Posts from — September 2007

Tchenguiz � green means bucks

Property billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz wants to make his next fortune through environmental businesses. If he can help the environment while doing it, then so much the better. But actually he doesn�t give a green fig about the global ecology. All he is interested in is eco-policy, eco-publicity and eco-profits.

Under his plans, the environment is a product like any other that he can commodify to trade and sell to corporates and governments around the world. If all goes well, Tchenguiz says the business could easily turn into a multibillion-pound venture that is at least as lucrative as property.

His company, Consensus spends more than �20m every month on its environmental portfolio, which spans more than 220 companies, joint ventures and funds. It covers everything from emerging green technologies to the planting of trees.

‘This is not for charity,’ he says. ‘The effects are positive for the environment, but I am running a business.

‘The environment can be leveraged in the same way as real estate. (more…)

Coastal cities will copy this

The �What If New York City�� design competition addresses the possible devastating effects of climate change for NYC in the event of a Katrina-style disaster. The competition calls for design ideas to prepare for the crisis, so that a maximum number of people would survive in adequate shelter. Clearly this would be off-grid, at least initially. It is a competition that will surely be repeated in London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo…the list is endless. In the New York competition, the premise is that Hurricane Kirk, a Category 3 storm hits New York and displaces hundreds of thousands of residents. Because of the density of New York City, the traditional solution of trailers doesn�t work. (more…)

Luciano: his yacht smells fishy

You can’t get much more off-grid than life on the ocean waves, and Luciano Benetton’s new yacht shows how to do it in green style. The yacht has just been awarded the first ever Green Star at the Monaco Boat Show, a new rating in the yachting world, to denote an environmentally friendly boat.

A mega-rich man”s politically correct whim? Far from it, Benetton insists. His firm was ahead of its time in stressing environmental concerns in its factories and offices, he says, and he has put those same values first – above price and speed, for example – in his new toy. “This was my choice,” he says. Was it his choice to name the vessel Trib�, after Benetton’s rather unpleasant (and environmentally destructive) perfume? Presumably it can then be written down as a marketing expense? Tribu is 50m-long and built to the same standards of environmental purity as the latest generation of cruise liners and cargo ships.

“The requirements for the certificate are complex: (more…)

Leonardo: green passions

Leonardo DiCaprio has a passion for the environment that extends at least as far back as the Titanic days of his early twenties.
It s always been something that I ve read about,” he explains. “It started with an environmental documentary that I saw when I was very young, on rainforests and the depletion of the Amazon and loss of species. I decided to become more active and outspoken about these issues because ultimately nature has very little rights.

“That eventually led me to meet with then US vice president Al Gore about 10 years ago. He took time to talk to me about the issue of global warming which I didn t really understand very much about. From then on I’ve kind of been much more active in it.” (more…)

Early sketch of MIT’s Solar 7

Members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Solar Decathlon team head out for Washington, D.C. next week taking with them a house they designed and built from scratch. Dubbed “Solar 7,” it’s a home of the future: self-sufficient, powered purely by the sun, and MIT’s entry in an international competition for the most efficient – and livable – solar house.

The team hits the road Oct. 1, heading to the National Mall for the solar decathlon. There, in the shadow of the Capitol Building, Solar 7 will be judged against 19 other solar homes not only for architectural and engineering excellence, but also comfort, marketability, and energy efficiency.

But before it gets to compete, the team must finish building the house. (more…)

Two goodie bags

When 1500 world leaders get together to talk about climate change, one thing you are guaranteed is a lot of hot air. Another is a really decent goodie bag.

At the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York this week, everyone from Rupert Murdoch to Desmond Tutu has been seen clutching the organic hemp bags, carrying the Clinton Global Initiative logo printed with non-toxic dyes. While Brad Pitt spoke of regeneration in New Orleans, delegates were fiddling inside the bag with a mix of high tech items such as the USBCell, an AA battery that recharges off the USB port of your laptop, recyclable Timberland boots, and a Phillips super-efficient fluorescent light bulb. “The contents of the bag showed how simple products can be re-engineered to be eco-friendly” Said Simon Daniel, CEO of Moixa Energy which makes the USB cell. Another example is an unbreakable glass water bottle so the powers-that-be never need damage the planet by buying bottled water again. (more…)

Founders: Blog global; Eat local

What food grows in your region in the fall? Let’s eat and find out… Have you always wanted to try canning and preserving food for the wintertime? Let’s try it this year.

The locavore movement — people who try to eat only locally produced food — is growing “from San Francisco to New York,” reports New York mag. Green-leaning consumers seek ways to cut down on the oil and chemicals used in the growing and transporting of food and preserve small farm methods. Barbara Kingsolver’s memoir “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life,” and Michael Pollan’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals,” about modern food production, have fertilized the trend. (more…)

Kemp: crazy car, crazy guy

The Auto industry could perfectly well build a zero-carbon car tomorrow, at a lower cost, and a lower running cost, than conventional vehicles. But they don’t because too many entrenched interests are at stake. Now author Bill Kemp has come up with an audacious plan to shame them all, and it looks set to succeed.

Kemp has built his own low-carbon car for around $35,000, top speed, 140 kph, and will release the plans next month for anyone else to do the same. “Zero-carbon Car: Building the Car the Auto Industry Can’t Get Right” recounts his experience in building the car, and offers detailed instructions on how to replicate his achievement.

You can pre order it here. (more…)

Hammer: Lenin loved him

Russia and two former Soviet republics are host to four of the world’s top 10 most polluted places, according to a new report from the Blacksmith Institute, a New York-based nonprofit group.

Three of the four Soviet sites are around chemical factories formerly owned by Armand Hammer, the American billionaire who struck a deal with Lenin allowing him to exploit the Russian economy in return for channeling funds to Russian agents in the West, as well as into the Kremlin itself.

The history of the relationship between Hammer and the Russian State symbolises the corruption and nepotism in Russia�s current power elite, a pattern for the whole of the 20th century and into the 21st. There seems little any of us can do to persuade Russia to clean up its polluted areas. (more…)