Burning trash into power is not sustainable; China should learn from Denmark and move away from incineration

By JJY As we have seen in the Sound Group case, China has embarked on a vast program to deal with the MSW issue – burn’em all! As incineration reduces waste volume significantly thus requires much less land, China raised the target incineration rate of garbage to 35% in the nation under the 12th five-year […]

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I Have Hope: How Technology Will Help Solve Our Global Energy & Environmental Challenges

By Anonymous Summary: A look at three companies that are commercializing technologies that profitably eliminate waste streams and generate clean electricity, fuels, and chemicals. Discussion in a well-educated classroom of business and policy students can quickly grow discouraging as we talk about the failure of policy, rising global emissions, the coal build-out in China, and […]

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Spreading Yourself too Thin – The Case for Cash vs. Profits

By Efosa After the Patagonia Sur case, I was left conflicted. Warren Adams’ value proposition, as it related to land appreciation was profitable; however, the decision to delve into other businesses and to diversify so early was confusing. Additionally, Adams was potentially targeting, with an entirely different business model, five different business segments, namely sustainable […]

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Business Model for Home-scale water and waste water re-use in Kenya

By Edwin My previous blog (see “what business model for home-scale water and waste water re-use in Kenya.”) looked into establishing a business model for home-scale water and waste water re-use in Kenya. At the conclusion of the blog, four possible routes that one could take in establishing a business model are listed. I chose […]

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Success Factors of Sound Group

By Dafu The Chinese name of Sound sounds very much similar to the now insolvent solar panel producer Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. Both of these corporations were funded by renowned academics in their respective fields. The critical success factor for Sound Group, in my opinion, lies in three areas: First of all, the success […]

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Sustainably Creating and Capturing Value: Wecyclers

By Efosa O. Towards the end of the EnerNOC case, we discussed the ingenuity of the company, but also some of the challenges the company faced in creating sticky customers. While EnerNOC was creating tremendous value for both its customers and the utility companies, there seemed to be a strong possibility that EnerNOC could be […]

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California: H2 Uh, Oh…

By Eleanor B. For the third consecutive year, California is experiencing a drought of historic levels, causing water shortages to supply residential communities and hardship for agriculture and other industries that rely on water to produce goods. Despite statewide conservation efforts employed throughout 2014, the impact of recently implemented water efficiency programs have barely changed […]

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How can local governments and urban planning mechanisms help tackle the water crisis?

By Flavia G. Water is a finite resource and it must be used and managed as such. Unfortunately, today that is not the common understanding. There is waste related to people’s behavior and due to poor infrastructure and maintenance. Water sources get contaminated because there is not enough control or punishment on those who pollute […]

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Reply to “Food vs. Fuel – A Gray Issue”

(This is a reply/comment on the post, “Food vs. Fuel – A Gray Issue”). It’s posted as a new entry so as to retain the graphics – John). By Anonymous Utilizing food for fuel is a convenient solution for a developed nation with surplus agricultural production an congestion in exporting capabilities. The issue with using […]

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One man’s trash is another man’s treasure: BPS By-Product Synergies and Industrial Ecologies

By Ryley In many industrial processes today there is an awareness that the waste derived from the refinement and processing of raw materials at times holds more value than the refined product itself. The primary example of this is the refining of petroleum products. The process of refining a barrel of oil produces more products […]

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