The best inventions make our lives easier.Often so simple in concept as to be beautiful and brilliant, these break-through ideas become an “overnight” success when a confluence of factors intervene to create a perfect storm of benefits to the customer.Is Rentcycle on the verge of such success?
Rentcycle officially launched in October 2009.The brainchild of founder Tim Hyer, their mission is to facilitate the business of renting “stuff”. Recognizing that the process of renting equipment is both painful to customers and highly inefficient to business, Rentcycle developed a model that creates efficiencies through online scheduling, tracking and inventory management.Customers can get info, pricing and check availability of the equipment they want to rent while niche boutique business owners are finally able to create a streamlined rental process that has been up til now, a giant time suck due to the laborious manual processes of every step. Read the rest of this entry »
Several months ago, online auction giant eBay announced its new green team - 1000 employees gathered together to help make a difference in the planet through small steps.
Although it can be argued that the increased use of shippers and shipping of items by eBay is decidedly NOT green – noone can argue that eBay has kept LOTS of stuff otherwise destined for the landfills from being thrown away. The new green site informs us that 86 million buyers and sellers on eBay have reused over $100B worth of products since 1998.
Green team members are providing information on buying green, selling green, living green, and shipping green. Green shipping tips help to reduce the carbon impact of sending stuff across the planet purchased on eBay! It helps to buy stuff close to home – and eBay also allows you to search each listing by distance.
eBay also has a new subsite designed exclusively for sellers of green products called Worldofgood.com If you qualify and can list here – your listing is featured both on this site and the main eBay site, but you only pay one set of fees.
eBay also allows sellers to donate part of all of their profits to green organizations, as well as many other charitable organizations of their choice.
eBay’s Green Team site in the future will host discussions and give information about green events in your area. I look forward to seeing its evolution!
The results of bank stress tests released this week, do not bear good news. The bottom line is that at total of $75 billion needs to be raised from 10 major banks to prop them up for losses that could come from a deepening recession.
Here is a Top 4 summary of who needs what in the next six months:
Bank of America (BAC) will have to raise $33.9 billion;
The question people are asking is whether this is the worst news yet? Or whether it is news that the worst is over?
There is no easy answer. The truth is that if unemployment continues to rise, housing prices continue to fall and the economy continues to shrink, then much more money might be needed as problem bank loans could be on the rise. Read the rest of this entry »
Good ideas have a life of their own. That’s what Paul Baricos, Executive Director of the Hollygrove Growers Market and Farm (HGMF) in New Orleans is learning two years after the Carrolton-Hollygrove Community Development Center (CHCDC) set out to figure out how to bring fresh produce to a neighborhood with no real access to affordable food.
The result of this initial vision, and perhaps ten iterations later, is a one-of-a-kind one-acre urban produce and garden center located in the New Orleans community of Carrolton-Hollygrove. Initiated just two short years ago in partnership with the New Orleans Food & Farm Network, the site is in its fledgling stages of a well mapped out multi-use center. “We began this journey simply trying to figure out how to bring fresh produce to an under-served community. What has evolved is a vision for this center to be a resource for urban gardening that delivers fresh produce”, relayed Paul.
Boulder, Colorado, an idyllic college town notorious for its health conscious population, has again shown its progressive spirit by voting for county Issue 1A last November, authorizing the government to sell bonds to fund loans to homeowners who want to make energy-efficient upgrades. This week, lawmakers met to decide upon details of this new local “stimulus” package.
These ClimateSmart loans represent a $40M program for the county, which hopes to fuel job creation through its broad scope and easy application process. It is estimated that 800 new construction sites will be created by this program – and now, there are 17 out-of-work construction workers for every one job available in Boulder County.
Green Municipal Bonds offer the opportunity to rescue the economy and the environment. Local governments are needlessly watching their economies disintegrate, waiting and begging for handouts from Washington D.C., while all along the power to save their economies and help the environment lies in their hands – Green Municipal Bonds.
Traditional Municipal Bonds are debts issued by local governments to pay for schools, hospitals, mass transit, and many other projects that benefit local communities. Citizens vote to approve a bond investment, agree to pay a property or sales tax to fund the bond measure, and the bonds are then sold to investors to raise the capital for the project. Municipal Bonds are very similar to U.S. Government Treasury Bonds. Both offer investors relatively safe investment vehicles with special tax advantages.
Green Municipal Bonds, are similar to their traditional cousins, they offer relatively safe investments with special tax advantages. However, their are several differences that make Green Municipal Bonds far superior for the taxpayer, investor, and issuing local governments. Read the rest of this entry »
Changing consumer behavior can be a slow painful process. Not only does it require educational efforts but often widespread systemic conformity is required. However innovation has radically altered some of our most fundamental behaviors.
Globally, we now access cash from a machine and we carry and use mobile phones for a significant percentage of our calling. Its this type of basic change that will be required to have significant impact on socially and environmentally responsible consumption habits.
Shai Agassi has just such aspirations. The electric car has been the talk of the town at the Detroit auto show this year but Shai’s concept is the most intriguing and well thought out. In this week’s Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria talks to Shai about his idea for a Better Place in “Switched-On Highways”. Shai does exactly what is necessary for radical innovation – he flips the approach. Instead of framing the problem as “how to build a better car”, he frames it as “how to run a country without oil”. He takes an ambitious approach that looks at both the infrastructure, the model of ownership and of course, the power source.
Return to electricity
Even with oil returning to under $50 a barrel, Shai’s new model is betting on the electric car to remove our dependency and make the switch to clean electricity. With the required infrastructure in place, the cost ends up somewhere between six and eight cents per mile which is motivation in and of itself, even if oil got down to $25 a barrel. Read the rest of this entry »
The world economy might be in recession, however, carbon emissions are at an all time high. According to a new analysis by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) U.S. power plant CO2 emissions jumped 2.9 percent in 2007, the biggest single-year increase since 1998. More than ever, companies need to commit to taking steps against global warming.
If you do not want to waste precious moments searching the internet for the top stories in business and finance, or if you have found an ideal economics news story that you would highly recommend to other readers, then Tip’d might quickly become your business social destination everyday.
Much like Digg, Tip’d is a site that has the advantage of showing up at the right time. The stock market has recently been on a roller coaster ride and the world’s economy has been on the brink of depression for over a month. As you know most speculative behavior is driven by human emotion which tends to spread news like wildfire. In this scenario, Tip’d has found the perfect fit by offering an ideal platform for readers to share their favorite business stories. Read the rest of this entry »
A few details are starting to emerge about the proposed “bail out plan” of the US Government. While legislators wrestle with the finer details, here are a few figures to juggle with over the weekend.
On top of that, there’s with an additional $69bn to buy up the companies’ discount notes, $29bn to keep Bear Sterns alive and $85bn to keep AIG going. That’s another $183bn, taking the running total to $683bn. Read the rest of this entry »
Changing consumer behavior can be a slow painful process. Not only does it require educational efforts but often widespread systemic conformity is required. However innovation has radically altered some of our most fundamental behaviors.
