“I wanted to make better products that have a significant impact.  The developing world aspires to our lifestyle which the planet cannot sustain , and America needs to step up with innovation to lead the way forward.”  – Patrick Govang 

KissMyCountry had the chance to talk with Patrick Govang, CEO of e2eMaterials (more…)

They are fast becoming the ghost towns of the 21^st century, places like the southern California exoburb of Victorville, built around the car and an endless supply of cheap gas for the 50-mile drive to work and the 5-mile drive to the supermarket.

Built (or built up) on the boomtown mentality of cheap energy, unlimited water, (more…)

With an eye on Ontario, Conergy and Sustainable Energy Technologies have partnered up to supply Sunergy inverters to one of North America’s most active solar markets.  Over the next year, the two companies hope to produce 3MW of clean energy, spread across a number of different projects.  First on the list is a 75kW rooftop installation on Brampton’s Metex Heat Treating facility.

In high-tech industries, it is not uncommon for such partnerships to emerge, with each side enjoying greater access to knowledge and skills outside of its core expertise.  According to Conergy’s Managing Director (more…)

Frontenac County, north of Kingston, Ontario, has launched a new Green Energy Task Force in order to “provide opportunities to citizens, farmers, businesses, and local governments of Frontenac County to be involved in and invest in the green economy, particularly through the development of community energy projects.” Councillors from each of the Frontenac townships will sit on the newly created task force, but the county will also seek citizen appointees with specific expertise in the solar and wind industries. (more…)

After watching the video below from an old professor from college, I found myself with the sudden urge to blog on the topic of money,cash flow, and sustainability.

The video demonstrates how people feel about cash and the different types of cash. Needless to say, an interesting topic for everyone because we all have it and usually want more of it. But how does cash relate to sustainability and the decisions that are affecting our planet, our lives and our species.

My hypothesis: Feelings of cash correlate directly with assumptions of sustainability investments. (more…)

Green Building Law Blog (GBLB) sat down with Ari Kobb, Director of Green Building Solutions and Co-Chair of Sustainability Committee for Siemens Building Technologies Division to discuss the Siemens/McGraw Hill Construction Study on the Greening Of Corporate America. The study is available for download.

GBLB: What did Siemens intend to accomplish with the study? (more…)

Environmentalist David Orr says the easy part of helping the United States live within its ecological limits may be passing laws, such as one that puts a price on carbon. The hard part, he maintains in an interview with Yale Environment 360, is changing a culture of consumption that causes extensive environmental damage — and unhappiness.

Long before buzzwords like “carbon footprint” entered the general lexicon, David W. Orr was working on ways to help humanity lighten its impact on the natural world. A professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College and the author of six books, including Ecological Literacy, Orr has focused on how to best educate students about using the Earth’s resources prudently. He also has been a leading proponent of sustainable design on the country’s college campuses, and was the driving force behind building Oberlin’s $7 million Environmental Studies Center, considered a model of green architecture in the U.S. (more…)

It might seem odd that South America, too often the victim of corporations looking for cheap labor and even cheaper natural resources, would become Mother Earth’s most vociferous advocate.

Yet it has, confirming a belief that suggests adversity creates heroes. This is certainly true in South American countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and even Venezuela , where some of the most egregious examples of corporate pollution have left South Americans, and their indigenous counterparts, thoroughly disgusted not only with capitalism but with Western civilization as a whole.

Take, for example, the Cochabamba protests of 2000 , incited by the privatization of Bolivia’s municipal water supply by the Bechtel Corporation. Cochabama, Bolivia’s third largest city, has since become the permanent site for a yearly festival, the Feria del Agua (Water Fair). (more…)

Rampant illegal logging in Indonesia is undermining the sustainability and strength of the forest products industry in Indonesia and the United States and thwarting efforts to preserve forests to slow global warming, according to a new report.

The report by the BlueGreen Alliance and several U.S. environmental and labor organizations said that 40 to 55 percent of Indonesia’s timber is harvested illegally, often from protected areas.

Widespread illegal logging in Indonesia and elsewhere has depressed timber prices worldwide, costing the logging, wood, paper and cabinetry industries more than $1 billion in the U.S. alone, the report said. (more…)

The number of courts that resolve environmental disputes has nearly doubled in the last five years as the complexity of environmental law and public awareness have increased, according to a new study.

There are 354 environmental courts in 41 countries, with more than 170 created since 2005, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). Only a handful existed in the 1970s.

“While such specialist courts and tribunals have been created from time to time, their accelerated growth is a 21st century phenomenon,” the report says. (more…)