From Coin Counting to E-cycling Coinstar:
All hail the kiosk! Coinstar, which runs businesses around kiosks that count coins and kiosks that rent DVDs (redbox), announced that it has invested in ecoATM, a startup that has developed a kiosk for recycling electronics. San Diego, California based ecoATM was also one of the Green:Net 2010 launchpad winners and raised its first round of VC financing from Tao Venture partners back in February. The terms of Coinstar's investment were not disclosed.
Cash for high-tech trash. That's the basic concept for the recycling kiosk from ecoATM. You drop off old electronics at one of these machines, it calculates their value, then pays you on the spot, in cash or coupons. The company says its secret sauce is its kiosks' ability to automatically estimate- using electronic and visual techniques- a price of the unwanted items that will give consumers an immediate financial incentive to recycle at the station.
The two year old company says it has built a network of 50 buyers around the globe that will take used consumer electronics devices that it collects from its kiosks (from mobile phones to iPods to MP3 players to game cartridges) and recycles the components. ecoATM finds the best price for the devices and then passes a portion of that revenue onto its customers.
The company told us earlier this year that it aims to deploy 200 kiosks across the U.S. by the end of the year, mostly in electronics retailers. Typically, customers receive coupons for buying products in the store where the kiosk resides, and ecoATM then reimburses the store for the value of the exchange. Incentivizing consumers to recycle gadgets and cell phones has been incredibly difficult. The EPA says that in 2005, the U.S. generated 2 million tons of e-waste and only about 350,000 tons of it was recycled. The remaining bulk ends up in landfills.
All that valuable waste has led to a flurry of activity in the recycling market, with a half dozen startups launching web sites like SecondRotation, that help consumers find homes for their used goods. The high profile green VCs at Kleiner Perkins, backed RecycleBank, which partners with cities to provide incentives for residential recycling.
ecoATM's CEO Mark Bowles told us earlier this year that he thought the web site, as recycling center model, doesn't work. Most people don't want to go through the hassle of labeling and shipping their used items and finding prospective buyers. ecoATM is all about convenience.
Katie Fehrenbacher for Earth2tech 8/10 Comment on our Facebook page Two-Thirds of Healthcare Organizations are Planning Efficiency Investments:
Sixty-two percent of healthcare oranizations said they plan to make capital investments in energy efficiency over the next 12 monthe, according to a new survey by Johnson Controls. In March, they commissioned the 2010 Energy Efficiency Indicator (EEI) survey, which polled 2,882 executives and managers responsible for making investments and managing energy in facilities worldwide. Of these respondents, 288 operated in North America.
The sector, which constitutes 8 percent of the U.S. carbon footprint, has been trying to reduce its energy needs in recent years. Suppliers have been making commitments to reduce energy needs as well, such as GE Healthcare's commitment to cut energy use in ultrasound equipment by 25 percent, Sharp's Compliance breakthrough process that eliminates medical waste to landfills by 100%, and a new co-generation plant for St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica, New York.
The healthcare segment comprised of 20 percent of the North American respondents, and 85 percent of this segment were members of the American Society for Healthcare Engineering. Eighty-six percent of the respondents were employed in a private heatlhcare organization, compared with the remaining 14 percent working for government-owned organizations. Most of the respondents held a VP/director of facilities or a facility manager role.
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Benchmarking Ensures Energy Management Programs Remain a Priority:
To implement an effective corporate energy management system, businesses need a combination of senior management support, good data, clear targets and technical, managerial and economic resources, as well as consistent implementation over decades, says energy expert Peter Garforth in an article written for Plant Services. View video of Peter Garforth addressing the city of Cleveland:
However, the reality is that other business priorities typically take precedence over the energy challenge and few companies can keep up with the implications of a changing energy world, says Garforth. This often means that companies continue to use tried and tested approaches using data and assumptions that may be out of date. In addition, engagement at the start of a program can fade, which jeopardizes the sustained consistency needed for successful energy management, he says.
Garforth's recommendation is to use regular detailed benchmarking to ensure that your company's energy management strategy is "refreshed, challenged and adjusted." He cited a recent meeting between sustainability and energy teams of major U.S. corporations, which shared their different approaches to energy management.
Topics included energy metering and reporting systems, employee motiviation and incentives, low-cost efficiency practices, climate change legislation, efficiency and clean supply technologies and the energy efficiency in all major procurement decisions.
While each company was building its own energy management expertise in different ways, they "all recognized the importance in understanding the direct and indirect carbon footprints, as much for avoiding business risks associated with climate legislation as for mitigating climate change," says Garforth.
It also reengergized their programs by sharing their approaches with other companies. The upshot: "Systematic benchmarking of energy management programs keeps them relevant and successful." Environmental Leader Comment on our Facebook page
Green Mountain Coffee has a sizable carbon footprint: Coffee production is known for emitting methane gases, and the fertilizers used to treat the soil can be considerable. Green Mountain Coffee of Vermont has long been known as a practitioner of eco-friendly business methods. But the company's use of the single-use K-Cup has left a lot of environmentalists protesting. Recently, The New York Times reported on the "coffee conundrum: that Green Mountain Coffee faces with its K-Cups.
Environmentalists are concerned that a company with the motto "brewing a better world" would embark on such a wasteful enterprise. After all, the company's green initiatives have been abundant. Green Mountain Coffee, which has been composting since 1983, has developed oxygen-whitened and dioxin-free Earth-friendly filters and opened a 10,000 gallon biodiesel fueling station at its Vermont distribution center. Further, in 2008 the company commissioned a life-cycle analysis of its package types to determine the most eco-friendly practices.
Michael Dupee is Green Mountain's vice president for corporate social responsibility. As he told the NY Times, "Consumers see the waste stream and they compare it to what they had done before, and they have a perception that there is a problem." The company plans to test come recyclable paper K-Cups that they deem more eco-friendly.
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