EcoSearch and dtimes3 Launch Green-Ex at The Carbon Show

dtimes3 Limited (d3) and EcoSearch® are delighted to announce the launch of their new sustainable exhibition service Green-ex™ at the Carbon Show on 4th October held at The Business Design Centre, Islington, London.

Aimed at providing a low cost, low carbon exhibition solution, this collaboration between a Live Events, Technology and Training company and specialist Executive Search Consultancy is the first of its kind and is likely to attract major attention from the Carbon, Cleantech & Renewables community.

Keith Goodchild, Managing Director at d3 says ‘We are extremely conscious of the cost of exhibiting and the amount of waste generated at Live Events. The overall lack of attention to sustainable solutions within the industry is of equal concern. That is why we have introduced the concept of Green-ex™ which we believe is the way of the future’.

Keith continues – ‘Although we design and build exhibition stands we are committed to providing sustainable materials and support services. Therefore, we have also developed a suite of low cost electronic services that enable pre-marketing, the invitation process, data capture, delivery of marketing collateral and pre-booking of meetings. As a result, our exhibition clients can enjoy a paperless environment, automated data recording and data base management during their events. Combining these services and minimising the need for elaborate stand design and expensive build, our Green-ex™ solution is providing a full exhibition capability at a fraction of the cost’.

‘Making the decision to launch Green-ex™ at the Carbon Show was a ‘no-brainer’, said Debby Lloyd, Managing Director at Ecosearch® who have collaborated with d3 throughout the development of the Green-Ex™ concept. Debby also sits on the Carbon Show Advisory Board and was recently a judge for the Green Business Awards, so her industry knowledge and expertise has supported the development of the service.

Ecosearch® co founder and Director Phillip Clement said ‘When I was approached by d3 and they told me why they wanted to develop a low cost, low carbon exhibition solution I was immediately engaged with the concept. Many businesses, especially start –up’s, often struggle to invest time and budget to promote their services however the Green-ex™ service can provide them with an excellent opportunity to go to an exhibition, enjoy all of the benefits that can be derived from their participation, but for a more modest investment’.

Zoe Ingle, Haymarket’s Show Organiser added ‘The Green-ex™ concept was of immediate interest to us at Haymarket. We want to actively promote the use of more ‘Green’ solutions and Green-ex™ does exactly that. Enabling companies to share facilities within a ‘Pavilion’ concept is not new, but providing participants with a full range of electronic services designed to reduce or eliminate paper, save administration time, improve lead generation and deliver improved ROI is a significant step forward and that is why Haymarket is very happy to promote and endorse the Green-ex™ concept at the Carbon Show 2010’.

Visit the Green-ex™ stand 268 and talk to their team to discover ‘The way of the future’.
For company descriptions and contact details please see attached appendix.

Click here to view the full Green-Ex press statement.

You can follow @EcoSearch, @dtimes3 and @TheCarbonShow on Twitter.

Green & Renewable Energy Events List – August & September 2010

The events list is back!

If we have missed anything, please let us know. You can leave a comment on this post or even send us a tweet.

August 2010

Green Drinks – Reading
3rd August 2010
RISC Global Cafe, Reading, UK

Sustainability Now
On demand until 10th August 2010
Virtual
Follow @sustainnow on Twitter

Green Drinks – London
10th August 2010
The Glasshouse Stores, Soho, London

September 2010

Green Mondays - North West
6th September 2010
Manchester, UK
Follow @greenmondaynews on Twitter

Green Mondays – Midlands
6th September 2010
Nottingham, UK
Follow @greenmondaynews on Twitter

Green Mondays – London
6th September 2010
London, UK
Follow @greenmondaynews on Twitter

The Energy Event
8th & 9th September 2010
Birmingham, UK
Follow @energyevent on Twitter

Wind Power Monthly - Cost-effective, best-practice O&M strategies
9th & 10th September 2010
Hamburg, Germany
Follow @WPMevents on Twitter

World Green Roof Congress
15th & 16th September 2010
London, UK

Low Carbon South West: Sustainable Cities - Building The Future
17th September 2010
Bath, UK

Bioten
21st – 23rd September 2010
Bath, UK

HUSUM Wind Energy
21st – 25th September 2010
Husum, Germany

Women in Cleantech: Exploring Cleantech Policy
22nd September 2010
London, UK

If you are organising an event coming up soon and would like it included in future lists - don't hesitate to let us know about it.

The EcoSearch Team

State Of The Nation Update – The New Norms Bite?

My gut is telling me something different is happening. Keep it lean folks, we are heading into choppy water again.

Take the redundancies I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks in FM, environmental and sustainable consulting, outsourced technology, mainstream engineering, internal carbon teams. I’ve seen “walk-aways” by corporates on non-core green related activity, sluggishness in buying “green” and renewable energy progress hampered by team downsizing. There is still a lack of investment and we are now seeing the first signs that the Government cuts are going to bite hard!

Green Bank?

Show me something different and I’ll believe it! Isn’t this the blueprint the Carbon trust but a few more heavyweight names with a sprinkling of Private Equity folks? It’s not going to solve the problem, is it? What happens to the innovation spawning grounds in the latest melee? Same model of return, different underwriter?

Cleantech Investment - What are the new norms?

Yields of less than 7%, ROIs – think more like 5 years now folks!
Venture funding – it’s all about collaboration and circumnavigating Venture land as we know it now.
VCs – for early stage they really mean well past “post revenue” stage – and lots of it!
Fund raising – if you haven’t done it in 6 months, forget it you better do something different.
Equity – start at 60% and if you are lucky negotiate your way back as you hit the milestones.
Typical deal flow scenario - 400 deals reviewed – 4 investments made – those were the figures quoted – but am I wrong in thinking that maybe the view on returns needs to change which might make the ratio different? Maybe the investment community simply haven’t woken up to the new norms yet?

Commercial Property & the CRC

The exodus from inefficient but lovely looking glass and steel buildings is already starting to happen. My prediction is that swathes of office blocks will soon become empty especially where they cannot provide the smart control aspect of carbon management programme roll out.
FTSE or AIM listed company in your property portfolio? What are you doing to help their league table position? Perhaps just taking the rent is now no longer enough – the new norm might be business collaboration?

CRC progress – estimates that 20% of businesses cannot even make registration.
Expecting help from the Environment Agency – hmmmm seems to be a problem when you can’t find the forms on the website even...

Facilities Management Companies – it’s not just about an EPC and some CHP feasibility & engineering consultancy – get your acts together - you are offering a fragmented, disparate service offering – clients want pro-active initiative, joined up thinking and deep traction across third party relationships to resolve the issues they face. I’m hearing reports that FM Companies are not playing ball with energy efficiency partners of clients ... BIG mistake!

For further insight you might like to have a look at my previous post 'Sustainability and The Apollo Effect'.

Skills & Recruitment

Graduate entrants – forget going in to £30K of debt and trekking to Uni unless you aim to come out with a 2:1! 69 graduate applicants for a single job ...employers are being choosy. Boy do we have a problem in the UK with our Course Content – someone’s forgetting the basics & practicals – it’s all theory!

And – this bit is for recruiters only as I know you all read my blog (the intelligent ones will get to this bit – the others will have zoned out by now)! Judging by the amount of recruiters checking out my profile at the mo – everyone in recruitment is piling into this space... wise piece of advice ... if you see a bandwagon, you’ve already missed it. Those of us who have been around for a while, stick together, the flight to quality will be on soon enough.

Prediction – remember the dot.com days? Now imagine that again with only one quarter of the jobs .... I dispute all the figures quoted about green jobs – I think they are overestimated and lots of jobs will mainstream in from related industry or be internal appointments – because of the climate we are in (maybe with the exception of big wind or maybe retraining plumbers!).

You reap what you sow, no matter what business you are in, so expect payback relative to your customer facing investment – and I don’t mean just in cash terms! Everyone is feeling the pressure but I’ve asked myself many times this month - is there a way to be nice and still do business anymore? – or have things got so bad it’s just every man for himself and screw the consequences in the future?

Sustainable business behaviour ... hmmm perhaps a subject for a future blog.

Photo by gluemoon on flickr

EcoSearch "State of the Nation" Update - April/May 2010

It seems we have a lift!

The big question is “for how long?”. I’m sensing an underlying nervousness, what will happen post summer, post election, post Greece?

For a whistle-stop tour of what else I’m seeing;

Finance & Investment in general: -

• Early stage Innovation businesses in cleantech are still suffering from lack of finance although there’s some Creative fund ideas are emerging but these are pre-fund raising and still some months away
• There is still a lack of quality investments – with all investors sticking to traditional post revenue models
• Large scale asset based projects based on “known technologies” are more appealing to investors although a switch to investing in “IP” is being detected for some areas

CRC (Carbon Reduction Commitment):

• Public sector – enquiries are up across the board but delivery is problematical
• FM – large companies gearing up internally to tackle CRC opportunity but clients showing frustration with over-layered FM business models
• Government Knowledge & Advice on procuring these products and services is sadly lacking and will affect the placement of orders

Microgeneration:

• Consumer & Business Demand is growing for product – however manufacturing problems in small wind, supply problems for inverters & Solar PV are issues
• Installer capacity to deliver projects and scale-ability will be an issue in the near term
• Renewables purchasers are frustrated with a fragmented market, product comparison is hard to action, corporate “slickness” is lacking in delivery
• The present MCS accreditation framework appears to be preventing the industry from reaching “sales” maturity
• The present sales & distribution models are problematical – especially in small wind

Business Models:

• The SME Services & Product Sector for Renewables & cleantech is suffering casualties, further casualties are expected from cash flow burn-out crisis
• Specialist & experienced installers will perhaps be prime for acquisition but managing integration will be key for any acquirer
• The Corporate & Utility sector is struggling to internally ratify traditional operating models with highly adaptive, flexible & fast moving emerging markets
• Innovation in the Corporate arena is constrained due to cash flow/focus on core business, smaller workforces & lost internal entrepreneurial ability

Disruption Technologies & Conspiracy Theories?

• … suffered from professional anti-blogging attacks? Well interestingly – now the furore of East Anglia has died down we uncover a rise in this type of activity. So who are the organisations having sufficient funds who have a vested anti-lobbying interest to procure the services of these anti blogging rings.
• And is it wrong to believe that some of those same industries are also buying up IP to shelve “disruption technologies” …
• UK Manufacturing – over-engineered & over-priced? KISS for the future – the Chinese are coming!

These are personal views. I welcome comment, debate and discussion – debby.lloyd@ecosearchglobal.com

Debby Lloyd,
Managing Director, EcoSearch

Image by Micky on Flickr

Cleantech, Renewables & Sustainability Investment - Deal Flow

It’s encouraging to see creative ideas around fund raising for Cleantech, renewable & low carbon technologies – The Founders Club for example “where dealmakers club together” ... looks good, Par Equity - is this the largest Advisory board gathering of the great and good? There’s even talk of some novel and interesting off-grid (pardon the pun) boutique social stock exchanges emerging too.

But they all want the same thing - post revenue / growth potential businesses to invest in - so supply & demand will be a problem for the smaller players wanting quick returns.
This week also saw a Government announcement about the establishment of a Green Investment Bank operating on a commercial basis and involving both public and private sector capital. £1 billion will be raised from the sale of “mature government-owned infrastructure-related assets” (will we have anything left soon – even Dover Docks appears to be up for sale?). This would be matched by £1 billion of private sector investment ... I haven’t seen the detail yet but I’m sure the latter will be a challenge given the state of Corporate businesses today – and again its targeted on investment into heavyweight large complex infrastructure projects.
So – who’s tackling investment into the start up and innovation side of emerging green technologies?

There’s an ever increasing funding gap between early stage “fresh out of the shed entrepreneurs” and “high growth” ready businesses.

Ultimately this will impact deal flow at maturing business “high growth” stage. Inevitably this will get tighter and more and more investors will be chasing fewer deals... that will be interesting as the tables may turn a little perhaps.

By Debby Lloyd
Managing Director, EcoSearch

Sustainability and The Apollo Effect

This month I have had the privilege of delivering my thoughts to Facilities Managers from key businesses in Utilities, Telecoms and IT.

The document below gives some extracts from these speeches. I share with you my thoughts on the challenges ahead on our quest to organise businesses to comply with forthcoming regulations for carbon management. Pulling on some analogies and insights into practical methods of engaging mindsets and embedding cultural change for to improvement of business, maintain competitiveness and ultimately survive.

This challenge is becoming ever more complex. For businesses to remain competitive and survive in a changing world sustainable working practices now need to be embedded into the heart of organisational culture – from CEO to cleaner. But how do we relate that bigger picture of business survival in a changing world to the ordinary employee going about their day job?

Sustainability & The Apollo Effect - By Debby Lloyd

By Debby Lloyd
Managing Director, EcoSearch

Leadership For A Sustainable Future

This post is from a consultant placed by Debby Lloyd last year. It is our privilege to place “the best of the best” in the market. They then become the heart of influence on some of the most strategic and complex carbon management programmes in global industry today. Their insight into the challenges faced is unique. We are delighted to give them a platform for their personal views – which let’s face it in consulting can rarely be aired or discussed to maintain that fine line of objectivity on a project. So we cherish their input, give them a platform and respect their anonymity … but we know they welcome hearty debate so do comment!

With climate and sustainability scientists becoming increasingly gloomy, do we need to see more leadership and less haggling over policy detail in order to achieve a sustainable future?
The Climate Safety Report, written by the Public Interest Research Centre and released in November 2008, reviewed research published the IPCC’s report of October 2007 including:  

• 2008 was the year of minimum Arctic summer ice volume—70% below the 1979 volume. It is clear that that Arctic sea ice is disappearing much faster than the IPCC’s end of century prediction. Pen Hadow’s Catlin Survey, advised by EcoSearch and now underway, will provide the detailed data to measure permanent Arctic ice thickness. 
  
• As the Arctic melts, increased warming in surrounding regions will be seen up to 1500 km inland into area of continuous permafrost. This permafrost contains twice as much carbon as previously thought—double the amount currently in the atmosphere. The effect of this warming permafrost is not presently incorporated in any global climate models.
  
• Greenland’s 2007 melt was 60% greater than the next highest year of 1998.
  
• While the IPCC predicted sea level rise of 0.5m to 1.4m by 2100, James Hansen, of NASA, in taking long term feedback mechanisms into account, predicts a rise of 0.5m by 2050.
  

While the UK and the EU have certainly demonstrated leadership over the past years in setting policy and drivers to reduce carbon emissions, changes are implemented slowly, very slowly.
DEFRA recently announced that UK greenhouse gas emissions (2% of global emissions) had fallen by 1.7% from 2006 to 2007 and in total by 21.7% from 1990 to 2007 . Laudable indeed, but the UK Climate Change Committee recently set a 2020 target reduction of 34% or 42% if there is a global deal to cut emissions--almost doubling the average annual reductions the UK have achieved over the past 17 years.

In the EU, there seems to be a tendency to attempt to achieve consensus through endless consultation and in some cases, near-perfect standards and targets. Jonathan Porritt has been decried for raising the issue of population growth as the elephant in the room. Plans for a third runway at Heathrow have been approved. Leadership seems to falter.

Okay, so the UK could try harder, but at least the UK and the EU have been trying for the last 17 years. The Americans have a massive challenge, their greenhouse gas emissions (representing around 20% of global emissions) have risen by 16.7% from 1990 to 2007.  

So far, President Obama seems to be supporting two targets for the USA: cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, and an 80 per cent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050. While the second is in line with the UK’s targets, the first, while ambitious for America (and by the way, matching the annual reductions achieved by the UK over the past 17 years), doesn’t meet the expectations of the rest of a hopeful world placing enormous environmental expectations on the new President. Nonetheless, while the Americans are coming late to the party, watch out, EU. Americans have shown repeatedly throughout history that once they “get” a concept, their focus, drive, pragmatism and energy enables them to leap frog the slow, steady results achieved by others.  

And certainly, Obama has the charisma, persuasiveness and intelligence (in sum, leadership) to cut through the treacle, set ambitious targets and motivate the interests of his country and others to achieve them. Sometimes, it is about simplicity and not being distracted by too much detailed policy.  

And as the Climate Safety Report concludes, we need to convey a hopeful and viable future vision which is coherent and compelling. We need big asks. We must challenge political “realism”. We also must start the tough debates about population control and what sustainable consumption actually looks like. In short, we need leadership to achieve a sustainable future, and we must not be distracted by our short term commercial and political interests—even in tough times.

Image by nick_russill