Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. From 2002 to 2006, he was Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by the year 2015. Sachs is also President and Co-Founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization aimed at ending extreme global poverty.

He is widely considered to be the leading international economic advisor of his generation. For more than 20 years Professor Sachs has been in the forefront of the challenges of economic development, poverty alleviation, and enlightened globalization, promoting policies to help all parts of the world to benefit from expanding economic opportunities and wellbeing. He is also one of the leading voices for combining economic development with environmental sustainability, and as Director of the Earth Institute leads large-scale efforts to promote the mitigation of human-induced climate change.

Jeffery Sachs Interview on Charlie Rose

CleanFish is taking a new business approach to addressing the seafood industry and need for sustainable and healthy seafood supply. CleanFish plans to launch a brand to embody the highest ethical values and principals involved in fisheries in farming and capturing in the wild. The company plans to be selectively sourcing and promoting artisan fisheries, both cultivated and wild. CleanFish is building a brand in the sustainable seafood movement from within the marketplace. CleanFish plans to build an alliance of producers to provide distinctively better offering in quality and serve an important role in environmental leadership.

The importances of clean and environmental friendly practices are becoming increasingly important due to the number of problems facing the industry. The Salmon industry is an example of a number of issues facing the species in over fishing, disease, pollution, and diversion of natural environmental habitat. Recently, the fisheries experts have reported in California of big decrease in population without any reliable explanation. In Chile reports of viral disease from close, over stressed conditions in farming of Salmon and excessive use of antibiotics are concerns in the industry. The declining Black Sea bass population is another example of overfishing and need for better practices to properly harvest and sustains populations. The very large Tuna industry is going to be larger concerns in the future with rising global demand and extremely effective techniques in capturing the prized catch. Also, the netting techniques involved in open fishing maybe have negative impacts on the environment as bottom trawlers and fatal capture of unintended species. Clearly there need to be a larger effort towards proper management of sustainable and environmentally friendly practices to ensure proper cultivation and enjoyment of a valuable and precious commodity.

CleanFish plans to change this as a leading purveyor of fresh and frozen seafood sourced from a wide range of artisan fisherman that hold to strict stewardship principles. The company is advancing its mission of moving the U.S. market toward sustainable seafood by connecting customers with CleanFish artisan fisheries, rewarding fishery partners with a market premium for their artisan products, and building a brand that is trusted by customers for taste, safety and sustainability. The CleanFish brand will be a powerful tool and platform for distribution for alliance of fishers to promote good environmentally clean and sustainable practices.

CleanFish recently announced in press release 4.2 M Series A funding from TBL with other previous investors Mindful Capital and individual investors.

“CleanFish is quickly becoming the leading platform brand in the sustainable seafood category”, said Mark Finser, General Partner of TBL Capital. “Their products demonstrate extraordinary environmental stewardship that translates into a superior quality fish, a healthier planet and a healthier consumer.” The seafood industry in the United States is over $65 billion, 69% of which is consumed at restaurants and other foodservice establishments, 22% purchased fresh at retail stores and 9% bought pre-packaged.

“CleanFish is completely delighted to have the values and resources of TBL join with us in partnership” added Tim O’Shea, Co-Founder and CEO of CleanFish, “just this past month (February, 2008) at the Boston Seafood Show, CleanFish was featured as one of the top ten companies to watch in the seafood industry.”

The alternative energy source that may solve a solution for energy requirements maybe reside in a unicellular organism algae.  Some have called the pond scum technology as an effective alternative and more likely alternative to traditional biofuels that compete with the food supply and the unintended consequences of food inflation affecting the ability to feed the world.   The idea of harvesting algae as potential fuel source has been proposed earlier and the federal government through NREL has funded fundamental research that has lead to progress in the field. A number of companies are now working on different strategies to turn little green algae into fuel that can power the energy the requirements of the world.

A time during the U.S. faced an energy crisis in 1978, President Carter established the Aquatic Species Program (ASP) lead to research initiative with goal of developing biodiesel from algae for an alternative to gasoline.  The program was axed at the NREL 1996, and the team kept the promising research available at the Dept of Energy for the future use.  Now there is increasing and renewed interest in the field and projections that in near future commercialization of technology will bring fuel to the market.

Biofuels Comparison

SugarCane 650 gal/acre

Corn Ethanol 370 gals/acre

Soybean 60 gal/acre

Palm Oil 600gal/acre

The Algae Advantage

* Cheap, Clean, Renewable and Natural oil source (Algae is comprised of up to 60 percent oil).
* Highly Reproductive & Easy Grow almost anywhere (does not require large land mass as food crops).
* Ability to Remove CO2 from the air as they grow
* Thrive on water, sunlight, CO2 and nutrients
* Offers higher harvest yields per acre yields that are estimated between 10,000 to 15,000 per/acre

Also, the algae has potential for being converted into a variety of useful products Algae  can use to produce  alcohol for ethanol, biomass that can be burned in a furnace, or used as animal feed. A single hectare has potential to  generate 8,000 gallons of oil, 2,400 gallons of ethanol a year and 2.6 tons of glycerin, a material bought by the cosmetics industry, he said.

The additional benefit is having algae in ponds next to coal-fired power production plants to consume CO2 gases. The carbon dioxide from the plants is captured and provides the nutrient for growing the algae. At a 100 megawatt coal-burning power plant, 100 acres of algae ponds, optimized with species that grow well in that particular environment, will consume 90 percent of the CO2 from the plant. The real benefit to the environment in capturing greenhouse gases and reduces issue of global warming and negative impact.

GreenFuel

Green Fuel is developing algae bioreactor systems to convert carbon dioxide emissions into renewable, clean-burning biofuels.  GreenFuels comes out of research from MIT and NASA to combine algae bioreactors and CO2 from power plants to yield a variety of products from algae based on design of the project.  The company has been pilot testing in Arizona next to power plant.  Recently, the company is working on a potentially larger scale  project in Europe.

LiveFuels

LiveFuels plans to cost-effectively producing large amounts of biocrude that will have to be refined.   The company strategy is  to grow algae in ponds for low cost production and . The company plans to invest in research and is working with Sandia Labs and experts consultants in the field to further R&D and plans to commercialize biocrude product by 2010.

Solix

The Fort Collins based company plans to create bio reactors to increase yield of the algae.   Solix uses Photo bioreactor, algae selection, and specific photo biological formula that is designed to dynamically change over the algae growth-cycle for optimum cell growth, oil production, and pre-harvest stabilization for increased yields. The company plans to place reactors near power plants to take advantage of CO2 for feeding into bio fuel reactor.  The company has pilot running with brewing company utilizing the CO2 from fermentation.  The company is working on perfecting the combination of the right algae and condition to produce yields of biofuel on a large scale.

Solazyme

Solazyme prefers taking a darker approach to algae.  The company keeps their algae in the dark to increase production and the nutrient feed.  The company claims that algae are 1000 times more efficient at producing oils from sugar compared to growth by sunlight. The company plans to turn algae into biodiesel, jet fuel, food oils and high-end cosmetic oils.  The company is partnering with Chevron to develop  super crude  for refining.

Currently, the algae bio fuel is expensive to produce and has yet been able to produce large scale amount of product.  The companies are in the early stages of research and need to scale production to be cost effective.  As the green revolution moves on, an alga is likely to play its part in crude and a more refined form in the future.

RecycleBank uses technology to reward recyclers through credit based on efforts to recycle.  The company creates incentives for recycling and tuning the business of recycling materials into a profitable business.  The company uses RFID technology to track recycling efforts and rewards users with tie ups with companies offering redeemable coupons on purchases such as starbucks, staples, bed bath and beyond, and whole foods. 

The company got its start from the idea of finding a way to encourage individuals to recycle.  Patrick Fitzgerald was studying at the time at Fordham and contemplated a solution in response to mayor Bloomberg debating to close down recycling program.  The problem was that people were not recycling enough and the city had to cover the expense to keep recycling program going.  The solution would to pay consumer directly to increase levels of recycling and tie in corporate social responsibility and awareness programs into the rewards program. 

Pat Fitzgerald teamed up with high school buddy Ron Gogen , a student at Colombia Business School,  started out with 100,000 seed  from Colombia to launch RecycleBank in Philadelphia.  RecycleBank would need to convince municipalities that they would save money by using their program increase recycling materials and decrease cost associated in waste management and landfill costs. 

The company business model is to charge municipalities and waste companies a fee of roughly $25 per user and says the cost saving would be covered by reduced landfill and incinerator cost per user.  Also the company works with recycling plants with share of revenues generated from the RecycleBank program based on additional amount of recycle waste. Residents participating in RecycleBank can check their RecycleBank balance online and cash in their coupons, maximum of $25 a month and $400 a year at participating corporate partners in the program.

Putting the pieces together

RecycleBank work hard to put the technologies together to track and measure the recycling program and reward participants accordingly.   The worked with Cascade Engineering into  provided 35- and 64-gallon bins embedded with RFID tags.  The RFID technology allows the bins to be scanned and weighed and link to household. The LTS Scale Corporation configured scales and a tipping mechanism for the containers for recycle bins can be accurately weighed and easily emptied into trucks.  The information is stored on the onboard computers into databank for reporting.

RecycleBank convinced Philadephia officials to run a pilot program in two neighborhoods. The program is proving successful based on the level of participation 90% and average weight materials is 25 lbs. The waste management company Casella waste was impressed and plans to implement the program in other areas in which the company operates.

The RecycleBank intends to have the system up in 250,000 homes by the end of the year.  The numbers would mean that the company will generate around 7M in the year. The company intends to take the program on national level.  Recently, the company raised 30M from KPCB venture fund and will definitely help RecycleBank expand the business beyond the regional level.