the ESP program I know I want to work in the renewable energy field. I am just not sure exactly what form that will take. Will it be working on energy policy, energy finance, sales, consulting, etc? I hope this course will help me better understand sustainability entrepreneurship and the types of careers available.

I have never started a business. In fact, aside from a few summer jobs in high school, most of my adult working life has been spent in the military and not in private business. I have been trying to learn more about solar energy and ways to make it more practical and profitable to increase solar energy use. Companies like SolarCity, which pays all upfront installation costs, are coming up with unique ways to increase their business and I’d like to learn more about how they are accomplishing it.

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