Companies are always happy to be included in “best of” media lists for energy and cleantech. And many of them, in my opinion, are deservedly included. But I’m just one opinion. The media supposedly represents a more informed opinion. So I was curious how these lists are compiled.  Is the selection process scientific? Do the lists reflect common wisdom or is it totally random? Is there a herd mentality? Or maybe it’s based on relationships? I decided to see if there is any rhyme or reason to the various selection methodologies and the results. After all, there are hundreds of innovative cleantech companies out there doing thousands of amazing things. Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, Greentech Media, Businessweek/Bloomberg and other media groups have all come forth with lists. I should say up front that I am friends with many of the people who compiled these lists, and I’m even a sometimes contributor to Greentech Media. You might think that as the head of the cleantech practice at a large communications firm that I would want to shy away from razzing them. But then you wouldn’t know me very well. So first things first: here’s a list of selection criteria for several of the lists, starting with the funniest and ending with the driest.

• Greentech Media: Methodology:  We spread the names of 500 VC-funded firms on the Greentech Media dance floor and cut the head off of a chicken. Wherever the chicken landed – that was a winner. We stopped when we ran out of chickens.
• Bloomberg / Businessweek: Our criteria: These picks are starting to gain traction with real, innovative products and services for sale, they are not yet publicly listed, they are not yet household names, and all have bona fide venture capital backing and other high-profile investors.
• Fast Company: Apparently there isn’t a methodology (at least not one that I could find). But some of the language in the issue gives a vague hint at what’s important: “surprising and extraordinary efforts” and “each company… illustrates the power and potential of innovative ideas and creative execution”.
• Wall Street Journal: A team from research firm Dow Jones VentureSource (owned by Dow Jones & Company, publisher of the Journal) calculated the rankings, applying a set of financial criteria to some 350 U.S.-based venture-backed businesses in clean technology valued at less than $1 billion. Companies that make everything from fuel cell technologies to carbon-management software were analyzed according to four financial criteria: the track records of success for both a company's founders and management; track records for the investors on its board; the amount of capital raised in the last three years; and the percentage change in a company's valuation in the 12 months ended Nov. 30. Dow Jones reporters and editors who cover the venture capital industry also provided their perspective and expertise beyond the numbers.

 A few conclusions:

• There is a wide divergence in opinion. When you cross-reference the four lists, only Silver Spring Networks appears on all lists. Only two companies appear on three of the lists: eMeter (a client of my company Weber Shandwick) and Solyndra. A corollary is that definitions of cleantech vary (and are not clearly defined by the media in question). For example companies like Recycle Bank (which were named) are great companies, but are they strictly tech products or services?
• There appears to be a common assumption that success in raising money from VCs and the “caliber” of those VCs equates to successful business. Tell that to the nine out of 10 VC-backed companies that fail.
• There is an element of the subjective to all lists (aka “expertise beyond the numbers”), which means that personal relationships with the “deciders” matter.
• “Innovation” appears to be a common factor in selection as well, but none of the media define what the term means, further contributing to the subjectivity of it all.
• The Wall Street Journal has the most rigorous process. What’s interesting though is that many of the people I know in cleantech (investors, entrepreneurs, etc) scratch their head at some of companies chosen by WSJ.

Final thought: in a world where consumers of media are also increasingly content producers, why aren’t media tapping into the collective wisdom of the cleantech/energy crowd to help identify the true leaders, as well as vote on them? Recognition by peers is much more valuable to a business than recognition by media.

The Cleantech Law & Business Review has officially launched with the release of its first quarterly issue. The goal of the Review is to accelerate cleantech commercialization by addressing a current deficiency in the sector: the absence of a forum that has the ability to look holistically, and through expert eyes, at the opportunities and challenges of cleantech.  

The journal will be peer reviewed (the first such publication in cleantech) and solicit contributions from business, academic, policy and legal experts to address the most topical and strategic issues facing cleantech commercialization today. 

“We want people to start thinking more laterally, not in silos… because a one dimensional approach is a non-starter,” says managing editor Bill Pentland. “Understanding the problems is something that will determine the success of the solutions, and that requires a systems approach.”   

Existing cleantech publications are doing a good job of reporting on specific solutions. The Review hopes to take all of the pieces and fit them together. The publication will be supported by sponsorship and subscriptions. The inaugural issues was built around the theme of carbon offsets. Other issues this year will focus on water, renewable energy and climate change.

Media covering cleantech expect to pay significant attention to policy in 2009 and they also have declared it the year of blogging and video, according to results of my first Annual Cleantech Media Survey released today. With an Obama administration set to take office and the next president’s commitment to end oil dependence and address climate change, 77% of those surveyed said they expect media to place “significant” emphasis on policy-related cleantech coverage, with the remainder saying policy coverage would be “moderate”. In addition, the survey of more than 100 media – leading blogs as well as mainstream newspapers, magazines and broadcasters – revealed that roughly three-quarters expect to see growing demand for cleantech sector news (from both readers and editors) this year compared to 2008. 

Solar will remain king of the renewables. Two-thirds of those surveyed named solar as the renewable energy source to be most covered in 2009, with wind and next generation biofuels coming in a distant tie for second at 15% each. And of note, media expect energy efficiency – long a tough sell to editors and readers – to be the top non-renewables cleantech story for 2009, with 40% naming it their top choice. Carbon market and related technologies was second at 25%, with EVs and industry consolidation coming in at 17% and 15%, respectively.  

As far as delivery of cleantech news, a majority of survey participants – nearly 60% – said blogs would be the key tool to tell the cleantech story in 2009, with video garnering one-fifth of the vote (Twitter, podcasts and slideshows also received mention). Concerning to the overall state of cleantech media, a total of 62% of those surveyed expect new media to continue to grow and traditional media to continue to shrink, or for new media to take market share from traditional media. A quarter had a balanced POV, expecting both new and traditional media to look for mutually beneficial distribution relationships. 

Among the respondents, there is little consensus on the major untold story for 2009. Categories that received multiple votes included efficiency (including smart grid, building energy use and demand response), coal, power storage and cleantech as the engine for economic recovery. Others receiving votes included CleanNano, bioplastics, the Mideast as solar mecca, urban windmills and water as the next “peak” story, Several media also expect the main untold story to be a negative one – examples included: realization of how long it will take for renewables to become more than a rounding error in the energy diet; new forms of greenwash as companies scramble for Obama dollars, and how solar PV and hybrid cars will contribute nothing significant to cutting GHG.  

Some reporters and organizations have done their own stand-alone predictions for the new year. Kerry Dolan of Forbes, for example, predicts that the grid will be big in 2009, and that solar will continue to soar. American Wind Energy Association also did their predictions for wind in 2009, Jetson Green offered up seven trends to expect in 2009 and Greener Buildings offered up their forecast as well.  

If you’ve seen other media forecasts for 2009, please add them to the Comments section of this post.

It’s official… sort of. According to the 34^th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness just released by Lake Superior State University, “green” and “going green” topped the most villainous terms of 2008 (other green themed expressions submitted included “building green”, “greening”, “green technology” and “green solutions”). Close behind was “carbon footprint” and “carbon offsetting”. The survey certainly isn’t the most scientific, but it was based on thousands of nominations from all over the country. Makes me wonder if the organizers of the “Green Inaugural Ball” taking place on the eve of the Obama presidency have time to make a name change. Perhaps they could call it the “Gangrene Inaugural Ball”? Also makes me wonder if media that have embraced green in their branding – i.e. GreenBiz, New York Times’ Green Inc., Greentech Media, Greenbang, Always On Going Green, Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN, etc – need a rethink as well. My favorite pull-quote from the LSSU survey came from a man in Bristow, VA:

“If I see one more corporation declare itself ‘green’, I’m going to start burning tires in my backyard”. – Ed Hardiman

Fair warning. But Ed, make sure it’s a green tire.

MediaWeek reported this week that interest from media properties to put out stand-alone green issues is waning in the current economy. So far the list of titles to do away with green issues in 2009 includes Domino, Discover, Sunset and Outside, according to the article. But the sub-text of the story, for me at least, is less about the economic factors involved behind the decision, and more about the growing sense that green no longer needs its own bully pulpit. Beth Brenner, an executive at Discover, is quoted as saying that advertisers don’t need a green-themed issue to tell their story, noting: ““They’ve made it a part of their everyday messaging.”  Which takes me back to a post I made in May of this year about the Discoloration of Green. It makes the case for an end to green as a separate topic, and for the start of green as an integrated thread woven throughout the fabric of business and policy.

CNN and Fortune's loss is the blogosphere's gain. Recent news that CNN let go of Miles O'Brien and Peter Dykstra and did away with its environmental/science core production unit, as well as Sam Whitmore's report that Fortune laid off two cleantech mainstays (and accomplished bloggers) – Todd Woody and Marc Gunther – is just another sign of the times: Mainstream Journalism 0, New Journalism 42. If true, I'm bummed for my friends who lost their jobs, but I'm also very excited for them (as a former foreign correspondent and blogger myself) because these are exciting times. We are on the cusp of the creation of a new media world that is the intersection of industry expertise, technology know-how and changing news consumption habits. Declining audience for traditional media is inversely proportional to increasing audience for new media like blogs, video and aggregator sites. Whoever you believe, the numbers are there to back it up – eMarketer says 94.1 million blog readers in 2007, comScore says total Internet audience of 188.9 million or Universal McCann, which says 346 million worldwide read blogs (60.3 million in the US). No doubt blog-savvy folks like Andrew Revkin (NYT DotEarth) and Jeff Ball and Keith Johnson (Economic Capital at WSJ) will continue to thrive (well, almost no doubt). Its clear that mainstream media is trying to shift to meet the challenge. John Byrne of Businessweek wrote on Twitter this week that Businessweek.com had 722,567 video streams in November, up 370% from the same month in 2007. That's good news. But even if they aren't successful, others that are more nimble and able to get their minds around the dynamics of social media (think Greener World Media,  Greentech Media and Earth2Tech) should be able to fill the void being created by the retrenchment at traditional media. And at the end of the day, Gunther and Woody still have their own brands that they created through their own blogs, and their survival is not dependent on a bloated mother ship.

Ad Age recently published a special section on agencies involved in green marketing. Of course I am happy to see the Weber Shandwick Cleantech and Planet 2050 practices included, but I have to say that the list seems pretty arbitrary. There are a number of agencies out there that are not mentioned. Just to name a few that I know about: Blue Practice, Antenna Group, egg, Clean Agency and Earth Advertising. The other thing that struck me about the Ad Age list is how different the approaches are from one firm to another, from setting up different practice groups to trying to infuse values of sustainability throughout an organization. Granted, I've only worked in the world of agencies for 3 years, but given what I've seen throughout the industry so far I would have to say that infusing anything into organizations that are typically based on individual P&Ls seems quite a challenge unless is is bottom up. As they used to say in China where the central government is always at odds with regional governments, "On top is policy, below is counter-policy". A good resource for marketing and communications issues around sustainability is Greenbiz.

Last year, I said that a time would come when the term "green" would fall into disuse. I'm now wondering if that time is nearer than I originally thought. I'm already sensing some fatigue from friends in the media. At the consumer level it's also more pronounced (depending on the day, search for "green fatigue" on a leading search engine bring back 500,000 to over 1 million results). Ironically, at the recently concluded Fortune Brainstorm: Green event, Andrew Shapiro of Green Order said that it felt as if 2008 would be the "apex of green". Which of course begs the question: How steep is the downward slope in 2009? Ted Nordhaus (who coincidentally was my childhood neighbor growing up in the southeast quadrant of Washington, DC, back when we both had hair) and his cohort Michael Shellenberger, in 2004 shook up the establishment with their paper called "Death of Environmentalism". They succeeded in pounding the final nail in that coffin. Now green's utility is in question and it is even being challenged by another color – "blue". Sustainability advocate Adam Werbach is now selling blue as the next step beyond green, arguing that blue is more accessible because it, in effect, means having your cake and eating it too (I've tried that, by the way, and I keep biting my hand by mistake). But really, green or blue, aren't we just creating another arbitrary label that will also fade away with time? Aren't we just setting ourselves up for "blue fatigue", when the next Adam Werbach comes along and pronounces the blue movement dead, and argues that its time for chartreuse to have a turn? Not to mention the fact that people in the developing world (I spent 16 consecutive years in China from 1987-2003 so I have some credibility) have just started the Long March to consumerism and couldn't really give a damn about green or blue, unless its related to the color of their new car or the tile in their newly renovated, air-conditioned kitchen.  

I moved into technology because public capital markets (and human activity more generally) are driven by short-term interest and unsustainable growth. Facing a powerful system backed by powerful inertia, it was my conclusion that fundamental change to our behavior around consumption/growth is highly unlikely to happen (to the degree or within the timeframe needed) to address the ecological problems we face. That POV was largely informed by my time in China, where I watched stock markets open, bans on advertising lifted, private cars allowed back on the roads and consumerism return with a vengeance. I witnessed China's boom and how it raised a lot of people out of poverty. The problem is that we can't raise the remaining 1 billion Chinese out of poverty without totally screwing ourselves and the ecology. And China is just the start – Brazil, India and the rest of the developing world are going through the same transformation. Far be it for me to deny others the chance to live lives of comfort. But it is highly naïve to assume that individual Chinese or Indians or Brazilians will have the foresight to look beyond their drive to material comfort and make decisions on how they live based on a moral responsibility for the health of the planet. The West didn't. It just won't happen (no offense Bill McKibben, whose conclusion for our generation – that more is not better – ignores the fact that its mainly people who know wealth who have room to think about less). Only when people are so afraid of the ramifications of climate change or toxic sludge seeping out of their water taps will they be motivated to change behavior (as recent events in Juneau underscored). But of course, by then it will be too late.  

So my bet for overcoming the challenges is technology, broadly defined. The way I see it, technology is the layer buffering natural resources from consumer and corporate behavior. It allows consumers to continue to behave much as they do and it allows natural resources to get a reprieve from that behavior. The more scaleable the technology, the bigger the reprieve and the better our chances. What Lawrence Berkeley National Lab has done with appliance standards in China is a perfect example of this. "Technology buffering" is not a panacea, but at least there is an opportunity to insert new clean technologies into existing products and systems and have a significant and accelerated impact. That's what gets me moving in the morning. (Several new books, The Cleantech Revolution, The Plot to Save the Planet and Apollo's Fire address this movement). 

What interests me from the Fortune event and others that I've attended over the past two years is a shift in the conversation. Many of the people I talk to say green/blue doesn't really matter. I agree. What matters is that "industrial restructuring" takes place. Whether the CEO of Stonyfield Farm ("we don't even use green to describe our customers, but 'quality' or 'educated'"), the chairman of SC Johnson ("we need to move the conversation from going green to transforming industry"), Vinod Khosla ("people's view of green is obsolete, its about mainstream business"), or builder Steve Glenn ("within 15 years green building goes away as a category"), the focus is more and more on creating a technological buffer to reshape the way we supply and demand.  

So let's focus on the technology that is going to get rid of the only color that deserves our attention – the black of oil and coal.

Hundreds of leaders from business, policy and NGOs in the same room for two days, naturally some interesting things will emerge. Below is a quick sketch of trends and comments from the just wrapped Fortune Brainstorm Green that I thought of particular note:

• The media "needs to get off cars and on to buildings" – Autodesk executive chairman Carol Bartz on the fact that the issue of buildings sucking energy, material and water is still not getting the attention it deserves. The numbers back her up. Conversely, it was noted by others in the green building space like Hycrete and Serious Materials that after a two decade hiatus, venture funding has found its way back to building in the past 2 years.
• A new version of LEED is set for unveil at Greenbuild in Boston and will be a "quantum leap" – head of USGBC Rick Fedrizzi
• Seems to be growing unease, and even skepticism, that cap and trade is going to be as easy at many thought. 2011 was heard repeatedly as a possible timeframe for legislation. Will a nascent business consensus fray into a mess? Are the economics fully understood to push forward aggressively? Is the Hill ready? Anecdotally at least, the answer is still clearly in the balance. One interesting alternative presented was Cap and Dividend.
• Like building, energy efficiency is still struggling to get more than a lot of lip service. Is recession the catalyst for cracking that nut? It was mentioned as a possibility.
• Hybrids and small cars are the fastest growing segment of US automotive market, according to Beth Lowery of GM. "The price of fuel is driving behavior," she said.
• "Living building" that taps into biomimicry is going mainstream. HOK – the giant architecture and design firm is starting to position itself as "bio-inspired", according to Janine Benyus, the founder of the Biomimicry Guild. Benyus' group is also looking to launch Asknature.org – a cool idea that allows anyone to query a database with questions about how nature addresses specific issues.
• Coke's environmental guru Jeff Seabright said look for something soon about consumer-facing information about "water used" in the company's products. It may not be on-package information, but something is coming. This would be welcome, since embedded water in consumer products is still very opaque to the consumer (for example, according to Dow Chemicals' Scott Noesen, it takes 2,000 liters of water to make a McDonald's hamburger if you do the whole-cost analysis.) There is nutritional information, now carbon labeling information has appeared, and water is the logical next step. Let's hope it happens.
• Vinod Khosla was the most provocative in my opinion during a 1:1 with Fortune's Adam Lashinsky. Highlights include:
  • Next generation batteries are not on a rapidly declining cost curve and require a quantum jump with a high probability of failure
  • The "Prius is more greenwash than green"
  • Technology for clean energy will only succeed if it passes the Chindia price test. If it's affordable in China and India then it has a shot.
  • Carbon emissions from all-electric cars are 3x more than that of cars powered by cellulosic ethanol.
• The highest correlation in the movement of solar stocks is the price of oil (not the price of natural gas as would be expected) – David Edwards, analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Both Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant and Khosla cited the same statistics placing biofuel as the fourth leading cause for the spike in global grain prices. The top three – rise in oil prices, drought in Australia and change in eating habits in developing countries like China (to more meat). I found one paper on Khosla's site about Fuel vs. Food, but it didn't appear to include the above list. Anyone know where it comes from?
• When Fortune's Marc Gunther asked a panel of Xerox, GM, SC Johnson and Dupont executives what grade corporate America should get in addressing environmental challenges (10 being the best grade), all of them said "1″, with the exception of GM's Lowery, who gave a "2″ because of innovation happening around new technologies. If you want to actually score a company, you can thanks to the CEO of Stonyfield Farm Gary Hirshberg, who has created an online corporate scorecard at Climatecounts.org

The spectrum of cleantech media continued to fill out this week, following earlier news about the Wall Street Journal , Earth2Tech, and other media.. Green Options, a popular online media group focused on making green more accessible to people, went public this week with CleanTechnica. Sarah Lozanova, the editor of the new blog, said she and her core team of 5-6 writers hope to tell the stories behind green technology and renewable energy instead of just reporting on them. "A lot of content on other sites is above peoples' heads," Sarah told me, adding that CleanTechnica wants to make cleantech "more accessible to a wider audience – to the green curious audience – so it's approachable." The blog will initially look to post at least one story per day, and is open to outside contributors, who can provide "different perspectives, experiences and exposures". Sarah also said they hoped to do a lot of Q&As.