The Abrams Clean Tech Report

 

A Few Thoughts On The Green Festival That Just Was…

Sunday, November 6th, 2005

Well, the Green Festival was certainly interesting for me. I would say that it accommodated a wide range of voices – - from the emotional, social aspect of sustainability and green business that drives grass roots radicals as well as conservatives — to the more mainstream. One could pretty much find a little bit of almost everything there. And it was packed.

I have no doubt that "green" will eventually become a requirement if not standard to established business practices. Residential areas will not have a choice to dump garbage; they’ll get recycling bins for everything, and manufacturers will be pushed to be green from start to finish in the production cycle. This of course is the piece that drives my interest in this area.

I spoke with Roian Atwood of American Apparel’s Sustainabe Edition/Organic Programs, and asked him why the company had just a niche product line, vs. making the entire product line out of organic cotton — that this certainly would be a major pr move for them to set that precedence. Apparently there aren’t enough mills to accommodate the demand for organic looming mills. Something of the sort. I’m going to go back and talk to him further, but that’s the gist of what I gathered. So they have a business plan, and I’m guessing will be taking that to get funding to put some more mills out there.

GDiapers, out of Portland, Oregon, had a really interesting offering — the flushable gDiaper system — and the marketing looks cool, too. Though, note – not all pieces of the product are organic materials. Just fyi.

I talked to Guy Carpenter, COO of Hemptown, a publicly traded company (HPTWF), and had the chance to learn about various apparel manufacturers at the show, as Hemptown works with a number of industry players as a wholesaler in the business, so I found Guy’s perspective quite interesting. I even felt some of their tshirts woven out of bamboo fibers, and have to tell you, these shirts are unbelievably soft. Like silk.

Earth Justice was there, and had a great booth. Surprisingly, this could have been a huge member/supporter drive for them, and I don’t think they took as much advantage of the opportunity as they could have. Needless to say, I mentioned to the pr person there that they should think about using the show as an opp to do this.

The Biodiesel Board was there with a booth, promoting their upcoming National Biodiesel Conference and Expo which will be held in San Diego from February 5-8 this next year. www.biodiesel.org/expo2006.

I talked with the son of the founder of Co-Op America for a bit and had a very interesting conversation with him.  We were talking in front of the Calvert Social Foundation Booth, and discussing Calvert Funds and the structure of the organization. I’m definitely going to check it out more.

And though I didn’t have time to talk with TechFolio, I plan to do some more research on the organization. www.techfolio.org. I saw very few technology focused companies – i.e. few companies the likes that I saw at the last Clean Tech Venture Conference I attended (www.cleantechventures.com), and that was disappointing. The Festival could have taken advantage of the opportunity and showcased far more technologies to at least educate people on what is out there.

This isn’t to say that there wasn’t a lot of focus on green building, or whole foods, or organic apparel…there was plenty of that. And I didn’t walk through the ENTIRE Festival. But I do think that Green Festival is cutting themselves short, in the future, if they do not bring in more big business. Big businesses have the deep pockets to drive ideas into consumer communities, and to change behaviors…

I think we can expect to see more and more sophistication from The Green Festival with each year it that goes on. It may have been a little ‘granola’ for some, but just being there, and capturing the ideas, seeing the companies exhibiting – it gave one a real flavor for all that has driven the sustainability/green movement. People have various ways of expressing their emotions about that which they value most, and The Green Festival I just attended I think pretty much lets everyone find something that caters to them.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

^ back to top

 

Contact Lara Abrams

To contact Lara, please email her at lara@laraabrams.com or call 415 613 1704.

Archives

 

Blogroll

 

Sustainable Green Web Hosting