Business Voice of the Green Economy:
Greener World Media
s Oakland and the East Bay strive to become a hub of green business innovation and entrepreneurship, one downtown Oakland company has established itself as the leading business resource for the green business movement.
Greener World Media is a fast-growing online media and business information services company with offices at 14th and Franklin. With its flagship website, GreenBiz.com, and a constellation of other websites, newsletters, conferences, research reports and peer-to-peer learning, Greener World Media has established itself as an authoritative voice for the greening of mainstream business.
The company was founded in 2006, when Joel Makower, a nationally known speaker and author on green business, turned his nonprofit website, GreenBiz.com, launched in 2000, into a for-profit business. He partnered with Pete May, a longtime executive in the business-to-business publishing world, to form Greener World Media. May signed on as president and publisher of the company. “Pete May and I are both proud native Oaklanders and current Oakland residents,” said Makower. “For us, the question wasn't whether to locate in Oakland, but where. We are excited to be part of the growing green business community in Oakland and the East Bay.”
Together, Makower and May have grown the company from a few websites to an integrated offering of media and business information services, including two annual conferences: Greener By Design, on green product design, and the State of Green Business Forum, an annual event that coincides with the company’s State of Green Business report. This year’s daylong event brought more than 500 people together at PG&E Auditorium in San Francisco for panels on topics ranging from green jobs to water management as a strategic business advantage.
Now in its third year of operations, the 12-person company has garnered such sponsors as Autodesk, IBM, Intel, Johnson Controls, Steelcase and Waste Management. Another group of companies—including Campbell’s Soup, Clorox, FedEx, Microsoft and PepsiCo—has joined the GreenBiz Executive Network, the company’s peer-to-peer learning forum for sustainability professionals.
This year, as GreenBiz.com enters its 10th year online, Greener World Media is developing a new set of offerings, including a monthly executive briefing, e-learning modules and a monthly “Green Confidence Index” to track Americans’ attitudes on green topics.
Joel Makower, Greener World Media’s chairman and executive editor, also co-chairs the Green Technology Cluster of the Oakland Partnership.
Members of the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership launch
this innovative collaboration to attract green technology.
he City of Oakland has a thriving and growing green economy. These articles showcase two Oakland companies that are international leaders in the green industry and an innovative collaboration among East Bay municipalities.
proven leadership in solar energy:
brightsource energy
Oakland-based BrightSource Energy is a leading developer of large-scale solar power plants. Founded in 2006, the company’s mission is to make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels by developing, building, owning and operating the world’s most cost-effective and reliable large-scale solar energy projects.
Why did BrightSource Energy locate its global headquarters in Oakland? “Oakland is unique in that it is located at the intersection of the U.S. environmental movement, the clean tech industry, and public policy,” said Joshua Bar-Lev, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs at the company. “The East Bay’s rich history as the center of America’s environmental movement, coupled with the area’s world-class universities, innovative business culture, and California’s progressive policies make it an ideal location to build a company committed to developing solar technologies that compete with fossil fuels. Other locations…offer some of these strengths, but Oakland provides a unique combination of all of these characteristics."
This decision has served the company well. Founded in 2006, BrightSource Energy has grown to 140 employees with global operations in the U.S., Israel and Australia. The company raised more than $160 million in funding from blue chip investors including VantagePoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley, Google.org, BP Alternative Energy, StatoilHydro Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures and DFJ.
The company is actively developing more than 4 gigawatts of solar power projects in southwestern states—enough to power 1.4 million homes. BrightSource Energy now has more than 2.6 gigawatts of power under contract in California, including the two largest solar power agreements ever—1,300 megawatts with Southern California Edison and 1,310 megawatts with Pacific Gas & Electric Company.
The BrightSource Energy team blends internationally-renowned experience with solar thermal technologies—which harness and transform solar energy into heat which can be used to generate electric power—with world-class finance and project development capabilities. The company is led by John Woolard, an Oakland native and one of the world’s leading experts on renewable energy. BrightSource Energy’s technical team pioneered solar energy nearly three decades ago as Luz International, Ltd., the first company in the world to build commercially viable solar thermal plants. In 2006, Luz’ technical leadership joined forces with a world-class finance and project development team to form BrightSource Energy. The combined experience of BrightSource Energy’s technical and commercial teams, coupled with its breakthrough technology, has positioned the company as a world leader in solar thermal energy.
As BrightSource Energy continues to grow and build its power plants in the U.S. southwest and around the world, the company looks to the East Bay to help drive its growth by providing the talent, research, capital and policies to support the emerging new energy economy.
Oakland Benefits from green technology boom:
East bay green corridor partnership attracts over $76 million in funding
Green technologies have finally come into their own, and as a founding partner of the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership (EBGCP), Oakland is right in the center of the action. “Oakland is dedicated to creating green jobs and transforming our community to create and capitalize on the green revolution,” said Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums. “Building on the success of the Oakland Partnership, our region has become a national model, driving green innovation through programs like Oakland’s Green Job Corps and important partnerships like the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership."
Hatched in late 2007 by founding partners Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond, Emeryville, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Lab, the Green Corridor Partnership is now actively engaging private sector partners to help grow the East Bay’s green economy. In fact, prominent Oakland firms like BrightSource Energy, which recently signed contracts with PG&E to provide over a gigawatt of electricity using sophisticated solar thermal technology developed here in Oakland and deployed in the Mojave Desert (see article above), help set the stage to attract newer green tech companies to the Corridor.
The initial partners have already garnered $76 million in the early rounds of stimulus funding for weatherization, green job training, biofuels and carbon capture research. In addition to federal stimulus funds, funding also comes from the partners themselves and other federal sources, including a $147,000 earmark garnered by Rep. Barbara Lee for green job programs within the region. The Oakland Green Job Corps is one of the organizations expected to benefit; in June, the Job Corps graduated its first group of 40 solar and energy efficiency technicians.
Oakland represents the central core of the Green Corridor, offering a bustling Smart Growth downtown; ample industrial land including the old Oakland Army Base; a highly educated workforce as well as a large potential workforce that can be trained for green collar jobs; the tax benefits of a California Enterprise Zone; direct access to key federal and state government agencies, and excellent transportation by air, sea or land making the City highly attractive to green technology companies.
The Partnership recently hired its first director, Carla Din, who previously served for five years as regional organizer for the Apollo Alliance, a branch of organized labor promoting expanded energy efficiency and renewable energy technology. Oakland also hosted the group’s recent summit at the Oakland Museum of California on June 26, at which new partner cities El Cerrito, Albany, Alameda and San Leandro as well as the Peralta and Contra Costa Community College districts and CSU East Bay formally joined the Partnership.
The Partnership plans a dynamic marketing campaign to attract green enterprises from other parts of California and the world. They also aim to regionalize innovative policies such as green building requirements and Berkeley’s groundbreaking solar financing initiative to provide incentives for green businesses to locate in Oakland and other East Bay cities. For more information, visit www.ebgreencorridor.org.