This week, I had the opportunity to attend the Cleantech conference in Toronto to announce Wal-Mart’s partnership with Cleantech.  With their web portal, we are going to be able to cast a broader net to find technological innovation to meet our current and future needs for more sustainable innovation.  With the help of the networks we have built to address key areas like our buildings, fleet, and waste/internal procurement, Wal-Mart and Cleantech will announce on the portal opportunity areas where we will need innovation to create new or enhance current solutions.  

For example, Wal-Mart has quite a lot of organic matter (produce that has gone bad before it was sold, meat or dairy that was expired, etc) and today it goes into the trash.  We are doing some things to utilize this potential waste stream today, but perhaps there are better solutions we haven’t considered.  That is what Cleantech will help us find; better access to potential solutions.  At the conference, I realized just how many groups there are out there trying to fund these solutions.  I had a huge line of excited investors explaining the vast amount of money they have invested and the excitement of a thousand technologies after my talk.

With that background, I walked away excited and troubled.  Excited b/c we have reached the tipping point; innovation will grow and be funded exponentially in this space. 

Troubled because, I don’t understand.  The Bush Administration understands that the opportunity for new market creation and small business development in clean technology has every bit as much potential as the internet boom did 10 years ago.  This is not a new idea; Thomas Friedman explained it brilliantly in The World is Flat.  Moreover, Tom Dorr, undersecretary of the USDA  was at the event, and his ideas clearly expressed he shares the sentiment as well. 

If Wal-Mart has essentially spent the last 2 years showing that the business model of sustainability can work, the VC community has started pouring billions into the market for clean technology, and high-level thinkers in the government have come around, why is it taking so long for policy to get past ethanol?  I understand the draw to ethanol, but I don’t understand why its so hard to look beyond it.  Do you have thoughts?

So I am sitting here tonight watching The Bachelo...I mean Monday Night Football and reading up on the announcement surrounding Google's potential entrance into the mobile phone market.  There is sufficient debate around whether Google would simply develop applications to be loaded onto future phones or take the plunge into the handset market.

At this point I think any serious contention as to the direction Google will take is simply moot rhetoric.  The good news is senseless musings are my specialty.  If you haven't followed the various developments over the past several months let me catch you up. 

• Google has been on a strategic acquisition tear  for technologies that could easily be adapted to the mobile industry. 
• Although denying interest in 2006, CEO Eric Schmidt has expressed his intent to bid in the 700MHz auction. 
• Most interesting is their concept of the wireless service of the future: which offers free phones and likely service to customers in exchange for streaming ads onto the mobile device. 

Now I would have thought this was the most ridiculous concept because of the extent the average American will go to avoid SPAM via phone, snail mail, or e-mail.  Then I was shown the light by a company that let's you drive a billboard and get paid for it.  Apparently some Americans love free more than they hate annoying.

However, in my opinion the decision is less about what Google wants and likely has nothing to do with customers.  If Google's phone and service concepts stay united, the timing and expense of infastructure to build a network would place Google about three years late in an already saturated and competitive industry.  Ultimately the mobile carriers (i.e. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc) may well decide for Schmidt and team... and their vote will be to develop mobile versions of Goggle Maps, YouTube, Gmail, and other innovative apps that will drive greater revenue from users. 

Until the day I can call everyone for free with limited commerical interuptions I guess I will just have to drive around my AQ Chicken-mobile to pay my wireless phone bill.

Ring the Alarm because I am Crazy in Love for the newest mobile phone on the Sprint network.  OK, OK...enough of my attempts at being "off tha chain."  Samsung has teamed up with the mega-star Beyoncé to introduce the B'phone that will be available exclusively on the Sprint network.  The device, announced earlier this week at a joint press conference in New York, is a Burgandy and Gold version of unique, music-centric Samsung Upstage. 

I believe that the major disappointment around this phone is the lack of preloaded content.  There are a few exclusive photos, videos, and even a song recorded when Beyoncé was only 10 years old that will be available for fans to download, but where are the hits.  Sure, fans will likely have every CD and be able to load them onto the phone, but the experience of having Check [Up] On It as my ringtone straight out of the box is almost irresistable.

All in all the B'phone, which will be available exclusively at Wal-Mart Stores and Sprint.com, is a sleek color upgrade to a feature-rich music device and carries the same $99 price tag as the original.  Whether you are a Beyoncé super fan or just like to have limited edition products no one else carriers, this phone may be right for you and will be available in early November.

Yesterday, Oct 10, was a fascinating day: the Live Better Sustainability Summit.  I watched as the majority of Wal-Mart’s merchandising group (100’s of buyers who manage billion dollar portfolios of everything from soap to sports equipment) walked with the senior executives/CEOs of over 250 of the largest consumer products companies in the world.  This would have been momentous by itself, because such a large group of CEOs is rare, but it was even more exciting to see who they were talking with and what they were talking about. 

In a huge conference center, with a packed room that would have made any trade show jealous, there were over 60 of the most influential organizations in sustainability teaching, influencing, and learning about applying sustainability.  I watched as Fisk Johnson conversed with Interface Raise.  I saw one of the Gallo family members speaking with Environmental Defense Fund.  I watched the CEO of a major dairy company getting excited about calculating their carbon footprint with the help of a few consulting companies.

At 1:00 we brought everyone together, and I found a spot standing against the wall because we ran out of chairs in the main conference room which held 750 people (there was also a packed overflow that sat another 600). Here, Lee Scott and the senior leadership of Wal-Mart explained the vision of sustainability as a business opportunity and set expectations.  “Let me be clear, this is not a PR stunt.”  Lee Scott said.  As one of the 4 people living this as their job at Wal-Mart, I can tell you, he is right.

After this main session, we had breakout sessions where folks like Ideo and Biomimicry shared their knowledge and energized the crowd around designing with nature in mind and as a guide. 

And, most exciting of all, walking thru the halls, listening to peoples conversations, we witnessed change.  The leaders of the finest companies in consumer products were making plans for new ideas that will lead to innovative, more sustainable products. In one case I witnessed a CEO calling their executive team to get them mobilized before day’s end around finding the hidden inefficiencies in their products and manufacturing.  It was thrilling to see that what we had hoped for; an inflection point, may have actually occurred yesterday.  Time will tell.

It seems to me that there are two ways to go about making the world more sustainable: individuals choosing to make a difference one person at a time or legislation.  To date, we have not seen the commitment required from the government to make broad based change to policy.  This is where business is starting to step in.  Thomas Friedman explained this quite well in the NY Times recently.

So, corporate social responsibility has become the new buzz word in business.  Why?  Because, business worldwide is beginning to realize that it is possible to turn “Green to Gold” as Andrew Winston titles it. 

But this brings up a relevant question, should business feel bad about making money becoming more green? 

I propose that businesses should be excited about the opportunity to make green profitable. 

Creating the market for more sustainable practices is even more productive, effective, and efficient than legislation.  As William Mcdonough And Michael Braungart explain, regulation is just the allowance to do harm.  On the other hand, if it is more profitable to do no harm, or better yet, to be restorative, it will be easy to ask customers, companies, and employees to make a difference one person at a time. 

It is possible to make money and make a difference.  The anecdotal evidence is astounding, and my own personal experience confirms this without question.