EarthTechling recently interviewed me and asked for my perspective on trends in cleantech, including marketing, communications and PR. Some themes that emerged:
See the full interview
Media covering renewable energy and cleantech overwhelmingly expect the biggest news hype of 2011 to come from electric transportation, while they identified energy efficiency as the most deserving of coverage, according to my annual survey. With more than 70 respondents from newspapers, magazines, broadcasters and blogs, the survey also revealed that more than two-thirds of media expect demand for cleantech coverage to be greater this year.
The survey strongly confirmed one trend – the migration of content online; and appeared to shoot down another – lack of adequate budget. Nearly all of the respondents – 96% – said their work will primarily appear online, while almost 70% said that they would have enough resources to do a good job of reporting on cleantech this year. At the same time, there is a willingness to use content (video, animation, graphics, etc) produced by non-media sources (73% said they frequently or sometimes used content developed by companies).
In addition, the survey revealed some social media habits with regard to obtaining information, with Twitter (82%) by far and away the top choice of social tools for tracking news. The RSS feed is also clearly not dead, with 57% naming it as the second tool of choice.
EV received 56% of the votes to be the most hyped sector in 2011, more than double the nearest competitor – smart grid, which received 20% of the votes. The only other technology that registered double-digit percentages was carbon capture and sequestration (16%). On the flip side, media identified energy efficiency as the area that deserved the most media attention, with 42% choosing EE. This is ironic since I’ve often heard reporters say that they want to cover energy efficiency, but editors find it too boring (this is backed up by page views). The other technologies deserving attention mentioned by more than 10% of respondents were: carbon management (20%); solar (13%); smart grid (13%) and water (11%). One of the most important sectors from an impact perspective, agriculture and foresty, got no votes.
As in previous years, the overwhelming majority of those surveyed (68%) said B2B coverage would take priority this year, with the remainder paying more attention to consumer technologies. Overall, the overall trend is also of continued interest in the sector – 62% expected increased demand for cleantech news among audiences
Interest in policy coverage also remains high, with nearly 80% expressing significant or moderate interest in tracking government developments.
A wise man once said that contemporary politics is fueled by two things: raising money, and a fear of angry mobs. OK, I actually said that. Nevertheless, it makes sense that the ultimate nightmare for DC lawmakers would be an angry mob with money. At the Renewable Energy Finance Forum-West this week in San Francisco, a gathering of top financiers, project developers, executives, etc, it was clear that there are a lot of angry and frustrated American businesspeople with money who are sick and tired of Washington’s refusal to treat renewable energy and cleantech as THE pillar of our future economic growth (not to mention a solution to our increasingly resource-constrained world). Not surprisingly during REFF, Beijing’s aggressive moves to become the cleantech power were repeatedly contrasted against DC’s cowardice and failure to act. Yet, so far the efforts to change the situation in DC by the broader clean energy business community have added up to only a sliver of the lobbying dollars spent by Big Oil and Coal, plus the occasional pilgrimage to DC by a few handfuls of business leaders to implore action (and increasingly that requested action is just short-term fixes, not long-term solutions). So with Solar Power International just around the corner; with WindPower coming up in May 2011; I have a question for Rhone Resch and for Denise Bode. Why are you gathering your mobs with money in Los Angeles?
Perhaps what’s not needed is the current drip campaign, nor “constructive engagement” with the representatives in DC, but blunt force trauma. Congress, and especially the Senate, needs to be convinced that the clean economy interest group is just as powerful as the fossil fuel lobby, with the money to back up its talk. Congress also needs to viscerally feel that the clean economy is a money-making, tax-generating, vote-swaying reality. So I have two specific calls to action for the renewable energy industry.
Jeff Immelt of GE: you called Congress “stupid” because of it’s failed energy and climate policy. Will you sign on?
Jim Rogers of Duke Energy: you’ve argued that the most energy efficient economy will be the leader of the 21st century. Will you sign on?
Bill Gates: you want billions of dollars more investment in clean energy R&D. Sign up.
Tom Friedman of the New York Times: you clearly have a bee in your bonnet on this topic. Will you show up?
Being an optimist, I have already created an event page on Facebook, called the Million Business Voices for a Clean Energy Economy and another on LinkedIn. If there are at least 10,000 people signed up before October 10, this thing might have a chance. So spread the word.
I’ve already made my argument that ”sustainability” and “green” are obsolete terms, and over the last year there appears to be growing mainstream momentum (it originated out of the systems design community) around the term “resilience” as a possible successor. One voice on the subject is Dennis L. Meadows, author of The Limits of Growth. In a recent interview with Pictures of the Future, Meadows made the following argument:
In my opinion [sustainable development] is an oxymoron, a term with nonsense meaning. To many people,”development” seems to imply that we can simply keep going as we have for the last 100 years, depleting resources on a large scale and polluting heavily. And adding some kind of “sustainability” makes the detrimental effects of our model of development go away. I am more interested in the term “resilience”. This concept is about how to structure a company or a city or a country so that it can continue to function quite well even in the face of major shocks. Implementing policies that give you resilience tends to make the system more sustainable.
Meadows went on to equate the coming environmental crisis with the current financial crisis, saying that he expects to see similar systemic problems. He said behavioral change is the most important factor in preventing these problems, combined with the tools of technology to realize those changes.
Like the financial crisis, climate change or energy scarcity are not going to proceed in a nice orderly, uniform way. Sometime in the foreseeable future there will be discontinuities, which will put us in a mode of crisis… to prepare ourselves the most important thing is to increase our time horizon.
The leading proponent of the resilience concept has been Jamais Cascio, an “ethical futurist” based in the San Francisco area, who points out the two reasons why resilience is gaining traction: 1. the future is inherently uncertain and 2. failures happen, so the OS of humanity needs to be flexible and self-aware enough to identify failures early and adapt accordingly. He adds that resilience implies two characteristics needed to do that: strength and flexibility.
One reason why the idea of resilience resonates with those of us engaged in foresight work is that, as troubling as it may be to contemplate, the current massive economic downturn is likely to be neither the only nor the biggest crisis we face over the next few decades. The need to shift quickly away from fossil fuels (for both environmental and supply reasons) may be as big a shock as today’s ”econalypse,” and could easily be compounded by accelerating problems caused by global warming.
A number of organizations exist to explore the possibilities for resilience as a new social meme, including the Center for Resilience at Ohio State University. Others have emerged in South America and Europe
I asked my friend Graham Noyes, attorney at renewable energy law firm Stoel Rives focused on bioenergy projects, federal energy incentives and carbon monetization, for his thoughts on the Kerry Lieberman bill.
Q: What was your main takeaway from the bill?
A: Some context first. There’s a massive potential hammer out there on GHG emitters in terms of the risk of regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA) by the EPA, which has already issued an endangerment finding that found GHGs to be a danger to public health and welfare, thereby making the EPA obligated to regulate GHG’s under the CAA. So the wheels are turning forward at the EPA to regulate GHG. That’s what the EPA will do if nothing else happens. So it’s really surprising that Kerry Lieberman imposes what I think to be much stricter limitations on the EPA than the status quo.In that sense the bill is very favorable to those industries that have the most to lose from GHG regulation, because it essentially weakens the regulatory landscape for GHG intensive industry when compared to what the EPA is likely to do. That’s why we have the strong industry support lined up for the bill. What’s odd is that we have universal Republication opposition (from a party known for its pro-business stance), and near universal Democratic support (from a party known to support more environmental protections). That is a fundamental disconnect.
The 800 lb gorilla in the room is the EPA’s ability to utilize the CAA if the Kerry-Lieberman bill stalls. That’s a really interesting regulatory and political landscape for this thing to play out.
Q: Can you be more specific on how Kerry Lieberman is easier on emitters?
A: We don’t know what the EPA will do precisely in order to get its targets in the endangerment finding. Emissions levels, cost implications for regulated industries – we don’t know. But it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which the EPA ratchets down harder and harder on these emissions to get the problem under control, specifically the PPM concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. By contrast, Kerry Lieberman has a slow front-end phase-in (with only some industries included in the first years), price collars and very substantial offset programs to lower the economic impact, none of which the EPA would necessarily do. Most people expect the EPA would be more onerous than Kerry Lieberman.Q: Is legislation or regulation better at the end of the day?
A: The Clean Air Act was not designed for GHGs, but for what we usually think of as pollutants – emissions that are directly unhealthy. CO2 is not something people worry about breathing, it’s the indirect risk of global warming caused by the escalating CO2 levels that triggered the finding. CO2 is also more ubiquitous than other pollutants hence the tailoring rule actually reduces scope of CAA enforcement.The EPA would regulate by mandate, not by consensus. If we can’t get legislation passed and the EPA begins enforcement, there will be a lot of criticism about over-reaching and strangling industry. EPA would take a lot of heat for this.
Q: Some argue that EPA will take much longer to regulate than legislation.
A: I don’t necessarily think so. This legislation requires extensive rule-making that will take a long time to happen, consider the RFS2 delay. And the EPA won’t build in phase-in limits like Kerry Lieberman. If EPA moves ahead on its present course, I think it would have a faster impact on emissions than the bill. Ultimately, I think this landscape will spur a deal with a surprising alliance.
Q: What are the top three ramifications on business from this bill?
A: The bill would establish a long-term value to CO2e reductions. This will benefit all renewable energy projects andsupport US offset projects in methane capture, agriculture and forestry that make good GHG sense.
Based on the rash of predictions for cleantech in 2010 from investors, consultants and media (see the full list at the end of this post), I’ve pulled together a “trend of trends” list below that attempts to synthesis the broader, over-arching themes. As always, I’m amazed that water isn’t on the top of every list, every year, although there are some positive signs on that front. So here are the 12 things that filtered to the top:
If you want to read for yourself, the various predictions I’ve pulled from are here: Energy stocks to watch from Seeking Alpha; Overall industry outlook from the Cleantech Group; Clean energy predictions from Deloitte; Two different VC perspectives, one from Lightspeed Venture Partners and the other from Rob Day at Black Coral; 5 biggest hurdles from Earth2Tech; IT and corporate green from Greenmonk’s Tom Raftery; Green building trends from Earth2Tech; Top 10 promises from cleantech companies from Cleantech Group; Smart grid from Earth2Tech.
The American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) had this to say about the current state of affairs on bioenergy. Nice to see some realism out there:
“The prospects for a successful green energy revolution appear problematic with the diffused applications of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, the seemingly faltering relevance of carbon regulation, the lack of policy coordination on environmental/ renewable energy issues in the Federal Government between departments and agencies with broad natural resource jurisdiction, and the controversy surrounding green energy uses of bioenergy sources such as co-firing by electric utilities and other companies. The significance of these issues will be escalated if the scheduled reduction in Federal grant, tax and loan assistance programs to renewables occur in 2011.”
If you want to learn more ACORE on this subject take a look at Sustaining National Stimulus: The Bioenergy Case
Technologies and services that reduce natural resource consumption and emissions are the future of global growth, as well as the pathway to climate stabilization. In China alone, expectations are for a $1 trillion annual “cleantech” market by 2013.
We are now entering a transition phase in cleantech, with focus shifting from technology to market commercialization. The winning technologies will win in large part because of marketing and communications. In the case of cleantech, it’s not enough as a marketer to be a good practitioner of marketing.
In a world of ever increasing sophistication and specialization, in-depth knowledge of key drivers is essential to success. That means a deep understanding of underlying technology, cultural perceptions, policy, and consumer and enterprise behavior.
Moreover, there is interconnectedness in cleantech that does not exist in other areas of the economy, which requires maintaining unusually high levels of visibility into multiple vertical industries. Here are six keys to success:
1. Think systems. One of the unique things about cleantech is that you can’t effectively talk about what you’re doing in a silo. It is all inter-related. If you do power storage, it relates to renewable energy and smart grid. If you do water, it’s connected to energy. If you do biofuels, it impacts food, water and energy. Your point of view must be developed accordingly.
2. Market the solution, not the problem. There is enough fatigue out there already about the environmental problems we face. Be a face for the solution.
3. Be specific. Talking about “green jobs” or “renewable energy” is no longer enough and audiences are growing more skeptical about “greenwashing.” Talk about “wind energy jobs” or “solar power.” The more detail you provide, the more believable you become.
4. Drive sales by focusing on your customers’ strategic priority. While it may be tempting to lead with the environmental benefits of your product or service, our research shows that compliance and cost/ROI take precedence. Take time to research your customers and understand their primary motivations. You can adapt your message (and channels of communication) accordingly and be far more impactful.
5. Be a policy wonk. Perhaps more than any other space, cleantech requires that you have your finger on the pulse of policy. Whether you are in clean energy, water, smart grid, biofuels or transportation – national and international policy will play a major role. Ignore engagement with policy-makers at your peril.
6. Go digital. Communications have moved online. Social media is the new currency. Find compelling content that can mobilize online communities and get traction for your brand. Ad spend and press releases are becoming less and less effective as the role of online search takes stories directly to individuals at the touch of a button. It can be very cost effective, too.
This first appeared in MediaPost’s Marketing: green newsletter
This week I had the opportunity to join 200+ business leaders from 35+ states in Washington, DC to present the business case for comprehensive climate and energy policy for the US. The We Can Lead group met with senior Obama administration officials and members of the Senate. It was a great first step in kicking off an effort to provide an institutional counter-point to the fossil fuel lobby, but my conclusion from the event was that we face a major uphill struggle. Specifically:
On the positive side, it’s about time that the business sector representing the clean economy finally has an influential voice on Capitol Hill, and money to put behind it and against the fossil fuel lobby. I am a founder and on the steering committee of the Clean Economy Network, which was one of the co-organizers of the DC event (along with CERES).
