I know that today people will be inundated with posts and stories that look to make stretch connections to the monumental and historic healthcare decision made today by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). So my apologies in advance, as I am about to join that chorus!
I believe that today's decision is a positive thing for the cleantech industry for a few reasons. And so, here we go:
Obama's second term chances just increased: The SCOTUS decision is a major boost for President Obama and the Democrats heading into the November elections. Everyone should feel free to argue whether or not a second term would be a good thing for the country and the economy. However, no one can argue that with Democrats holding the White House and at least one chamber of Congress, clean technology companies have a much better chance of receiving regulatory, legislative and agency-spending support for renewable energy, energy efficiency and clean energy R&D. The healthcare decision is also his second populist win in a week after his decision on immigration was well received by most voters. Couple that with the fact that most people who benefit from the bill will be middle-class, low-income and young voters, and Obama just solidified his position with his base and with many independents heading into November.
Energy just moved up the agenda list: The GOP will bluster about overturning the healthcare law, but without a supermajority in the Senate and the White House, they have zero chance of doing so. Given even the most optimistic GOP election projections have the Democrats with more than 40 votes in the Senate, there is almost no chance of a repeal. That means, this takes healthcare entirely off of the priority list for Obama in a second term and allows him to focus on one of the major unaccomplished platforms from his original candidacy: energy. When you couple with that the recent immigration decision that placated at least some critics of the lack of immigration reform, energy and the environment could become the cornerstone of a second Obama term.
The DOE loan guarantee program failures now become a fringe issue: The more the news cycle focuses on things other than the flame out of DOE loan guarantee recipients, the better off Cleantech is from a public and policy support standpoint. For example, the coverage of Solyndra and others has created the perception that the entire solar industry is a failure, despite the fact that solar adoption in the US has never been higher and downstream companies are doing REALLY well. The media has a myopic focus on solar module companies as synonymous with solar PV as a whole. Module margins are not a good indication of the health of the industry any more than disk drive margins are an indication of the health of the PC industry. Shipments yes, margins no.
So while the SCOTUS decision will dominate the debate cycles during this election season, clean technology companies will see a boost in their chances to have a favorable policy environment for the next four years. Now granted, a lot of things can happen between now and November, but there is no downside to the Supreme Court decision for clean technology companies in the near term.
Prior to helping start the Cleantech Practice at Schwartz MSL, my technology PR career kicked off in the late 90s with a focus business-to-business software and infrastructure companies like MapInfo, webMethods and IONA. My days were spent talking about the evolution of web services and standards like XML, UDDI, .Net, Java and others, and how they impacted the development of ecommerce, business process automation and supply-chain integration.
If ever there was a journalist that I felt followed a similar path as me to eventually "covering" renewable energy, energy efficiency and green IT companies--albeit on the editorial side--it was Martin LaMonica. Martin is a veteran journalist of more than 20 years, having spent a good chunk of time covering enterprise technology for IDG (InfoWorld, etc) and then CNET, before managing the Green blog at CNET. Recently, he joined MIT Technology Reviewas an outside contributor to cover clean technologies for the publication which is famous for writing about cutting-edge innovation before it becomes mainstream.
Martin was kind enough to take a few minutes out of his new gig to answer three questions related to his role at the publication.
Schwartz MSL:What is your new assignment with MIT Technology Review? What types of topics will you be covering?
LaMonica: The new gig at MIT Tech Review is a blog on energy. The focus is clean technologies (rather than the traditional oil & gas and power industry) so it covers a lot of ground in terms of topics and companies--both startups and established energy and materials companies. With my background in covering the IT industry, I'm always looking for crossover between the high-tech industry and energy/environment.
Schwartz MSL: What do you think makes a good MIT Technology Review story? What sources do you like to speak with beyond inventors or corporate executives?
LaMonica: Tech Review does a great job of identifying interesting companies before they get a lot of attention and identifying important trends. Broadly speaking, that's what I'm looking for. Investors and academics who have evaluated a company's technology are important sources.
Schwartz MSL: Are you focused more on news or features? What’s the best way for marketers and PR professionals to submit post and article ideas?
LaMonica: The blog mainly covers news, but I plan to do more feature/trend stories for the site as well. I plan to freelance for other media outlets as well. Email's a good way to get in touch. I'm usually pretty active on Twitter and always check story comments.
If a smart grid program launches but no one hears about it, does it save a kilowatt hour?
As mentioned yesterday, Black & Veatch recently issued its annual electric utility report which surveys the nation's utilities on the top issues facing them in the areas of operational efficiency, profitability and regulatory compliance.
In that post, I discussed how regulatory certainty is a major issue that is causing problems for utilities in their adoption of renewable energy, smart grid and other clean initiatives. It cripples the ability of utilities to make long-term investment decisions to improve reliability, upgrade an aging infrastructure and tackle environmental concerns like carbon emissions, since their unsure what their compliance burden and return on investment will be long term.
Today, I wanted to drill down on a different, more specific finding from the survey: namely, the lack of marketing support that utilities have given to energy efficiency and smart grid programs. Nearly half of all utilities stated in the report that they have done nothing to market the smart grid and energy efficiency pilots they have undertaken. Think about that. They have purchased the technology, rolled it out and done nothing, zero, zilch to let customers know they have done so.
So, essentially these utilities have put measures in place to help their customer bases become more energy efficient and save money, and in many instances, receive better customer service as a result. But the utilities haven't done anything beyond maybe a cursory letter with a monthly bill to tell them about it?
Now many utility critics would chalk this up to an industry with the reputation of having to be dragged kicking and screaming to do anything by regulator and legislators. I don't think that's true.
I attribute it to the "truck roll" mentality of the utility industry and their slow adoption of anything that involves direct customer contact. The industry spent decades developing and implementing technology that enabled minimal customer contact, including automated meter reading (AMR), automatic shut offs, etc.
Now, with smart grid programs, we expect utilities to become consumer marketing gurus that engage with their customers individually and provide slick web-based portals and mobile apps with detailed usage information and money saving tips? It is unrealistic. In fact, only about 80 percent of those surveyed even have customer portals which sounds like a lot, but puts them well behind most other service sectors.
It's time that regulators require some form of legitimate marketing of smart grid and energy efficiency programs, that also allows the utilities to recoup the costs through a minor rate increase. By getting the word out about these programs, you will have rate payers eventually conserving more energy and saving money anyway which would offset the longer-term impact of the rate increase.
Some home-energy management players offer marketing programs to their utility partners as part of smart grid programs and pilots. They have already done the work of hiring consumer marketing professionals and invested in behavioral science research to help get customers educated about and engaged in new programs.
It is important that utilities invest in these services or launch campaigns of their own to educate their customers about the benefits of smart grid and energy efficiency. If utilities market these programs and the US government does a good job with its Green Button initiative, the smart grid industry will continue its rapid growth and everyone will benefit.
Black & Veatch issued its annual electric utility report which surveys the nation's utilities on the top issues facing them in the areas of operational efficiency, profitability and regulatory compliance. The findings of this years report were fascinating on a number of levels, but one major thing stood out to me: the top four issues are definitively linked by a single problem.
According to the survey, reliability, aging infrastructure, environment and long-term investment are the top four issues, in order, on the minds of electric utilities. After reading the survey, I can't help but think that we need to ignore the order in terms of emphasis and focus on the third and fourth issues.
Reliability and aging infrastructure are both significant issues, but symptoms of the lack of long-term investment. Unfortunately, long-term investment is being hampered by the third issue, the environment, due to uncertainty around environmental regulations.
So what's the conclusion? Utilities need long-term regulation that isn't subject to the whims of campaigning politicians and short-term economic cycles in order to drive the type of long-term capital investment that is needed to upgrade its aging infrastructure and fix reliability issues. Period.
There is only one thing that regulated industries hate worse than regulation and that's regulatory uncertainty. Asking utilities to make long-term business decisions and capital investments (for some, the primary mechanism for securing rate increases) when they are unsure what regulatory burden they need to factor into their long-term projections is not fair.
While utilities wonder, for example, whether or not we'll have a price on carbon within the next five years, they are being asked to make long-term decisions on new generation (natural gas, solar, wind, etc), energy efficiency (i.e. smart grid) and other programs that will reduce exposure to carbon. Uncertainty with regards to tax incentives around renewable energy and electric vehicles is also hampering the ability of utilities to plan out new generation capacity that is supposed to provide electricity to its customer base for the next 30 years.
On the consumer side, there is a major lack of awareness and education on the different programs that utilities have put in place. This isn't helped by the fact that nearly half of all utilities have made no attempt to market their smart grid programs according to the survey. That lack of marketing is likely driven by the fact that a lot of the incentives for smart grid rollout and adoption are short term incentives.
The utility industry members need and want regulatory certainty in order to better run their businesses. Consumers want utilities to offer programs that help them become more efficient. Renewable energy, smart grid and energy efficiency companies want customers incentivised to adopt cleaner technologies.
So isn't the only thing left to do to encourage the federal government and state regulatory bodies to give everyone what they want?
The Cleantech market has been littered with companies who have filed S-1s only to put any thoughts of testing the public markets on hold. But could the Cleantech IPO window finally be opening?
It is no secret that venture capitalists and investment banks are of a like mind when it comes to the narrowness of IPO windows. It isn't uncommon for the investment community to all rally around a suspected window and pull the trigger on public offerings.
What has likely been tough for the aforementioned companies and other 2010 or 2011 filers like Silver Spring, is that an elongated period between S-1 filing and first trade likely means they have been operating at a significant disadvantage as it relates to public relations. Most companies work to establish a steady drumbeat of communications heading into the quiet period so that they can continue with communications around normal business activities post filing. Some, however, don't understand the need to build out their communications infrastructure and plan first, and may handycap their sales and business development teams for long periods of time.
It will be interesting to watch Enphase, Enerkem and BrightSource as they start trading, and see if it opens the door for any others to file and follow. Although they all fall in the broad cleantech bucket, the companies could really not be any more different in terms of technology and business model.
Enerkem is a pre-revenue company that is working off of the "storied IPO' approach that is now popular with players in the biofuels and biomass industry. The idea is that you prove your technology at pilot scale and rather than try and raise hundreds of millions of dollars in private financing, you leverage a few strategic investors and an IPO to finance the capex-heavy buildout of operations.
Enphase is a commercially succcessful microinverter company targeting the residential and small commercial solar market. The company makes a high-value product that helps boost power from solar systems that might otherwise suffer from shading, cell or module degradation, etc. With PV module prices at record lows, adoption of solar in California, Massachusetts and other markets is expected to reach record levels in 2012 which should help companies like Enphase do well.
BrightSource is a solar thermal company that is looking to build massive power plants in the desert. Although they too are a solar company, solar thermal is a much different market than Enphase's carrying with it pretty intense project finance and capital investment requirements.
Different as they may be, the trading of three innovative clean technology companies is a good thing for the industry. It may help others raise public financing, and also help some later stage private companies that are looking to close that last round of financing finally find some willing investors.
Let's hope that any who follow these companies already have a good communications strategy and PR plan in place to support their businesses throughout the entire process.
It's not hard to get me excited about clean technology companies since I believe so strongly in their impact on the economy, the environment and the overall good of humankind. And at Schwartz MSL, we're fortunate to handle public relations for a number of true "platform" type of players that are not only selling products, but also providing the necessary "building blocks" to enable an entire ecosystem of third-party products and services, like Tendril (smart grid), Picarro (GHG measurement and isotopic analysis for food safety, emissions management, etc), Enviance (environmental compliance and emissions tracking), Leyden Energy (energy storage) and too many others to mention.
Virdia's successful ramp up can come none too soon, as the market needs a scalable, cost-competitive and high quality supply of cellulosic sugars for the fermentation processes that companies use to produce biochemicals, fuels and nutritional additives. And it isn't just for the environmental good of society that we need cellulosics succeed--it is also important to the billions of private and public equity invested in companies like Amyris, Coskata, LS9 and others to deliver materials for sustainable product development.
Many of these companies launched on the assumption that cheap, scalable sources of cellulosic sugars would be a given. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened and this is where some companies launched the proverbial cart before the horse. The market has had to rely on corn and other crop-based sugars that suffer from price volatility related to the success or failure of short growing seasons, fuel prices, food prices, water prices and agricultural land prices.
Product manufacturers value cost certainty and long-term contracts, which are almost impossible when dealing with seasonal sources of sugars. The wood for cellulosics comes from sustainably harvested and replenished wood sources grown over multiple seasons, reducing exposure to weather and resourced-driven price fluctuations, to deliver a more consistent cost structure.
Cellulosics will happen and so will the categories of products they enable, and so the major question is (as Virdia's CEO Philippe Lavielle says), "who will win the sugar wars?"
With 21st century politics at their most polarizing since the battles of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (Alien & Sedition Acts anyone?), there is a lot of talk of hypotheticals based on various election scenarios for the House, Senate and White House. Speculation is that the expert predicted best case scenario for the GOP (maintain control of the House, even split in the Senate and capturing the White House) would be the worst case scenario for the cleantech industry.
There may be some truth to the notion that GOP-led houses and a Republican president would eliminate any chance of meaningful energy legislation at the Federal level that sets a renewable portfolio standard, caps carbon, pursues agressive regulation at the agency level or provides funding support for different cleantech industries. But unless the Democrats have a clear majority in the House and a super majority in the Senate, any such meaningful legislation is a pipe dream anyway. Let us not forget that energy is not a clear party-line vote with Democrats from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas and other states with heavy coal and oil interests unlikely to support anything that rocks a local economy.
So what then are the likely outcomes of different federal scenarios? I don't believe there is a huge variation in impact based on the different election scenarios unless a super-majority situation unfolds which most experts agree, is very unlikely. There are a number of checks and balances that would prevent a GOP super majority situation from killing cleantech innovation and adoption. Some of these include:
The ability of California and other progressive states to continue most of their current and future initiatives;
The ability of state regulators to continue to enforce smart grid adoption and a modernizing of the grid;
Billions in investment by strategic investors like Total, ABB, GE, Siemens and others in clean energy and efficiency products and services helping to support continued adoption, education and growth;
International leadership on climate change forcing US exporters to become more sustainable abroad.
Simply put, the clean technology industry is in much better shape than it was four years ago, when a crashing economy, rampant federal deregulation and support for legacy energy sources threatened any momentum lent to the sector by venture capitalists. Today, the sector could probably weather a worst-case election scenario. But will it have to? Most experts agree it is incredibly unlikely.
In fact, in one of his most recent posts, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com and the New York Timessays that President Obama is now a 60-40 favorite to retain the White House based on recent polling and economic trends (projected GDP growth of 2.5% this year, and unemployment below 9%). This is not Silver's opinion, but a prediction model based on historical data from past election cycles. That trend, combined with rampant gerrymandering of Congressional Districts by GOP-led state assemblies, means that we're likely to wake up on a Wednesday in November with exactly the same government dynamics we have today. And don't forget that the GOP would not only need a majority in the Senate, but a super majority that could overcome the parliamentary tricks of filibusters and stopping bills and appointees from coming to a vote.
So what does the status quo look like post November for cleantech? We'll explore that in a post later this week.
With the 2010 midterm elections resulting in a GOP majority in the House, a lot of pundits predicted that federal government support of renewable energy would dry up. But now it looks as though support for renewables will come from what is widely regarded as the most conservative of all government institutions: the US military.
According to a new report from Pike Research, military deployments of renewable energy will increase more than 10x over the next two decades. According to a release outlining the report, “military agencies’ spending on renewable energy technologies will continue to rise rapidly over the next two decades, growing from $1.8 billion per year in 2010 to $26.8 billion by 2030. The majority of this spending will be for Mobility applications including portable soldier power as well as land, air, and sea vehicles. Energy for Facilities operations will represent a significant portion of the market, as well.”
This is a public relations and public affairs win for solar, wind and biofuels, as the industries try to continue to win the support of some democrats and social conservatives whose fates are not directly tied to coal, natural gas or oil production in their states or districts. Given the remoteness of many military installations, distributed generation makes a lot of sense.
This should come as no surprise, given recent buzz around military test driving renewable energy systems on bases and the most recent Quadrennial Report which identify climate change as a direct threat to national security.
On the heels of Total's acquisition of SunPower, this is another piece of great news and validation for the industry.
I remember in fifth grade having to write an essay on "what the Statue of Liberty means to me" and being impressed by the number of different points of view expressed by my classmates for what seemed to me to be a one-angle topic (freedom). Well today, we will see what Earth Day means to people around the world and I think the number of different interpretations would be mind boggling.
We get to see a small sample of this disparity between how people view Earth Day and the different issues they view as important on Enviance's blog page. The company is today hosting an Earth Day blogathon featuring 24 different posts in 24 hours from thought leaders across different business disciplines. IDC, Ovum, The451, TriplePundit and a number of others will offer up posts discussing some of the issues they see as core to environmental stakeholders (i.e. all of us) on this 41st Earth Day.
Yours truly contributed a post about how Earth Day has finally transcended the (and I say this affectionately) "Tree Hugger" audience it has traditionally been associated with. Instead, it brings together a growing coalition of surprising stakeholders, activists and proponents, all of whom see sustainability as core to the environment, our economy, our security and our future. Who are those stakeholders? How has Earth Day finally moved to mainstream relevance? By learning a simple PR lesson. Click on over to find out more...
It's understandable that some people have treated the midterm election results as an all or nothing proposition for stakeholders in clean technology. After coming so close on a couple of occassions to a national energy policy, it is disappointing that the policitcal winds have shifted from any meaningful high-level compromise on climate change initiatives and renewable energy at the federal level.
But just as it was a mistake to assume that cleantech-friendly majorities in the House and Senate, plus President Obama would lead to an automatic overhaul of policy, it would be folly to assume that a divided Congress will kill any federal support for the market.
Case in point? There were three major examples from federal agencies this past week that show there are other ways for the President Obama-led federal government to stimulate the Green economy and battle climate change. They are:
The United States Patent & Trademark Office announced an extension of the Fast Track program for Green patents. Skyline Solar, one of Schwartz's clients, has been a direct beneficiary of this policy as the company looks to guarantee the integrity of its intellectual property to company and market stakeholders. This is an important program for companies looking for new rounds of investment or just starting out in a hyper-competitive cleantech market.
The second announcement came from the EPA regarding further guidance on its "Tailoring Rule" for reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) at state and local levels. This guidance stems from the historic EPA ruling that climate change is a threat to human health and therefore can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. This rule, albeit with some challenges to overcome, provides a one-two punch along with California AB 32, in helping the federal government and states exert their authority over carbon and other GHG emissions.
The final example comes from the DOE which, according to a story this weekend in the San Jose Mercury News by Dana Hull, continues to pump millions of dollars into the Cleantech industry. Schwartz client Soladigm, a manufacturer of electrochromatic windows for improving energy efficiency in buildings, was the recipient of more than $3 million.
All of these examples point to a power struggle in the years ahead between Federal agencies and the branch of Government that controls budgetary purse strings (i.e. the House). It will be interesting to see how things develop, but rest assured the new Congressional make up is not a all or nothing proposition and "Drill, Baby Drill," will not be not be the new energy policy in Washington.
David Roberts, a blogger with Grist, makes a great point that this is another HUGE win for clean energy that doesn’t receive nearly enough coverage. Perhaps the largest argument against renewables is cost, specifically that the cost of renewables is not competitive with fossil fuels without massive subsidies. Environmental damage and subsequent costs notwithstanding, this study shoots a huge, indisputable hole in that argument, but hasn’t gotten the coverage or national attention it warrants.
This reminds me of a piece I read about a month ago in Wired, by Erin Biba, on why science, and specifically the global warming movement, needs to “step up its PR game”. The message is quite simple: perception of the threat of global warming is muddled and confused leaving the public lethargic and complacent.
The global warming movement needs serious work in relating to the public (get it?). Sure, individual companies and groups do a good job at marketing their products and services, but the overall industry suffers from doubt, confusion and severe skepticism. In the article, Kelly Bush, founder of entertainment PR firm ID, offers some great insight on how the issue isn’t brought close enough to home. Here is an excerpt:
“They need to make people answer the questions, ‘What’s in it for me? How does it affect my daily life? What can I do that will make a difference?’ Answering these questions is what’s going to start a conversation,” Bush says. “The messaging up to this point has been ‘Here are our findings. Read it and believe.’ The deniers are convincing people that the science is propaganda.”
Oddly, the piece doesn’t mention the BP oil spill once, which seems to be the best example of how to make the clean energy movement hit home (even though the consequences of the oil spill are not really comparable to the consequences of global warming). On top of that is the shocking “Gasland”, a documentary that reveals the massive environmental legal loopholes awarded to natural gas companies, and the deplorable impacts of the operations on local drinking water. With examples like these that literally bring the environmental impact to our front door, environmentalists and the clean energy industry should have enough ammo to counter just about any argument. So why can't they?
One quick hit this Monday morning involving a Schwartz PR client and the cleantech start-up world. Forbes created a slide show featuring the 12 hottest cleantech start ups according to SharesPost.
At SharesPost.com, you can find bulletin boards of private company shares, including offers to buy and sell in companies like Suniva, Bloom Energy, Amyris Biotechnologies, Altra Biofuels, Altarock Energy, eSolar, GreatPoint Energy, GridPoint and Bright Source Energy. These are some great early stage companies backed by a "whose who" of cleantech VCs, including NEA Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia and others, in markets like smart grid, solar, biofuels and fuel cells.
As investors wonder about private company liquidity even amid some potential cleantech IPOs, secondary market options like SharesPost are stepping in. It is an exciting time to be at the intersection of clean technology and private equity.
The cleantech VC world will come together next week at AlwaysOn GoingGreen East in Boston, where the organization showcases the GoingGreen 50. Drop us a line if you're planning to attend, as Schwartz handles the public relations for that event.
Between Apple iPad and the State of the Union, yesterday was a really interesting day in the world of technology, green and PR. Some quick thoughts on what transpired:
State of the Union, Green Policy & the SEC: I was pleasantly surprised at once again, how aggressively the President tied energy and cleantech to the economy and positioned cleantech as critical to the US' position as a world leader in technology, manufacturing and jobs. Its clear that President Obama sees energy policy as core to solving the economic woes of the country and that an energy bill is back on the table. More and more people are understanding that energy is intertwined with the economy, national security, human health and the environment, and so it is good to see it be a central theme of the SOTU.
While the focus on energy is not new, what has changed in recent months is any legislation as it relates to greenhouse gas emissions. Recent EPA rulings and yesterday's news that the SEC now wants disclosure on climate change risks to investors, sends a clear message that the administration will cap and regulate GHGs through agency rulings and not Congress. Is this the first step in GHGs being a financial reporting requirement?
And speaking of the media, some are calling the iPad a savior for the print media universe, as it becomes a platform to keep people reading their daily newspapers, magazines and books. I'll keep my eye out to see if come April, I see people on BART using the iPad as a Kindle replacement and a mechanism for reading the newspaper.
This afternoon at GreenBeat 2009, John Doerr will give a keynote focused on the main theme of the event: The Smart Grid. With the recent $3.4 billion in stimulus funds allocated to projects, the smart grid market has a PR problem, becoming a lightening rod for debate about its cleantech and stimulus credentials.
I am of the personal opinion that any technology that reduces our energy use is cleantech. I also think that anything that helps consumers save money and makes energy more efficient has huge economic value. After all, utility bills likely rank third after mortgage/rent and car payments as the most expensive budgetary item for households. Reducing utility bills by even 20 percent creates more consumer spending power which is a key cog in an economic recovery.
But back to Doerr...beyond just his affiliation with one of Silicon Valley's premier VC firms, he is a bright and interesting guy. He has some creative and pragmatic ideas on how to address the energy, environmental and economic crises, including one written about today by the New York Times (via Yahoo! Finance).
Doerr apparently has pitched a weatherization stimulus that would incent homeowners to upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes through improvements in insulation, windows, etc. Doerr calls the program, "Cash for Caulkers" and word is that the White House is seriously considering it.
I am looking forward to today's keynote to hear Doerr's opinion on Smart Grid and see if he has any other ideas that should be promoted as policy. Doerr's speech should be the first in a number of compelling presentations at the GreenBeat 2009 event.
The next few days will be fun as the Silicon Valley VC and private company investment community comes together at two Cleantech events. Full disclosure: We're doing PR for one of the events and have six clients speaking at the other.
Then, tomorrow afternoon, VentureBeat kicks off its GreenBeat 2009 event, The Conference on the Smart Grid. The event has an elite roster of speakers including John Doerr, Al Gore, Don Wood and Vinod Khosla. It also brings together innovative Smart Grid companies large and small, from Siemens, IBM and Cisco, to Tendril and EcoFactor. Schwartz is a Silver Sponsor of the event and we hope to see you there!
With much of the US utility market and solar industry gathered in Anaheim for the SPI conference, this will no doubt give the cleantech industry as a whole a major boost. Venture Capitalists made cleantech the top funding market for Q3, but were having trouble raising new funds. With government dollars flowing, policy driving cleantech adoption and a slowly improving economy, it is only a matter of time before we start seeing the health of VC and private equity fund raises improve as LPs jump back on the cleantech bandwagon.
The news will also inject even more life into the GreenBeat 2009 event in November, where leaders in smart grid policy, technology and adoption will get together to discuss the market environment for 2010. Al Gore and others will be keynoting the event and Schwartz is a Silver Sponsor.
For updates at Solar Power, follow @jasonmorris and I'll try to report back on major happenings at the show.
In retrospect it seemed inevitable, but according to a new report by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte & Touche, cleantech has emerged as the number one sector in U.S. venture capital investment. This is a big deal...literally. The numbers are staggering--in Q3 2009 $1.59 billion was invested in 134 cleantech companies.
The report indicates that over the next few quarters cleantech is expected to stay on top of the investment heap (over IT and biotech). Reasons include investment risk mitagation in the form of government support through grants and loan guarantees and the "A123 Systems" halo effect--a monster IPO that gives VCs hope for lucrative cleantech exits.
Yesterday we had the pleasure of having Camille Ricketts, the lead Green writer for VentureBeat, into our San Francisco office. For the twenty PR clients we work with in solar, smart grid, biofuels, water desalination, carbon management and Green IT, Camille is a top contact--especially for those looking to reach a green investment audience. Camille considers herself to still be a bit new to the Green space, although at more than six months she is a grizzled veteran in the high-turnover world of media.
She ran through a good background of VentureBeat and her specific focus, all of which was useful. But perhaps the most helpful information for a Green PR person is tips and tricks for working with a journalist more effectively. So onto Camille's preferences:
-Follow Up: She is very conscientious about email pitches and will follow up on nearly everything if given the time. Therefore, she prefers second contact to come in the form of an email and requests a bit of patience because she will try to respond.
-Social Media: Camille doesn't mind direct messages on Twitter as long as you have something that can be of use to her. She'll read them and Tweet you back if she is interested.
-Sources: While Camille likes speaking with venture capitalists, she doesn't want a VC source that is simply going to cheerlead for a company. She wants details on why a deal came together and why the VC chose your company over a competitor.
-Embargoes & Exclusives: Both Camille and VentureBeat as an outlet, appreciate the use of embargoes and exclusives by PR people. They will honor embargoes as long as a PR firm is good to its word and VentureBeat does not get scooped after agreeing to one. VentureBeat writers pride themselves on integrity and will not agree to something they won't honor. Like almost all media outlets, they like an exclusive because it allows them to do a longer piece without fear of being scooped. The good news is that I think they're likely to get more exclusives moving forward thanks to a strong syndication relationship with the New York Times web site.
-Future Focus: Camille expects to be writing a lot about Smart Grid and Green IT in the coming weeks as VentureBeat ramps up for its GreenBeat 2009 event in November. With Al Gore, John Doerr and other high profile presenters, it should be a great event.
Overall, Camille shared some great information about working with a top outlet covering how finance and policy are impacting the cleantech market.
It also seems incredibly Warren Buffet like to be raising a fund at a time when others have turtled and to be investing capital when other VCs are a bit concerned about the corporate viability of their investments. Maybe now is the best time to be investing, when cleantech company risk seems low due to more reasonable valuations and with an increase in government loans and support. If the recent boom in cleantech and green patents is any indication, there will be a lot of companies looking for money in the coming 12-24 months.
It means that the demise of cleantech has been dramtically exaggerated and that we're likely to see an investment recovery in 2010, continuing the trend that started in Q2. It also means that cleantech and green marketers should use the Khosla fund as a proof point that things are only going to get noisier and that competitor marketing coffers are likely to increase over the next 12 months.
Schwartz represents a large patent and intellectual property firm, Finnegan, with an established Green industry practice, and we're guessing business has been pretty good for them and firms like them.
What does this mean? Well, we know that Cleantech and Green Venture Capitalists love patents since investing in companies without some legally enforced technical barrier to entry is seen as somewhat foolish. New technology development and a spike in patents could lead to an even bigger rebound in early-stage investing. And while the spike could have been driven in part by emerging-growth companies like Bloom Energy, it also points to the fact that large company R&D is likely increasing in cleantech, for example, automakers in fuel cells, GE and others in wind and smart grid, etc. It also could lead to future acquisitions of smaller companies with strong patent positions, by some of the larger companies in the market.
Many of these patent holders will also likely look for Department of Energy (DOE) grants and R&D grants from other government entities, in order to commercialize some of these technologies. This points to even more competition in the green public affairs world.
Overall, this is yet another sign that the cleantech financing environment and green PR noise will further rebound in 2010.
I wrote about a post by Martin LaMonica of CNET earlier this week in which he discusses why VCs should invest earlier in the life cycle of green and cleantech companies, rather than doing the heavy financial lifting of getting companies to commercialization. It makes a lot of sense given that most cleantech companies have some fairly large capex requirements or are more services driven and therefore don't offer the 10-100x payoff that traditional technology companies do.
What struck me about this piece was not just the fact that I think LaMonica's premise is right, but that PR firms like Schwartz have also found themselves entering cleantech company engagements at an earlier point than in security, application development, virtualization, medical devices, etc. The question is why? It is complicated question with several answers--some generic and some only applicable to the firms involved.
Generally speaking, the cleantech market is a dogfight. The days of nine-figure VC rounds for cleantech companies are likely over and so companies need to be visible, talking about the technology or service they have developed, why it is unique and the corresponding market opportunity. If you consider there will likely be 3-5 companies that get to $100 million in revenue in each market niche, that means dozens will be left in the cold. Selling off IP or worse, going out of business. The race to be one of the handful of success stories starts day one since every day a company holds back, competitors are generating awareness and mind share with government audiences, venture capitalists, investment banks, partners, customers, etc.
For Schwartz, our technology business has always followed the venture capital and private equity markets. If VCs start pouring dollars into a market, they typically advise their portfolio companies that the first external marketing spend should be PR. We have also represented a number of firms themselves, including PR for Charles River Ventures, Matrix Partners, Pod Holdings and Fairhaven Capital. Given the fact that many cleantech companies are taking VC money earlier, it leads them to hire firms earlier. This also attracts larger companies to a market, like GE in wind or Sanyo in solar, and results in our working with some innovative divisions of bigger concerns.
We've seen this early trend explode recently. We've launched three cleantech companies out of stealth in the past three months from a PR standpoint--two in solar and one in renewable fuels. One of our clients asked us to come in before they had a public-facing web site. They wanted us involved in grassroots messaging, category branding, web site development, etc. We helped them manage the entire process and worked with them for multiple months before one ounce of external communications was executed. It was one of the most successful launches we've ever had by a number of different PR and business metrics. This is the new PR paradigm for agencies in cleantech and the point at which many clients should begin engaging with their firm.
The message: Be able to support them early on or get out.
Another Schwartz-specific dynamic is the fact that we offer public affairs, which can help early-stage cleantech and green companies raise capital from government grants, loan guarantees and appropriations requests. This can be in the form of direct R&D type grants, loan guarantees for building or retrofitting a plant, or revenue from a government funded project.
That said, even though it is starting earlier, PR and Public Affairs need to be grounded in pragmatism in what is an increasingly cynical environment. "If I had a nickle for every company that said 'energy independence' I'd be rich," said a Forbes reporter during a recent interview with a client. The fact of the matter is that 2005 through mid-2008 saw a number of solar, biofuel and wind start ups make some outlandish claims based on assumptions that $100 million rounds would forever grow on trees and that they had the silver bullet to thin-film manufacturing or algae biofuel extraction.
We've heard a lot about "shovel ready" projects for government funding. Well, companies need to have "PR ready" claims that are defensible not necessarily in the moment, but definitely over time.
The message: Hyberbole is the enemy of credibility.
So as I look at the marketing and business lifecycle of a Cleantech start-up, technology development and patent protection are obviously the first steps but that is also a good inflection point for targeted public affairs looking at grants. After that initial funding is received, companies are then looking to reach a broader government audience, gain support from pilot partners and customers, and immediately go into their next fund raise. This creates the need for a web site and a targeted public relations campaign. Once there is product or service to sell, the full-blown public affairs and PR campaign begins, supporting lead generation, brand awareness and appropriations drives for customer projects.
What does it all mean? It means that the world gets noisier in PR and public affairs for companies in solar, wind, biofuels, batteries, geothermal, batteries and smart grid, than it does in security, open source and the data center. It means that plenty of really early stage companies make announcements at PVSEC, National Biofuels, Intersolar, Wind Power, PowerGen, AlwaysOn GoingGreen and Solar Power International, and demand attention.
So while PR has always been the emerging growth company's best marketing weapon, for cleantech companies, it becomes a bigger part of the puzzle at an earlier stage than ever.
There was an interesting piece from Martin LaMonica at CNET this morning focused on what it will take from an investment standpoint to drive the coming greentech or cleantech revolution. He talks about the different options (government, investment banks, VCs) and where each could fit in the puzzle.
LaMonica points out that several years ago, VCs were the source of investment for capital-heavy technologies like solar and biofuels. As a result, they got into nine-figure VC rounds that were supposed to get many manufacturers to $1 per watt solar cells or $50 per barrel oil equivalents. Instead, many companies fell short of their promise and VCs have been faced with either pumping in more cash or helping portfolio companies find new sources of money (hello DOE!). Unfortunately, all of the fancy PR in the world cannot rewrite history to show that companies actually made those projections about 2013 instead of 2010.
He also mentions that many companies just don't fit the old VC approach of finding a great technology, a solid patent position and a large market opportunity, and then invest. It will take the government and banks to get many companies to commercialization.
One expert, Bracken Hendricks of the Center for American Progress, thinks that the creation of the Green Bank, a proposal in the House version of the Energy Bill, would be a key cog in government driving cleantech innovation. I agree completely.
What does it all mean? Financing has significantly dampened cleantech progress both from a macroeconomic standpoint, as well as from an individual company financing point of view. However, more and more companies and VCs are figuring out the cleantech financing puzzle which could be another critical factor in 2010 being a year of hyper-growth in cleantech.
There is also a next wave of cleantech start ups who are not just innovating from a technology standpoint, but also from a manufacturing/commercialization standpoint that will eliminate healthy percentages of the capex requirements to reach full-scale manufacturing. Keep an eye out for such companies in solar, biofuels and wind.
Get prepared for more citizien "rage" at town halls. No, not town halls where the discussion is focused on health insurance reform. But instead town halls focused on the energy bill---legislation that could help alleviate US dependence on foreign sources of energy, ease geopolitical tensions by reducing our interest in politically unstable regions like the middle east, battle the effects of climate change, create thousands of Green Collar Jobs and reduce the cost of energy for every American.
The American Petroleum Institute issued a memo (Daily Kos has it) asking "Energy Citizens" (i.e. employees, retired people, anti-environment protestors and the bored) to demonstrate against climate legislation. It seems API has data that suggests jobs will be lost and energy costs will skyrocket if this legislation is passed. Only offshore drilling apparently creates jobs in this country. What does Greenpeace think?
"It's the most powerful among us, masquerading as grass-roots outrage to stifle debate on global warming," Michael Crocker, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said in a statement printed in the Washington Post. I'd agree with that assessment. Drill baby, drill.
Is the energy bill perfect? No legislation can be. But when you are talking about a long-overdue bill to address a ticking timebomb like climate change (or healthcare, or social security, etc), perfect is the enemy of good.
What's maybe most interesting is that there are a number of members of API that also dabble in renewables like BP and Shell, both of whom manufacture solar products and both of whom are also members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. Talk about PR conflicted.
Now skeptics may say that Shell and BP only belong to the group to try and moderate policy positions that come out of the group, but it could also be that they have read the tea leaves and know that only the election of Dick Cheney as our next president would stop the movement to renewable energy and stronger climate change policy in the US.
Not to be outdone, the coal industry and other conservative lobbies will join in the rally. Will SEIA, SEPA, AWEA and others turn out people to counter those rallies? If so, the biggest beneficiaries may be people who drag coolers of springs water to the events to sell for $4 apiece as protestors bake in the August sun.
This week saw the Intersolar conference come to San Francisco, hosted by a bigger event: SemiCon. And while Intersolar was relegated to Moscone West, with the larger SemiCon in the North and South halls, popular opinion was that the situation could be flipped in the near future.
Want proof? How about Applied Materials exhibiting at Intersolar and not at SemiCon. Unthinkable five years ago. At least their site's meta tags still have semiconductors listed first...
With public policy getting more and more aggressive in its support of solar and a federal government that promises to be very solar friendly through at least the midterm elections next year, you are bound to see this trend not only continue, but maybe even accelerate. I wrote during Solar Power International last year about how it seemed we were living in a bubble (versus experiencing a bubble). The tax credits were being renewed and uncapped, with the promise of an Obama energy policy that would carry the market through 2009.
Intersolar was a bit more pragmatic, as I expect PVSEC and SPI to be this year. But, I think everyone agrees that the question is "when?" and not "if ?" the US solar market resumes its skyward trajectory again.
Some other quick observations:
-Clients, industry observers and media came back from Intersolar Munich with one conclusion: the US will be the dominant market in solar during the second half of 2009 and 2010. This is in large part to a government that is spending money on credits, rebates, etc. while some European governments turtle on spending. That feeling was reiterated by a number of US and international players at Intersolar US. Bottom line: If you are a major solar player in Germany, Europe, China or Spain, now is the time to look at the US market and/or start US subsidiaries.
-A couple of exhibitors said that the Intersolar crowd is much more sophisticated than Solar Power International. Many more engineers, project managers and large integrators. This leads to longer, more informed discussions about large-scale projects and how engineering firms should be building out specifications for projects. SPI is more of a mish-mash of audiences, including smaller time local installers looking for new products and distirbutors.
-I loved the event. One thing though: Does the floor layout need to be so confusing? The 9000 booths were on the lowest level and the 7000s are up top. The numbers are not very well ordered or laid out and make almost no sense. Plus, are there really 10,000 booths? I am originally from Massachusetts and Boston is the capital of unmarked roads and one way streets, so for me to feel that disoriented is a bit rare.
-Are you attending PVSEC or Solar Power International? Tweet @jasonmorris and maybe we can meet while your there.
Word today that Tesla ($465 million), Ford ($440 million) and Nissan ($1.4 billion) are beneficiaries of government loans to turn out next-generation, fuel-efficient cars. The loans were awarded as part of the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program.
The next 12 months will be extremely interesting in terms of seeing how the Green auto supply chain shapes up with regards to batteries, charging infrastructure and other types of technologies. The battery manufacturers themselves have also been the beneficiary of some recent government funding, which means more and more companies will bring technologies to market which will in turn make the PR world a bit more noisy. There is already a feeding frenzy among state governments to attract green car and battery manufacturers to abandoned automotive plants.
With new fuel economy standards, the Daimler investment in Tesla and the ATVM program, the electric car market is slowly being resuscitated.
A new study covered by Kate Galbraith at the NY Times says that Green Collar Jobs grew twice as quickly as jobs in the rest of the economy from 1998-2007. Given that this study doesn't cover the hyper investment in solar, wind, smart grid, green IT, biofuels, geothermal, batteries, green autos, etc. during 2008, and the hiring that resulted, my guess is that the next study will show even faster growth over the past 10 years. Factor in green stimulus measures during 2009 and you likely have something approaching a Green New Deal.
It would be interesting to see what they specifically classify as a green job. Take Schwartz PR. We have more than a dozen cleantech clients and more than 40 people working with those companies. We couldn't say that in 1998, so technically they have been created by the movement to green products, services and technologies. My guess is that this study dramtically underestimates the number of people who have part or all of their employment driven by the growth in the cleantech market, especially people working in green pr, public affairs, marketing, legal services, media and investing.
April may be taxing for many, but for the Cleantech industry it seems as though things hit rock bottom in Q1. Based on the news of the last two weeks, April funding showers may bring Q2 flowers.
Venture capital, state tax credits and stimulus money have started flowing into a number of cleantech and energy markets, giving the market a lot to PR about. During this week alone, we have seen two lighting-related technology companies announce a round of funding. Nuventix and Luxim each scored rounds for different approaches to the sustainable lighting issue, with the former cooling LEDs and the latter offering a plasma-based ligthing technology.
Meanwhile, energy storage technologies, such as batteries and fuel cells, are getting big tax breaks in Michigan to the tune of $300 million. Technologies that help replace lost auto manufacturing jobs will likely get some public affairs love from states like Michigan, Ohio and Indiana for the rest of 2009 and beyond. The DOE is also joining the party by kicking in $41.9 million in stimulus funds for fuel cell technologies.
Can the cleantech industry sustain the momentum into May? With Wind Power 2009 on the horizon, I expect we'll see some signficiant news from major renewable manufacturers related to that space. We then move into Intersolar Munich before we get to June. Everything considered, it looks as though cleantech could be rebounding from the funding doldrums that slowed things in Q1.
GoingGreen East 2009 was full of great chatter about energy efficiency, batteries, storage, VCs and the government's deep pockets. Check out a quick podcast discussing what we saw here.
As Scott Kirsner says, everyone from top VCs to Secretary of Energy/Environment Ian Bowles to the CEOs of 1366 Technologies, Ze-Gen, Mascoma, Oasys Water, and GreatPoint Energy will be in attendance. Check out both Renewablog and the live show feed on the GoingGreen site for real-time updates.
Regardless of how the government balances speed and accountability, there are three undeniable points about the stimulus:
-The amount going into green and cleantech is enormous
-The quicker those funds are invested, the better it will be for job creation
-The money needs to be invested transparently and not just go to the same government contractors and companies that have milked Uncle Sam for the past three decades
Yep, we here at Renewablog have our geek side. Spent part of my long weekend poring over a couple of old copies of the MIT Technology Review. They certainly know how to fuse clean tech science and business viability in a reader-friendly way.
My favorite recent piece is the February cover on the "smart" grid. Actual reporting (site visit to GE Global Labs in NY) and killer graphics showing how the current grid is set up backwards for solar and wind (big pipes by thirsty urban centers, small pipes in the solar Southwest and windy Great Plains) make it a must read.
On Smart Grid: President Obama has really driven Smart Grid into the public consciousness and it is showing in the media and blogosphere. Expect it to be a hot topic at DistribuTECH next week when the "who's who" in grid and energy technology meet in San Diego to discuss new developments in the industry. More than $50 billion will be sunk into Smart Grid under the proposed stimulus package currently in the House. So while escalating media coverage makes for a ripening public relations opportunity, the government investment has to make government relations another priority.
Transparency & Green: Back when outing cases of green washing was all of the rage, it became apparent to cleantech marketing and PR organizations that transparency was going to be key (it should be anyway) if people were going to believe the substance or objectivity of a company's claims around going green. FoodServiceWarehouse.com (Full disclosure: a client) is taking the right approach by turning its Green Commercial Kitchen Certification Program over to an independent panel. This is at a time when there are plenty of companies out there that are introducing green certifications for the sole purpose of generating consulting dollars. FoodServiceWarehouse.com's program doesn't require any purchases from the company and is free. Bravo to a company doing it right.
To say that the stimulus package currently under review contains significant support for renewable energy, green and cleantech would be a gross understatement. Depending on whose data you use, it is roughly five-to-seven times the total of all VC investment in cleantech in 2008. Or, a little more than twice the total revenue of the solar industry. Wow.
Biofuels will get $800 million. Batteries will get a big chunk. Bottom line: Even if this bill is halved before being signed by President, it will create the largest government investment in renewable energy, likely exceeding all past investments combined.
Government subsidies have been critical to the growth of solar and wind in Europe. The US has lagged behind. This is a major step forward in making the US the world's top producer of renewable energy.
Companies need to take advantage of this opportunity because it will not exist again in our lifetime. It is analagous to being a contractor or steel producer during the New Deal Era. Opportunities exist for both commercially mature and pre-commercial technologies.
Many companies avoid engaging in Government Relations because they don't understand it or they rely on industry associations to execute it on their behalf. If you have a technology that you believe can solve the energy, environmental and geopolitical challenges facing the country, now or in the future, then you should learn about how it works. You will learn a lot about policy making, appropriations, government project management and how to sell to government entities. It also will add to your executive's expert credibility when your public relations team is executing a thought-leadership campaign.
Uncle Sam's House is about to become much more energy efficient and whether you directly engage with him or not, there are many companies that will play a role in helping.
I'll be posting on the historic nature of the stimulus package and the government relations opportunitiy for green companies, projects and technologies, as the federal government becomes the world's largest investor in cleantech. But first, I want to make sure I capture the green elements (if any) of Obama's presidential inauguration speech.
Obama began his speech slightly before 9:07 a.m. PST and in less than two minutes, made reference to the fact that, "the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet." He called this usage one of the "indicators of crisis."
9:14 PST: "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories..."
9:18 PST: "With old friends and former foes we'll...roll back the spector of a warming planet."
9:21 PST: Obama says that countries of relative plenty can no longer consume the world's resources without regards to its effect.
In an 18 minute inaugural address, President Obama addressed energy in four separate passages. Likely more than any previous president. Every passage focused on sustainability or renewability in some reference.
Now all eyes in solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, tidal, water and energy management (and public and government relations) turn toward the stimulus package currently proposed in the House. More than $50 billion in tax credits, projects and investments in renewable energy are currently included and we'll do a run down of specifics this week.
As we enter 2009, we wanted to take a look at cleantech markets we think will get the lionshare of the media attention during the year. We're calling it the Clean (Baker's) Dozen. We made our selections based on a variety of factors including 2008 venture funding, 2008 media attention, ties to existing large industries (auto, construction) and viability for commercialization.
Here is the list:
-Thin-film solar
-Inverters
-Solar thermal
-Wind
-Cellulosic Ethanol
-Algae
-Geothermal
-Monitoring & Management
-Concentrators
-Storage & Batteries
-Carbon Offsets
-Green Building Materials
-Green Transportation
There are others that should be on this list and that have significant public relations and government relations potential, including Water conservation, purification and potability, but they just haven't taken off yet. We'll do a post on each of these during Q1 and highlight some approaches we think are worth watching. Through our government relations team, we'll also keep an eye on Federal and State funding and policy to see if the G-men agree with our choices.
First off, apologies for the holiday blogging break which grew into a European-style summer vacation. We say every year that the holidays will slow things down a bit, but as usual there was lots going on despite the economy and more companies shuttering their doors for the holidays than in the past. That said, being busy is a good thing and working in the markets we serve is pretty fun.
In any event, we are starting to see some serious momentum surrounding a trend we predicted at the start of Q4: The government serving as a funding bridge between the last Green VC boom and the next one.
VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi has a great interview with Peter Nieh of Lightspeed Ventures on the topic, which shows that some VCs are either just growing wise to the upcoming availability of government funding or seeing it as a priority for their portfolio companies. Nieh and John Doerr of Thomas Friedman, who recently testified before a Senate Committee, seem to be ahead of the curve on this topic, as are our friends at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Some might be surprised that they support the government getting in the funding game, but why not? Better than a competing firm getting equity at a vastly diluted price.
It's not just VentureBeat and the VCs talking about it either. There is a definite buzz in cleantech start-up circles about the value of government relations, the impact of the next stimulus bill and how to approach federal, state and local audiences. When you consider that all VCs contributed $8 billion in funding in 2008 and the government is talking $20 billion just in tax breaks, it is easy to get excited.
There will be some big winners (the ones that get indirect funding through projects) and losers (those that drag their feet or don't take the time to understand it) in GR circles in 2009.
I held off on posting immediately following the election results to avoid letting any excitement or disappointment seep into any analysis of how it impacts green and cleantech public relations and government relations. However, I think it is safe to say that the results mean big things for cleantech companies and the green movement as a whole.
Green bloggers everywhere started immediately discussing what an Obama presidency means to the green industry with some examples here, here and here. Martin LaMonica's post on CNET (the first link) is particularly comprehensive.
So here is my bottom line thought and I have written this in the past: The government is going to become a huge financer of renewable energy projects both in terms of greening government buildings and providing incentives and appropriations for individual companies. If you are an emerging growth cleantech company looking for funding, GR may be a good supplement to a venture round. Both direct GR contact and local PR campaigns are great ways to target government grants and funding.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
On Election Eve 2008 I have come to this realization: There has never been a political platform element during my professional career that promises to have a bigger impact on an industry we serve.
In 48 hours, we could be sitting at our desks with a federal government-elect that promises to pump $15 billion into renewable energy every year for the next ten years, including wind, solar and biofuels. Or, we could be left trying to decipher how the president-elect would fit renewables into his overall energy plan that includes dramatic new investment in demoestic fossil-fuel production and very little specificity on renewables. In the latter scenario, it is likely that green companies and PR budgets would be at the mercy of venture capitalists that hold all of the leverage in new rounds of fundraising. The VCs will be sitting on sizeable funds that remain flush with cash and have the luxury of buying into shrinking valuations. This results in more equity for less money invested.
When you consider that $6.6 billion in VC investment has been poured into renewables thus far in 2008 and Obama is proposing federal investment more than double that number, the potential size of the cleantech windfall becomes staggering. This is before factoring in aggressive municipal and state programs that would drive a new wave of green energy adoption.
We recognize that many green companies are in the final stages of budgeting for 2009 and that cleantech marketers are looking for ways to justify an aggressive, yet strategic PR program that can deliver an ROI in a tough economic times. Savvy finance and marketingteams are also exploring how to take advantage of government grants, appropriations and projects via a government relations campaign. How aggressive can/should you get? Tomorrow will tell.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
I do think that the overall VC dollars will drop, but that will be in part because valuations will temporarily come down as part of the economic environment. I think that green start ups will still get funding and will be giving up the same equity for less money. And while venture funds will struggle to raise capital from limited partners, most of that fund raising wouldn't have an impact for some time from an investment standpoint anyway. Most VCs will still be closing out healthy funds for the next 6-12 months and that means it is a great time to be a VC.
What does this mean for green marketers and PR professionals? Maybe not much long term. As I have mentioned in the past, I am a big believer that the federal government will be a much bigger player in renewables in the future including agency grants and appropriations. Legislation and regulatory compliance will also help drive spending on green technologies. Call it Green Regs and Ham (pork sounds so dirty, especially since cleantech has a halo right now in government eyes).
Savvy management teams will offset any loss in VC capital with a government relations push that can result in some sort of grant with no loss of equity or IP. If you are a green marketer or PR professional looking to protect your cleantech PR budget amid growing competition, suggesting a GR program may be a means to more means.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
I was watching a CNN political roundtable the other night (Larry King or AC 360) and one of the guests was Joe Klein, a TIME Magazine journalist that just had an interview with Obama (which was published today). He said something that wasn’t explored by the host or other panelists, but I felt was monumental for both its specificity and its implications. Here is the quote from the piece:
"The engine of economic growth for the past 20 years is not going to be there for the next 20. That was consumer spending. Basically, we turbocharged this economy based on cheap credit." But the days of easy credit are over, Obama said, "because there is too much deleveraging taking place, too much debt." A new economic turbocharger is going to have to be found, and "there is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy ... That's going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office."
Lots of arrows have been flung at both candidates for the lack of specifics around their economic plans and priorities should they be elected. This comment from Obama was about as specific as it gets.
So what does it mean for cleantech companies and the green PR firms that work with them? It means that the ITC and PTC extensions were just the tip of the iceberg (not making a climate change pun) and that an Obama administration would make renewable energy investment and development his number one goal over his first four years as president.
This means more legislation and agency investment in renewable energy projects and a much bigger market for cleantech companies. This could be the funding stopgap that companies need should the VC market begin drying up and means that integrated GR/PR campaigns could become much more critical in the next five months.
Bottom line: This is a very, very good thing for the market.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
The Solar Power International event last week was a fantastic show. Interest in solar is at an all-time high and the conference was well attended as a result.
I am not suggesting that there is a bubble in cleantech. I’ve written many times in the past about how we’ve only scratched the surface of the market potential, especially with a new federal regulatory and legislative climate taking shape for the next four years (more on that later).
I get the sense that the broader world at large is beginning to realize that cleantech can fuel the next stage of job growth in this country, as it puts white collar and blue collar people back to work in Green Collar Jobs. Whether you workin in board rooms, finance, human resources, manufacturing and engineering, or as a roofer, welder, contractor, etc., chances are your job is going to get Greener soon.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
There likely will be a mixed mood when Solar Power International kicks off tomorrow. On the one hand, rejoice at the extesion of the ITC (invetsment tax credits) and PTC (production tax credits). On the other, fear about the impact that a recession and dropping oil prices will have on the economy. VentureBeat does a great job summing it up here.
I am an optimistic person to begin with, but I honestly think there is a wild card here: The Presidential election. Obama sees renewable energy as not just an economic or oil-price issue, but as an economic and geopolitical one. Ten years ago an oil price dip may have been enough to stem the momentum, but with policy makers now accepting global warming as a real issue and seeing the impact of fossil-fuel dependence on geopolitical issues (Russia, Iraq/Iran, Venezuela, etc) there will still likely be some investment in Green. There are also plenty of projections related to the creation of jobs from the cleantech and green market, including solar, biofuel, electric car and wind manufacturing, solar and wind installation, and office jobs. Call it a Green New Deal.
McCain also has made the link between oil dependency and geopolitical issues. He just tends to favor domestic oil and gas exploration and harvesting as a major piece of the equation. Regardless, I think that there will be a commitment to renewable energy over the next four years that may help somewhat offset the impact of a recession.
So how does it impact cleantech and green PR professionals? If you have an early-stage product that isn't shipping then the tendency will likely be to hunker down, cut spend and try to ride it out. I am not saying that this is necessarily the right approach, but many will likely embrace it. If you are a company with shipping product or a solid pipeline, then turtling from a marketing perspective is dangerous since the last thing you want coming out of a recession is to be an unknown brand in an exploding market opportunity.
I'll be reporting from Solar Power International this week and will do my best to capture the mood of the companies involved.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
With Solar Power International (formerly known as Solar Power 2008) under one week away, it will be interesting to see what topics take center stage at the event. Here are some quick predictions:
-Thin Film: No market has been a bigger investment darling than thin film manufacturing in 2008 and so it is pretty clear that there will be significant attention on emerging players in the market.
-Solar Concentrators: The big star of WIREC back in March will again be widely talked about at the event, as companies explore concentrators on thin film, new types of concentrators and other uses of the technology.
-Solar Inverters: One of the current bottlenecks of system efficiency, next generation inverters will allow you to improve the performance of each individual cell or string, eliminating mismatch losses.
-The ITC Extension: The single biggest boost for the US market in 2008 was the recent inclusion of the ITC extension in the bailout bill. The news will result in a much better market for Solar in 2009 with the promise of even more federal help likely after a new administration takes office in January.
-Investment: Green venture capital investment hit another record in Q3 and thin film took a huge portion of the money. Will the financial crisis finally have an impact in Q4 or will the march toward a $9 billion year continue?
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
Happy day for the Cleantech and Green Market as Congress did what everyone was hoping and extended the Investment Tax Credit and the Production Tax Credit. Earth2Tech gives a good rundown of the joy in Greenville and what is included in the bill. It ends an emotional and long battle to get renewed Federal support for renewable energy.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
What financial crisis? Cleantech investing hit another record in Q3 as money poured into the market at a clip of $2.6 billion (thanks, Cleantech Group). Amazingly, I still am not among those that thinks there is a Green Bubble since this trend has largely been unsupported by the Federal Government.
Yes the ITCs and PTCs have been good for the industry, but with a new administration and bigger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, I think we have only scratched the surface of advancement and adoption. When you also throw in a weakening economy, a weak dollar and technology bottlenecks yet to be solved, like energy storage, it is plain to see that greener days are ahead.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
The bill is expected to pass through the Senate quickly and has a number of other popular additions (including the alternative minimum tax) that they hope will get more House support. I can't imagine Bush not signing the bill if it makes it to his desk unchanged.
This is a critical week for the solar, wind and other industries, as well as for cleantech and green PR agencies, law firms, VCs and every other market that services them.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
Some random thoughts on which I may expand later after digesting the week at GoingGreen:
-There is a debate between two camps in solar and other incentive-boosted renewables. One camp says there needs to be a focus on markets with resources (abundant sunlight) and less emphasis on public policy. The other camp thinks that policy is the major issue short and long term. I think they are both right in that eventually the technology will be so efficient and cost-effective that it will end the ROI debate, but incentives will still help the market and can't be ignored (hello, Germany).
-Most experts agree that the country cannot afford to ignore nuclear in the short term. That said, many believe that new nuclear wouldn't have an impact for a decade or more (kind of like new oil fields) and so the emphasis should not be on nuclear as the primary solution. Most support keeping it at 20% of our energy source. Elise Zoli of Goodwin Proctor had some of the best points on the subject on the GoingGreen fossil-fuels panel. One point on nuclear by Vinod Khosla that was interesting: The innovation cycle for nuclear is 15 years whereas solar thermal and other technologies will have gone through 15 innovation cycles in that same time period.
-Green and cleantech are the fastest-growing venture asset classes, attracting between 10-14 percent of all venture dollars. It is now the "third leg on the VC stool" with technology and life sciences. -Ira Ehrenpreis, General Partner, Technology Partners
-The most depressing panel of the event was the clean-coal panel. Not depressing in the sense that they made bad points or failed to make a case, but it just seem like the participants anticipated objections and weren't passionate about the subject. One interesting point was made by Oorla Protonics about using natural gas to turn materials into oil. The CEO said that natural gas is the champagne of fossil fuels with oil being the wine and coal the beer. Using champagne to turn materials into low-grade wine or beer is ludicrous.
-Not surprisingly Khosla was the hit of Tuesday and Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX) the draw on Wednesday. Khosla talked about how it is "main tech" not "cleantech" that matters and that the market should embrace solutions that can capture 80 percent of the market. He said that using one sheet of toilet paper as suggested by Sheryl Crow is not a solution and that the Prius is a nice status symbol but so are Gucci bags. This is probably the area where I disagree with Khosla most. I know he is looking at it more through an investment lens, but from a practical standpoint EVERY little bit helps. So if what I can afford to do today is buy a Prius and use less goods that leave a footprint, then I should do it. It is analagous to weight loss. If someone focuses on the sixty pounds they need to lose, instead of making small changes to their habits (less sugar, don't eat at night) that result in gradual weight loss, then they will never succeed. I am not saying that we should settle, but there has to be bridges to that 80 percent market solution.
-The most daunting thing from a green and cleantech PR perspective was this: There is SO much noise in the market and we still haven't really seen anything yet. Imagine for a moment that the current financial crisis dies down in Q4, the federal climate becomes green friendly and boosts incentives, the states and municipalities continue their charge. What will that do? Increase funding in cleantech to astronomical levels, likely open the public markets to green IPOs and pour millions upon millions into the marketing and government relations coffers of cleantech and green companies. Most are operating on marketing budgets under $1 million annually today, investing primarily in manufacturing, R&D and go-to-market. Any money they are spending now (and it is not much) is on public relations, search-engine marketing and some local government relations. The second half of 2009? We may see double the number of public companies and marketing budgets in the millions. Advertising will get better and more frequent, and the PR and lobbying noise will get louder. There may be a HUGE government cookie that begins to open in six months.
GoingGreen was a fantastic event held at a great venue. It was yet another cleantech event that was oversubscribed showing the health of the industry. It has made me even more excited for Solar Power International in San Diego. Feel free to get in touch with me if you will be there the week of October 13. jmorris@schwartz-pr.com
PG&E spoke at yesterday's GoingGreen event and talked a bit about their work in renewables. The speaker didn't take any questions from the audience at the end of the presentation and really just read a laundry list of investments they have made in plants.
Now everyone knows that they are mandated to get a certain percentage of energy from renewables, so the traction they have made is not surprising. The big question is would they be doing it if not mandated? At least their efforts are real, regardless of motivation. As Vinod Khosla said later in the say, he suspects more than half of all green claims are green washing.
The most interesting part of the presentation was when the spokesman cited a statistic that solar costs drop 19 percent for each doubling in manufacturing capacity.
Scott Kirsner recaps an interesting post about the M&A climate at the end of 2008 in traditional technology and how the softening economy hasn't necessarily killed M&A activity. In it, a Boston-based VC talks about how 2008 saw some relatively major acquisitions in lieu of companies testing a frigid IPO market.
Unlike traditional technology sectors, Cleantech is one area that seemed immune to the cooling of the IPO market during 2008 (specifically, solar companies). There were a number of companies rumored to be filing for an IPO, some who went public and still others getting hundreds-of-millions of dollars in valuation. Now cleantech seems to be cooling too (or at least the success rate is dwindling) and there have been several acquisitions (Schneider Electric acquiring Xantrex is one). So is green like tech after all and the IPO desert is upon us?
Not really. Most say that the cooling of the IPO market for cleantech has more to do with the expiring ITCs, an aversion to investment risk and lack of action at the federal level. I spoke to a VC at the recent PVSEC conference and he said that "every major solar integrator on the west coast was on the chopping block" due to the uncertainty of tax credits. Hyperbole? Maybe.
More likely, opportunists are trying to drive down valuations and acquisition prices by playing on the ITC fears. Our government relations team which follows the regulatory market believes that the cooling of cleantech IPOs is more of a delay in the inevitable than a long-term trend. The fact of the matter is that the federal political climate will warm significantly in February when a new administration is entrenched. Both McCain and Obama promise to be friendlier to cleantech companies than the current administration boosted by, in all estimates by political pundits, larger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Cleantech companies just need to resist the M&A urge and hold out for a couple of quarters.
Expect more action at the federal level in 2009, bolstered by more legislation and regulation to drive forced adoption of renewables at the state and local levels. This will reenergize the IPO market for cleantech companies and push even more VC investment. Solar will continue to be the major public-market focus during the first half of 2009, before wind, biofuels and others catch up.
The public market darkhorse? Energy storage which many VCs and entrepreneurs say is the bottleneck in green efficiency and adoption.
And if the climate doesn't warm at the federal level in 2009? Expect that many regions of the country will fill the void with state and local legislation and tax incentives. This includes New England, the mid-Atlantic, Southwest and California. These measures will still give the market enough fuel to support a number of successful companies and prevent any M&A firesale.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
If there is one thing that struck me most at PVSEC is how much companies need branding help when targeting international events and markets. There are plenty of examples of serious branding errors by US companies, including Chevy "Nova" ("no go" in Spanish) or the Gerber baby food example in some African markets (don't ask). Those companies had millions to spend on brand and marketing research but made mistakes.
So what happens when you attend an international event with companies that maybe, if lucky, have a seven-figure green marketing, pr and branding budget? Plenty of things lost in translation. Below are some of my favorites at the event, some just slightly comical when you make a play on words and others shockingly wrong. Here we go:
I think they meant "up and coming?" The slogan you can't see under their name also said, "The next level company." I think it is just a tag line lost in translation. Next:
Solar with a slightly unpleasant smell? As long as it produces clean energy. Next:
Translation: Death to the sun. Next:
What is that word running vertically on the left? That would be the word, "lust." I love solar just as much as the next guy, but I mean......okay. Last but not least:
Um. Ah. Not sure anyone else will try to trademark that so the registered symbol might be a bit unnecessary. Enough said.
Next up in the green pr and marketing event calendar? AlwaysOn GoingGreen at Cavallo Point in San Francisco. It should be much more tame than PVSEC and less of a green field opportunity for branding companies.
Posted by Jason Morris on at 4:14 PM
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One of the more notable things we noticed at PVSEC last week is that investment is obviously flowing into solar and is now beyond just funding R&D and manufacturing capacity. Companies are investing a great deal more money in green and cleantech marketing, PR and government relations.
The difference between the booths at this year's show and the booths at Solar Power 2007 are very striking. It used to be that 70-80 percent of the booths looked like this one (no disrespect to the owner as budgetary constraints and stratregic value of an event obviously dictate size and scope):
Today, the silicon valley influence of cash, marketing and PR are obvious, as well as the entrance of some companies that make their name in consumer electronics. The result a much more sophisticated event and booths that rival some of the best at a global technology event. Some of the ones that stood out:
It had an interesting closed off area and food bar that made you want to go in. Not closed in terms of "don't cross this line" but in terms of making you want to see what was behind the curtain. Given the only alternative to eating free food and drink at the booths was to wait in long lines for pretty rancid cafe solo and bocadillos, I thought it was pretty smart.
This booth had ample chairs and meeting space, both on the floor and in closed off spaces. You need to spend to get this much room, but given most attendees just want to sit at some point, it is a good way to get an extra 5-10 minutes of a prospect's attention.
A booth that captured attention for its size and prominant display of panels. Nothing explains what you do better than visuals. And finally.....
This booth was very open and inviting, displaying the company name and logo several times. Nothing is worse than a big booth where you have to search for the company name or that has a clear boundary that screams "pizza counter."
So what does this all mean? Again, it is clear that some solar companies have become very successful either through organic growth, venture capital or thanks to their critical mass in other areas. It means that the marketing landscape is more competitive than ever and that the noise will only increase. If you can't afford the large booth areas, the best way to get attention at cleantech and green events is through free giveaways (including food and drink) or through aggressive PR to get in the show issues of industry trade publications.
I have a feeling Solar Power International in October will reinforce this point.
One of the things that has struck me the most about the PVSEC conference is where a lot of the exhibiting companies fall in the supply chain. There are a lot of silicon suppliers and robotics/equipment manufacturers. Most of the rest are actual cell and string producers themselves.
Along those lines, the sessions and panels were extremely technical focusing on new developments in cell technology. There was a lot of discussion about a-Si, CIGS and other types of solar technology that promise to reduce cost, improve efficiency and deliver on the promise of building-integrated PV (BIPV). By far, the most common technology on the show floor was thin film solar.
It will be interesting to juxtapose this conference versus Solar Power International (or Solar Power 2008 for those who missed the name change) and see if the focus shifts more toward the integrator/consumer of solar technology. I still think there is room for a show focused strictly on renewables for consumers. Obviously, this was never meant to be that and nor did I expect it coming in.
More later including signs that the solar market is indeed very healthy and maturing (heavy investments in cleantech PR and marketing), as well as some unfortunate name and slogan choices for some of the companies at the event (images will be included).
A few first impressions of the city and the conference:
-Having never been here I was expecting a dry, hot Mediterranean climate not unlike California. What I learned is that it is much more variable with my first night feeling like Miami in July. It is still an amazing place and the New Englander in me was a bit nostalgic once I felt the humidity.
-This is an amazing place of "old meets new." There are plenty of buildings and landmarks older than the US itself, but also some amazing modern architecture, including the Arts and Sciences buildings across from where I am staying.
-I was a bit concerned because everything that I had heard about Valencia was that it was not a tourist destination and therefore, people were not as friendly to foreigners as other cities and the percentage of English speakers was quite small. That did not bode well for my high school Spanish 101 capabilities. It has turned out to be the exact opposite. The city is amazingly accomodating to visitors, there are many English-speaking natives and the people are very friendly. Good thing for me because I would be walking the thin line of playing the "Ugly American Flack." Valencia needs better PR as Spain's third-largest city....think of Chicago's international reputation versus NY and LA.
-The PVSEC conference is a melting pot of companies, much more so than a high-tech conference. There are companies from seemingly every country and the cultural differences are somewhat on display in their booths, with different types of designs, marketing slogans and promotional items. Countries I saw represented include the obvious, like the US, Germany, Spain, Japan and China. Also represented were Thailand, Canada, France, Italy, Belgium and Nigeria. That's at least four continents I saw represented without specifically looking for companies from South America and Australia, and I would be shocked if there were not at least one from each. Think a VC would fund my solar start up in Antartica? One word: monopoly.
-I spoke to a lot of people about the solar climate in the US and most are disappointed with the amount of support being given to solar by the federal government. They see no reason why the US should not be leading in renewables. How do you say, "preaching to the choir" in Spanish? They are not confident that making the ITCs retroactive (if not extended) would have much impact. I still think that companies that continue to invest during this bump in the road will come out on the other side much stronger than the competition.
-From a cleantech PR standpoint, it did not seem as though there was a lot of news from the show, nor was there much media walking around the convention hall. A majority of the people manning booths were salespeople and engineers, with a small smattering of marketing people mixed in.
-A quick Google News search confirms my last point. There are only 19 original articles that pop up when you search for "PVSEC" with an increase to 53 when you expand out the full spelling of the conference name. I am not sure if this is because of a lack of announcements or the scant physical media coverage at the event. It may be worth moving the event to another city next year that is closer to the European media centers, especially if travel costs remain high. The good news for the cleantech marketer and PR professional is that it is not nearly as noisy as other events, so there is a fairly decent chance of getting some attention at PVSEC.
-One of the most interesting early conversations I had was with a director of the EPIA. The European Photovoltaic Industry Association is pretty well organized and is very much taking a coopetition approach to the market. They anounced some staggering figures this week that say that solar could employ 10 million people by 2030 and power 4 billion people. That is a lot of green collar jobs.
That's all for now. Off to attend sessions and meet with more folks.
Great post from Katie Fehrenbacher at Earth2Tech today about how the selection of Biden would impact the future of cleantech. This is especially important at the time when many are concerned about the expiration of the ITCs and the impact it will have on adoption.
Regarding the ITCs, I have spoken to many people in the cleantech industry in the past months and will speak with many more at PVSEC, AlwaysOn GoingGreen and Solar Power International. Everyone with whom I have spoken expects the change in political climate come January to compensate for any lag in incentive coverage at the beginning of 2009.
What does this mean from a marketing budget standpoint? It varies by company, but many are pushing ahead with cleantech PR, government relations and advertising spend in Q4, looking to be well positioned when the new administration and Congress push a renewable-friendly agenda in 2009. Others are sure that even if action by the federal government is delayed, enough large (population) states will increase incentives (California, Texas, New England, New York and New Jersey) to make the investment worth it.
I know many think that green has reach a bubble stage and this is the natural cycle of the bubble bursting, but I don't think we have even scratched the surface of green adoption and investing.
Some other thoughts since my last post:
-WSJ post on a recent survey saying that Americans want their energy clean and cheap. Well, duh? My guess is that most would accept clean and comparably expensive for the short term, in order to reach clean and cheap. They just have to see a clear path to getting there and it will be tough since regional solutions make the most sense.
-Interesting post from Michael Kanellos of Greentech Media on "Five Inconvenient Truths" for the cleantech revolution. The most interesting was #5, which predicts that Haliburton, Chevron and others will eventually benefit. Do people think that the cleantech revolution will result in the collapse of these companies? I think history shows that whenever there are disruptive technologies in a market, the established forces try to slow adoption but then ultimately work to become part of the revolution through R&D or acquisition. Think of the Internet (Microsoft), open source (IBM) or software-as-a-service (Oracle) as examples. The bigger issue won't be the adoption and driving of geothermal by large energy interests but the manner in which they go about exerting their influence. Provided the PR around their entrance into cleantech is done correctly (honest, transparent and sincere), they can counteract some (but never all) of the skepticism.
-CNET does a great round up of clean car technology. It will be interesting to see how it plays out long term. Will it be plug-in electrics and hybrids, which will require a non-coal based electricity grid to have the most impact or hydrogen fuel cells which require a complete overhaul of the fueling infrastructure? Out of all of the markets, including solar, wind, hydro and others, this is the one that will have the biggest impact on everyday life.
-Ping me if you'll be in Valencia, San Diego or at Cavallo Point in the coming weeks. The next two months should be fast and furious in the cleantech world.
After a long hiatus in which I took a couple of trips and battled a sinus infection, it's great to be back in the saddle on Renewablog. Not to mention I returned with exciting news.
Schwartz has partnered with AlwaysOn to sponsor and represent the GoingGreen event. GoingGreen has become the premiere cleantech industry event focused on green financing, venture capital and emerging growth companies in solar, wind, green IT, sustainability, biofuels, etc.
GoingGreen kicks off what will be an action-packed Fall for the renewables market, as PVSEC Europe, GoingGreen, greenXchange Xpo and Solar Power International (the artist formerly known as Solar Power 2008), all take place between Labor and Columbus Day week. If the other conferences have a line-up like GoingGreen (Raj Atluru and Steve Jurvetson, Vinod Khosla, Ajit Nazre, Ray Lane, etc.), we are in for one great stretch of conferences. One topic that is sure to be top of mind? The expiring renewable tax credits and the impact that a change in Washington will have on industries like solar, biofuels, wind and hydro.
If you attend the events, let us know what you think. I've been waiting for this stretch all year long.
Kids really ground you. They see things so simply.
The folks at Pixar get this, and as a result make brilliant and poignant movies that speak to kids and the kids within all of us.
Pixar's latest effort, Wall-E, is many things: a kid's movie, a love story, an homage to Chaplin.
However, at its core, Wall-E is an elegant, beautiful, moving Silent Spring for the next generation.
It's easy to get lost in the back and forth bickering over global warming, gas prices, regulation, competing green technologies, subsidies and every other Tag word in the blogosphere.
It's easy to lose the big picture.
Thanks to Wall-E for providing some focus.
Posted by Mike Farber on July 15, 2008 at 2:48 AM
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This is another example of the considerable movement at the municiple and state levels to drive green adoption. While this is a great thing for green vendors, it makes the job of cleantech PR practitioners and marketers much more difficult, as they are tempted to take a patchwork local-market approach to selling their wares.
While local PR programs are effective (we've been executing them for medical clients for nearly two decades), green is a different market that requires as much nationwide education as it does adoption. This is especially true as the federal climate becomes more politicized in an election year and much of the legislation introduced in 2008 is more about drawing battle lines than about getting things signed into law. That will change in early 2009, which makes national PR programs integrated with government relations even more critical. For this reason and this reason alone, it is important that green marketing and PR organizations not get too myopic.
With all of that said, bravo to San Francisco for taking the initiative to get a program in place. It will lead to an influx of companies setting up shop in the city and create a number of green collar jobs in the area.
It will be interesting if this also helps draw conferences to the city that have to date been the domain of Southern California, including Solar Power 2008 and GreenXchange Expo. Good days for solar are ahead.
Governor Schwarzenegger has declared a drought in California following one of the driest springs on record. This of course is bad news to the farmers in the state and those of us in the East Bay who want grass for a yard and not a dustbowl.
The majority of the state's water comes from the Sierra snowpack and that pack is thinner this year than in normal years. Some farmers can make up the difference with deep water pumps, but those pumps run on diesel and use 5 gallons per hour, meaning one hour of pumping costs about $26-$30 per hour depending on the cost of fuel.
Conservationists and environmentalists point to global warming as the driver of snowpack reduction, whereas global warming naysayers call the drought cyclical. Regardless of who is right and given the cost of fuel right now, it leads to interesting questions about markets you don't hear much about.
The first market is desalination. This is a technology that has never made sense because of the fuel needed--wood, coal, natural gas--to power a desalination plant. Today, solar and wind, and (longer term) maybe even tidal resources could power such plants and give coastal states (hello drought-stricken Georgia) an almost inexhaustable source of fresh water. Not to mention it would help us deal with rising sea levels (sorry, bad joke).
The other area where renewables could help is deep water pumps. A lot of areas around the country have deep water reservoirs that are expensive to tap and require fuel to harvest. Using wind and solar power would dramatically cut costs for farmers and reduce the strain on reservoirs, rivers and other irrigation options.
If you are marketers in the aforementioned areas, this is a prime time to educate the market and government regulators about the viability of such technologies to generate sales leads and stimulate new investment. It will be interesting to see if either of these areas get any interest at the IDG GreenXchange event or Solar Power 2008. By then, California will be five months into an official drought and no doubt there will be plenty of discussion about the role renewables can play in water shortages.
After a busy May split up by a Yellowstone trip (and two Grizzly sightings) I am back in the saddle on Renewablog pledging to do 8.3 percent more green posts in Q3 than I did in Q2. Why? Because green gets a premium everywhere these days.
A new survey commissioned by BioCycle (and executed by Schwartz client Marketools) shows that consumers are willing to spend $8.30 more on a $100 product if it is made from recycled goods or helps the environment. This brings the total of such goods to $150 when you also factor in California sales tax.
All kidding aside, this is a great sign that even during a softening economy people are still willing to open their wallets for greener goods and services. In fact, the survey also shows that seven out of ten respondents are willing to pay that premium, so it is not just a small subset of people throwing off the average.
When posting on a blog it is sometimes easy to overthink your topic and gloss over some of the really simple topics that are incredibly critical. This dawned on me when reading a post by John Gartner at MarketingShift.
This is a critically important point for a couple of reasons:
1) We have reach the second stage in green hype. The first stage was the embracing of Green by hype watchers as the next big thing in business and lifestyle. The second is an age of backlash and skepticism driven by fear that it willbe adopted, along with generalpushback by media and others who will say that adoption is not nearly matching the Stage-One hype. A lot of the media out there right now is focused on the inefficiency of solar, the negative impact of biofuels and freak windfarm fires. This makes it a prime period of time for green washers to get destroyed by media and the general public. Hence, why John's "genuine" statement is important.
2) People sometimes overlook that communications and marketing can come across as condescening. Look at the presidential campaign. You have the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barrack Obama trying to spin every little piece of information or data their way, to the point that it sometimes gets insulting to the viewer. An Editorial in the NY Times this week accused them of thinking the American people are a bunch of "rubes."
This is how I feel sometimes about green marketing--that is so superficial and transparent, it does more harm than good. So the simple message is: Be genuine and don't condescend. If you have to fool someone or oversell your greenness, it won't appear green to your audience, it will be transparent.
We're often asked by clients if the biggest trade show of the year in their respective space is a good location to announce news. We usually answer their question with a question: "What is the goal of the announcement?"
We explain that if the goal is stand-alone media coverage, they might be better off using the event to pre-brief media and announce a couple of weeks later when the market has exhausted its news. If the goal is to drive business development activities, announcing what they are doing at the show to give sales and bizdev a press release to shop to customers and prospects might be the way to go.
The green/clean tech world is relatively immature when it comes to events. There are several that are vying to become the RSA, NRF, Mobile World Congress or JavaOne of their respective markets---such as Solar Power and GreenXChange Expo--but for the most part there is not yet that one event that makes green marketers exhaust their news arsenal.
But unlike security, open source, application development, retail technology and wireless, green does have a landmark "event" that brings every marketer out of the woodwork with a news announcement: Earth Day. I performed a highly scientific research project (40-second searching of Google News by source) and found about 500 commercial press releases from the past 24 hours that mention Earth Day.
My favorite? Purex announced that Jaime Pressly has become its spokesperson for the company's green campaign. I can just see Joy, Randy, Earl and Crabman doing what they can to stop global warming on My Name is Earl.
But the point is that Earth Day may have officially become the noisiest day in the Green world. The question for marketers then becomes: "Should you announce signidicant news on Earth Day?"
I think the answer would be a resounding "No." Earth Day is much too noisy, especially when you also factor in this year's Presidential campaign, earnings season and just about every other news event that could drown out a momentum announcement, new corporate green initiative or donations to a green charity.
My advice? Avoid Earth Day like the plague and don't contribute to the noise being created by marketers in every sector from detergents to light bulbs. Better yet, follow the advice of my eight-year old daughter who said, "Let's shut everything off today that uses electricity, including the Wii, Webkinz, the TV and the toaster."
Generation Green speaks. Shut off your computer, take the day off and celebrate Earth Day away from the noise.
According to a recent survey from IDC, we have seen an inflection point with regards to the adoption of Green IT. According to the firm, more than half of all IT buyers now consider "greenness" as part of the buying criteria. The number one driver in green purchasing decisions is economic revolving around operational costs. As energy prices continue to go higher, there is little chance that this trend will stop anytime soon.
What does this mean? It means even more hardware marketers will tout the greenness of their products through PR and advertising. It means that companies that reduce storage and other infrastructure requirements (SaaS) will continue to point to the indirect costs those products save customers. Bottom line? Green IT is here to stay.
The public will for change exists. The research supports it. The economics are getting there. So what's the problem? Some of the same problems that have stifled green adoption for the past several decades. In the specific cases below? Politics and Detroit.
Word from both Chris Morrison of VentureBeat and Craig Rubens of Earth2Tech that the City Supervisor in San Francisco has stalled a plan that would have provided $6 million in consumer solar rebates to residents that implement solar electric systems. His concern? That only the wealthy will be able to take advantage.
I know housing prices in the city have come down a bit, but aren't most property owners in San Francisco considered wealthy anyway? Aren't there also programs and special financing in place for solar installations for affordable housing projects? I know that solar on affordable housing is one of the areas where Schwartz client Borrego Solar specializes, so I suspect the answer is "yes." I think it is time that politicians get creative and invest more in green rebates and tax credits, rather than focusing solely on which is the best approach, taking credit and further delaying something that is sorely needed.
I really think the best analogy for some of the inane debates taking place in the cleantech and renewable energy world are analagous to firemen watching a house burn down while they argue over whether it is most effective to use foam, water or sand, and which qualifies as a truly efficient fire-fighting tool. I hate to disagree with the great Billy Joel, but we did start the fire and we are continuing to feed it.
"Presidential candidates talk about the promise of 'green collar' jobs — an economy with millions of workers installing solar panels, weatherizing homes, brewing biofuels, building hybrid cars and erecting giant wind turbines. Labor unions view these new jobs as replacements for positions lost to overseas manufacturing and outsourcing. Urban groups view training in green jobs as a route out of poverty. And environmentalists say they are crucial to combating climate change."
Positive economic impact of new green technologies is an important topic, but I was so pleased to see Mr. Greenhouse go on to say that "many advocates of green employment say the jobs should be good for the workers as well as the environment."
Mark Richey Woodworking and Design, a high-end architectural millworking firm we've been working with, is the first company of its type to use a biomass furnace to burn all wood waste and eliminate use of natural gas for heating the shop. They're also working on installing a wind turbine that should provide enough electricity to take Mark Richey Woodworking off the electric grid.
If you speak with Mr. Richey--a world-class climber who's seen first-hand environmental damage that's not apparent to most Americans--you'll quickly feel his dedication to doing his part to help the environment. What's striking is how deeply he believes that being good to the environment isn't at odds with running a profitable business; on the contrary, the two go hand in hand.
Mr. Richey's company employs nearly 100 people in Massachusetts and is able to be competitive in an industry that's been losing ground to Canada and China partially because the company has eliminated its once substantial natural gas bill.
Certainly, keeping jobs in the U.S. is very "good for the workers," as Mr. Greenhouse says. Mr. Richey's gone beyond that by installing a sophisticated ventilation system that cleans dust from the air to improve the comfort of his employees. The shop, working at full tilt, is cleaner than many offices.
Green employment, indeed.
Posted by Laura Kempke on March 27, 2008 at 12:35 PM
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Last week saw the release of a report predicting that solar would see a serious speedbump in 2010, as the current shortage of polysilicon eases and solar cells flood the market. The report predicts difficulty for both thin-film players and the chrystalline silicon makers that depend on polysilicon as a key ingredient in their products. For green marketers in solar, this could mean that the window of opportunity is much smaller than previously thought.
This report looks at the supply side of the equation and sees doom for manufacture profits and gloom for their investors. I wonder, however, how much the report thoroughly investigated the demand side of the equation. There are a number of things that should increase solar demand in the coming years and may partially or substantially offset any increase in supply:
Improved storage capacity--one of the biggest technology bottlenecks to the adoption of all renewals has been battery and storage efficiency. That said, millions are being invested in battery companies right now, including A123, Lion Cells and Seeo, which will help in terms of power storage in applications like electric cars, solar and wind. If the storage gets better, then the demand and ROI will go up significantly.
Speaking of electric cars--one of the biggest contradictions in my mind is the use of an electric car charged on coal-generated electricity. What's the answer? Charging it with renewables. The use of solar combined with good battery technology and electric cars just makes too much sense. It also doesn't require substantial infrastructure overhauls like changing the types and locations of fueling stations. A solar implementation on a house, office building or even carports, would be a huge advantage.
Government support--next January will definitely see a change in the political climate for solar and other renewables. All three major presidential candidates have stated that they believe in renewable sources of energy and will commit more investment in areas like solar. This includes direct investment in R&D and other areas, but also better federal tax incentives and rebates. These rebates will allow solar companies to protect some of their margins as the supply of solar increases.
There is no doubt that solar is riding high right now because of the perfect storm of high demand, low supply and large sums of investment. It also makes sense that the market wil mature eventually and it will be a bit more commoditized. But to predict it is going to get there in two years is a bit silly IMHO, since we have just begun to scratch the surface of building integrated photovoltaics and other solar applications beyond the panels you see today.
Short-tem skeptic view: Yikes, a 50% dip from $1b to $500m shows that the market is stalling.
Long-term realist view: Get real. Look at year over year growth, this market is just starting to grow. Plus, check out the quality of these deals, like A123 Systems raising $30m.
I'm with the realists.
Posted by Mike Farber on at 10:15 AM
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-Word is that geothermal is getting investor attention and beginning to take off. This is very interesting because the government is also boosting its investment in geothermal in the FY 2009 budget. Others getting a boost? Solar PV, Wind and Biomass. The news is not quite as good for tidal energy.
Finally, a cool round-up of money-saving, green gadgets on CNET.
So I am going to have to report back on how WIREC day two went in a future post as our meetings today took us to locations off site, but still some interesting tidbits I didn't get to yesterday:
-One business development executive at a solar concentrator company said that he got in "very early" on sponsoring and exhibiting at WIREC, giving him a large booth size and prime location alongside the big boys (BP, Chevron, etc). If you are a green marketer with a gambler's mentality, there is definite risk and reward to taking this approach. He saw enormous reward as they were front and center to anyone entering the expo. A solid relationship with ACORE also helps.
-On which shows should you gamble if any? The best shows are obviously ones in which there are other local key audiences that can be leveraged in case the event is a bust. If you can schedule some local meetings/drop-bys off site, you can still end up with qualified prospects from the travel associated with an event. DC is a great location since there are a lot of companies with headquarters in the area, as well as a media and government-rich audience with whom you can network. The San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and New York are also good locations. Anything beyond those markets can be tough depending on your vertical focus.
-From a speaking perspective, it can be tough to justify the time and expense to present at an unproven event. Nothing is worse than having your executive speaking to a room of six unqualified attendees who don't ask questions. Therefore, while taking a chance on exhibiting costs can be prohibitive, so is the credit capital cost of sending your executive to an unknown conference.
-I met with an investment company (hybrid of an investment fund and a venture firm) that actually sees the renewable energy world very similarly to the way that green marketers and marketing/PR firms see the industry. Solar and wind are the most mature, with biofuels, hydro power and others a bit further off. That is not to say that companies in those markets cannot benefit from government relations, public affairs and PR, but those campaigns would be built around early mindshare, driving investment and and educating the market. Solar and wind tend to be the companies in a position to commpete on a product basis.
-WIREC was not very well attended from a media standpoint, but there was a young analyst firm exhibiting, Emerging Energy Research. It is interesting to see some of the boutique firms beginning to pop up offering advisory services to vendors of renewables and consulting services to commercial and government organizations. Who will be the Green Gartner?
-The most interesting item to come out of the WIREC show? How much government money there is that can be invested in renewable companies, but how few companies understand how to tap it. Government relations seems to be the great untapped market opportunity for a lot of renewable companies. It is money that requires no diluting of equity, no forfeiting of intellectual property rights and no decision as to whom you sell the product. If I were a VC concerned about becoming over invested in one of my portfolio clients, this would seem a like a great option since my equity stake and value would only be positively impacted by bringing on the government as an investor. With $152 million going into solar and $53 million (approximately) going into wind, GR seems like a great place to get a significant ROI.
Here endeth my WIREC visit. Off to Dulles to complain about the lack of midday direct options to the West Coast.
Tuesday marked the first day of WIREC and it was an interesting start. Some observations:
-Kudos to the WIREC folks for doing a much better job than some other conferences at having an efficient registration system. At Solar Power 2007 in Long Beach, a colleague and I stood in line for more than 90 minutes for badge pick up (we pre-registered) and ended up missing a meeting as a result. WIREC knew the event would be well attended and they prepared accordingly. It took about four minutes to get our badge.
-While photovoltaic (PV) solar was the rage at Solar Power 2007, solar concentrators seem to be the most prevelant technology at WIREC. Sopogy, SkyFuel and Abengoa were a few of the concentrator companies exhibiting, albeit with slightly different strategies and target markets. Global Solar Energy was one of the major PV manufacturers present (*disclosure: GSE is a Schwartz client).
-Wind and solar are again the most dominant technologies on display in terms of commercially available products. Also well represented are biofuels, biomass and firms looking to service those companies (legal firms, government relations, etc.).
-Big kudos to ACORE for sponsoring a free lunch and again to the WIREC folks for having enough seating.
It'll be interesting to see if the traffic picks up a bit more tomorrow and to see what companies are saying regarding the ROI of exhibiting. There are obviously a lot of these events popping up around the country and abroad, and finite green marketing budgets need to know which events are worth the growing costs.
It's been a very busy week as I prep for a trip to WIREC in Washington D.C. The Washington International Renewable Energy Conference is a gathering of renewable and cleantech companies of all types. It just so happens that WIREC is taking place just as the wind lobby gets together in Washington for a major push.
WIREC also coincides with the House's passing of renewable energy legislation that would increase oil company taxes and extend renewable energy credits (via Earth2Tech). Not everyone is convinced that the legislation will get signed.
Everyone has seen solar and wind really take off over the past two years. What's next? Well, if you follow the money it could be biofuels. Mascoma got $50 million in funding. It will be interesting to see if 2008 is the year new fuels really start coming to market ... maybe 2009 will be the year we see the changes in infrastructure to support those fuels. In any event, the market is about to get noisy for you biofuels marketers.
But let's be honest ... the markets of all renewables will explode in the next year as we have the perfect storm of increasing demand, huge rounds of financing and an anticipated change in the political climate for renewables.
I'll be sure to report some of the interestings things I see and learn at WIREC. For those attending the event, safe travels.
This past week was interesting, highlighted by a study, a survey and a political plea.
First, an interesting survey was released this week that said that green features are finally delivering in terms of home sales by adding a $9,000 premium to the sale price. This gives consumers yet another way to recoup the up-front costs of installing a solar, wind or other renewable system. This is undoubtedly great news for green marketers. This type of data can help overcome some of the concerns about ROI, especially in a market where home values are dropping. Now we just need the home appraisers and banks to catch on.
Second, a controversial study released from UC Berkeley that basically lables solar a waste of money from a residential perspective. It says that the cost of installing a solar system makes is too expensive when compared to its benefits. There are some things, however, that the study seems to have overlooked. Not all states allow consumers to sell energy back to the grid (net metering) or go negative on their energy bill. If that happened, it would certainly help in terms of offsetting the cost of the system. It also ignored the survey that showed the impact of green on the price of a home. For green marketers, this is not the type of study you want to see when it seems the market is taking off. The research did take a very narrow view, but we will likely see more of this and not less in 2008 and beyond.
Finally, a plea from the governors of coal-producing states that clean coal not be forgotten as part of the renewable-energy agenda. This is critical to states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other large, coal-producing states. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Many have called "clean coal" a farce, based on technology that hasn't even been developed yet. There are also serious concerns about the way in which coal is harvested, including strip mining and other environmentally unfriendly means. Is clean coal real or a dream? We'll see in the years to come, but we should see a lot more noise about it given the number of state economies that depend on it.
-Also on E2T, PG&E said that their latest geothermal contract will allow them to meet the 20 percent threshhold set by the state for electricity from renewables. This is important because one of the stock objections from utilities has been that cleantech hasn't advanced to the point where it is economically possible to generate large percentages from renewable sources. Green marketers now have an example to give when that objection is made by legislators and other key audiences.
-And finally, as I posted about earlier last week, the House is finally pushing a bill that would extend the renewable tax credits and rebates that are so critical to consumer and business adoption. This would help sustain the market has seen over the past several years.
This is huge news as the credits help offset the cost of implementing solar, wind and other renewable technologies. The more quickly economic incentives increase, the quicker we will be out of early adopter phase in the market. This will help cleantechs grow more quickly and result in better education of the marketplace. It also will help encourage continued investment in renewables by VCs and Wall Street, which will help preserve the marketing budgets of cleantech companies.
As mentioned in previous posts, federal incentives make the most sense because they encourage nationwide adoption. The states and municipalities can still add on top, but the move to cleantech should be a national effort. There are some holes in the legislation as pointed out by Rubens, but overall it is a great step in supporting continued market growth.
There has been a lot written about the failure of the federal government to renew or increase the renewable energy incentives and tax credits that are set to expire. In the meantime, cities and states have picked up the slack, developing initiatives that tie funding of solar installations to property taxes and city bonds. San Francisco, Berkeley and other cities around the country are creating these types of initiatives while they wait for a political climate change in Washington.
These regions are right to do what they can to advance the use of renewable technologies, but long term something needs to be done nationally. People who do their part to reduce their carbon emissions and reduce the strain on the power grid should get some sort of universal credit or break. You could have one neighbor receive thousands in incentives and tax breaks, while the other gets little incentive to install a renewable energy system. This is wrong.
It is analogous to two households with an adjusted gross income of $60,000 getting dramatically different tax rebates as part of the economic stimulus plan just passed. Cities and states should continue to do what they can to advance the use of renewables while the federal government sits in gridlock. But long term, Washington needs to do something aggressive that improves upon and superscedes local incentives.
It is unlikely that the political environment will change until January of 2009. In the meantime, marketers will have to continue to target areas where tax breaks and incentives make adoption more likely. National campaigns certainly don't hurt in terms of education and awareness, or in priming the pump if the federal climate does change, but direct lead generation is more likely to happen in localities. Some may even invest most of their marketing dollars in Europe where Germany, Spain, the UK and others continue to adopt renewable plans at a furious pace.
You may seen the news this week that Schwartz has officially announced a Renewable Energy and Green Practice. Some folks will be shocked that this is something that we are just announcing since we---like some other firms---have been talking about it and executing on it for more than a year.
We were tempted to put our stake in the ground in early 2007, announcing to the world that we were making a concerted effort to build out the practice and that we were ready to help cleantech companies achieve their PR goals. We were even more tempted as we executed Green campaigns for clients like Rackable Systems, McNamee Lawrence, Shawmut Design and Construction, and CheckFree. It was tough to resist making noise when we began working on pro-bono projects, like the San Francisco Waldorf School and the Business Council on Climate Change (BC3), and commercial projects, such as AgileWaves.
So why did we wait? Well, clients always ask us when they should announce a new product or service offering. Our response is usually, "If PR is the only driver of the announcement date, we should wait until you have a compelling story around the product or service, including customers that support the fact that what you are bringing to market is truly differentiated."
The news is not that we are entering the Green PR world. It is that we have a differentiated services offering, including aggressive media and government relations, that is already helping our cleantech clients achieve their business goals. The news is that we are taking what is our single biggest core competency--helping emerging growth companies facing heavily entrenched, better-funded competition level the playing field through PR--and applying it to a market that needs it more than perhaps any other technology market in history.
Renewable energy companies face significant challenges, many of which I have blogged about the past. They face one of the largest and most entrenched industries in the world in the form of traditional energy (oil, gas, coal, etc), as well as the marketing and lobbying arms of numerous industries that don't like being regulated (auto, utility, manufacturing).
They also face very steep, well-funded competition within their own markets now that VCs around the world are sinking eight and nine-figure rounds into companies in solar, wind, fuel cells and biofuels. They also face large corporations in other markets who have begun developing and acquiring their way into renewable energy.
Bottom line: This is the ultimate David versus Goliath story and a story in which we are relishing the opportunity to play a part. We now have officially been cast in a role and are packing a pretty big slingshot.
The practice of Greenwashing has made lots of news lately, as some companies overstate their commitment to green practices and the FTC threatens to investigate. I'd like to think it's a case of marketers not being fed accurate information versus marketing and PR intentionally trying to mislead the public, but until some internal memos make their way public, we'll likely never know.
I've been seeing a lot of General Motors ads recently pushing that company's commitment to green technologies, from greater fuel economy to hybrids, from biofuels to electric. Most will say that history should dictate a great deal of skepticism with regards to how committed GM actually is to greening their product line, pointing to the short-lived infatuation with compact cars among U.S. automakers in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
That said, the economic, ecological, geopolitical and social benefits of going green have never been better publicized, and I think the growth of Toyota and Honda have slapped U.S. automakers with a dose of harsh reality.
I am cautiously optimistic that what GM's CEO says in this CNET interview is true and that American auto manufacturers are committed to creating products that deliver the aforementioned benefits. Let's hope this is not a case of the largest U.S. auto company greenwashing the public in hopes that the market will again eventually favor the gas-guzzling behemoths that dominated the market over the past decade. Unfortunately, some suspect this is the case and will likely not believe Detroit can be green until they drive the proof.
Greenwashing is a foolish practice if done intentionally. It is analogous to a company claiming to have great data security only to find out later that the company was lax and suffered a breach. The PR damage of being accused and/or found of greenwashing is much worse than the likely benefits of making false claims about practices. It betrays the number one rule of marketing and PR: tell the truth.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of companies out there likely partaking in greenwashing, meaning we will likely see more of it in 2008 than ever before.
I saw a great profile on CBS News regarding some engineers who took a traditional hybrid car and equipped it with additional battery power and a plug-in power source. It turns out that when you drive the car fully charged, it doesn't have to have to use the gasoline engine for the first 40 miles--highway or city! This means that the majority of Americans (81 percent according to the report) likely wouldn't have to use gas at all, provided there was a way to charge the car at work or at a transit station. This includes me, as I commute a grand total of seven miles everyday to BART and back.
This raises a few different points (some marketing-related and some not):
- Sooner or later, the laggards in the auto industry will not be able to discount the advances being made in clean-car technology. They will be committing marketing and sales suicide if they don't start embracing the move toward ecologically friendly options. As I stated in a previous post, the green halo is only going to get brighter with all of the environmental education happening at primary and secondary school levels.
- Will the adoption of electric cars and vehicles that do little harm to the environment damage the move to mass transit systems? If people aren't doing damage to the environment and their fuel costs are next to nothing, what will make them (other than a long commute) want to carpool or take public transportation? Marketers of mass transit will eventually have to start doing more to differentiate their service if the economic and environmental reasons aren't compelling. Food and beverage service, satellite TV and radio at your seat? I'd be sold.
Battery technology has to improve dramatically (not an epiphany, well publicized).
The electricity charging the car has to come from renewable sources. This could include a solar array at a home, business or parking structure, or the embracing of renewable sources by utilities, such as that produced by solar or wind farms. Charging a car with juice from coal-based energy is not a very clean option.
The horsepower generated in an electric car has to increase or those V-6 and eight-cylinder-loving Americans won't give the electric option a single sniff. Many have joked about the American dependency on heavy, high-powered automobiles. The only thing that has become more obese than our populace are the cars we drive.
Two guys in a garage became a euphemism for the technology entrepreneurs of the dot-com bubble. It seems that those two guys have gone back to inventing what the garage was meant to house--new, greener breeds of cars.
Germany is #1 in solar. The U.K. intends to be #1 in wind. Brazil has long been #1 in ethanol. The U.S.? Does being first in failed attempts to adopt a national renewable energy strategy count?
The recent passing of the energy bill by Congress and subsequent signing by the White House put an exclamation point on what has been a stalled effort to get aggressive renewable energy initiatives adopted at a national level. Stalling by utilities and some energy giants also hasn't helped.
In the meantime, different geographic regions and emerging-growth companies have really led the charge in terms of developing their own programs and investing in various approaches.
While I don't excuse the federal government for failing to advance renewable energy research, adoption and strategies, it may not be a bad thing that states have taken the lead. After all, we are talking about the country with the fourth largest land area in the world. A country so vast that it doesn't make sense to say "we are going to be first in X, because it is the best option for the entire country."
Truth is, the only thing that the U.S. should eventually become first in is consumption of renewable energy. It should serve as a melting pot of renewable energy, as it has served as a melting pot of cultures for hundreds of years.
Reports have begun trickling in regarding the level of green investment during 2007 and they are impressive. VCs continue to see green as a major investment vehicle for their funds, especially in light of the high-flying performance of thin-film provider First Solar. Green tech companies took home $3.4 billion in 2007 and some estimates have placed that figure in excess of $4 billion. In any event, green is getting greener.
What does it mean for marketers? Well, there is good news and bad news.
First the bad news: If you think things are noisy now, you ain't seen nothing yet. More investment means more marketing dollars spent on advertising, PR and other awareness campaigns by your competitors. It means that the market is going to become even more competitive. It means that start-up companies may have enough cash to do in two years what took you three or four. Not to mention some of the massive rounds from 2006 and 2007 went to companies building out R&D and manufacturing, so some of those companies haven't even started marketing yet.
The good news? It means that other companies will be helping to advance renewable energy technologies in the mainstream consciousness with legislators, consumers and corporations. It means more money in the coffers of the renewable energy market to educate key audiences and battle the fear, uncertainty and doubt put forth by lobbyists, critics and some traditional energy companies. Anyone who has spent any time in marketing knows that trying to create a market or raise its visibility is tough to do without a budget that is in the millions of dollars. It can be done, but it helps to have others pulling the cart with you.
The increased investment and competition may also allow marketers to make the case for more budget in 2008 and 2009. Nothing riles a management team or board of directors more than a less mature competitor getting more attention from media, buyers and investors.
A colleague and I got to attend a great event on Thursday. It was the unveiling of a new solar PV system at the Head-Royce School in Oakland. The event involved a full school assembly (all students K-12, teachers and administrators) to debut the new system and featured presentations from the head of the school, a prominent Cal Berkeley professor in the school's Energy and Resource Group, and the president of Borrego Solar, the designer and installer of the system (DISCLAIMER: Borrego is a Schwartz client).
The array on the gymnasium roof, where the ceremony was held, was amazing. Dr. Dan Kamman, the Berkeley professor and a Head-Royce parent, was very passionate and informative. The most amazing thing, however, was the level of involvement of students in the project. The school had formed a "green council" involving kids of all ages that helped consult and plan the project, as well as other initiatives at the school.
A fifth-grade girl and an eighth-grade boy, both members of the Green Council, delivered speeches covering the various green initiatives taking place at the school (e.g., composting, an edible garden, recycling), as well as a history lesson on solar connectors and solar PV systems. The hundreds of students were attentive and clearly understood the significance of the ceremony and took a tremendous amount of pride from their efforts.
Everyday, we hear about new and exciting programs around the country, aimed at making students more aware of environmental challenges and issues, and encouraging them to get involved. I got the sense sitting there listening to the students and hearing about the various initiatives at Head-Royce, that a new "Green" generation was taking shape. It is clear that while there may be occasional, short-term setbacks in the move toward renewable energy, long-term success will be ensured by the education and activism of the next generation walking the halls of primary and secondary schools around the country.
What does this mean for technology companies and marketers? It means that the green halo is not going to go away anytime soon. It means that a new generation of consumers will look at the environmental impact of the choices they make and will make minimizing that impact a key purchasing decision.
I've been asked by several folks which green blogs I read on a regular basis. I can honestly say that my home page when I open up Firefox is Earth2Tech. It's part of a GigaOM network and tends to focus on the technology behind the renewable energy movement. It also provides some great round ups of what is happening in renewable energy markets and on other blogs within the Green universe.
Without further ado, here are some of the other Green blogs on my blogroll:
gristmill--provides great discussions around different topics of the day and closely scrutinizes what is happening at a public policy level in the world of green.
Green Wombat--Todd Woody does a good job blending environmental and technology news on a regular basis as part of the B2 network.
Treehugger--The name speaks for itself, rounding up the best in environmental news.
VentureBeat--True it is not a green blog, but is a great place to see where the funding is going.
- I wish that all sales professionals would recognize PR as trying to help support brand awareness, lead generation and company valuation, and not view them as competition for budget or unnecessary annoyances for their customers
- I wish that public companies would realize that non-material press releases are not an effective way to manage the stock price (especially in an increasingly new-media driven world), but are in fact an exorbitant cost that takes budget and resources away from higher-impact PR activities
- I wish that print advertising would stabilize, because let's face it--there are just some places you can't take a computer to read news and other content
-I wish that publications could expand their staffs so that journalists would have the time to do more in-depth reporting, versus having to constantly spit out news briefs and blog posts
- I wish that clear-cut winners would emerge in the vertical blogosphere so that audiences would not be so fragmented
- I wish that the renewable energy market would continue to grow bringing more technologies to market and radically changing the energy economy
This weekend, my wife and I were getting ready to watch a movie when I saw The American President on TNT or TBS (is there a difference?). This is the one where Michael Douglas plays a widower, single father and a first-term president. He meets and begins dating a lobbyist (played by Annette Bening) from a environmental group. The climax of the movie is a press conference where Douglas says that he is going to send aggressive gun control and climate legislation to Congress--two separate pieces of legislation that he was using as bargaining chips--while ignoring any negotiating he has already done with House and Senate members on the bills. The global warming bill he supports is a 20% reduction of green house gases by a certain date.
Now, I've seen the movie a dozen times (sadly) and it remains one of those guilty pleasure, Saturday afternoon movies that I will likely watch again (it has Michael J Fox, Richard Dreyfus and Martin Sheen as well...great cast). However, something struck me this time when watching it.
I knew that the environmental legislation pushed by Bening's character was a central plot component, but what struck me was that this was a topic for a movie released in 1995. That is 12 years ago now, going on 13. This amazed me because I would never have guessed that climate change has been a mainstream topic for that long. Maybe it is because I thought the debate was still centered on the ozone layer then or because gas was under $2 per gallon. In any case, I was shocked. Yet, it still seems as though we are only now scratching the surface of coming legislation, technology, etc.
What it also made me realize is that David Roberts of Gristmill is right: the world will be a much different place in 2020 when we are nearing the first date in many carbon emission-related bills currently under discussion.
Consider that in 1995Bill Clinton was a first-term president. Solar was a niche industry with little VC or private equity investment and certainly no $200 million rounds. The Dow hit 5,000 for the first time. Yahoo! was founded. Biofuels, fuel cells and ethanol weren't part of the everyday lexicon. CFL stood for Canadian Football League, not a type of light bulb. There was no Internet bubble or tech recession.
Amazing, no? Given the amount of investment in and marketing noise around renewable energy today, I am willing to bet that things will advance a bit more quickly over the next 13 years, with or without Michael Douglas leading the charge.
