Ted is always looking for ways to minimize his ecological footprint. Professionally, Ted is working to gain the skills necessary to turn his passion for sustainable development into action, as an entrepreneur or financing sustainable businesses.
Ted studied economics and international business at Saint Louis University’s campus in Madrid, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was honored as the Distinguished Student in International Business for his class. As the founder and president of the SLU Madrid Business Club, Ted focused the club’s activities on sustainability.
While working for commercial real estate multi-national Jones Lang LaSalle’s Madrid office, Ted strove to implement sustainable practices both within the firm and for its clients. He proposed and designed an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan for JLL Spain. Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Development remain a passion for Ted: he believes that the intersection of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable attitude is where we’ll find a sustainable society.
Ted currently works for a private equity firm in Madrid, learning skills that he hopes to apply to finance Environmentally Sustainable Development in the United States and around the world.
Cherl Petso is the Associate Editor at Disaboom.com, an online magazine for people with disabilities. Her writing expertise includes articles about the environment and sustainable living, and vegan/vegetarian issues. A vegetarian for 16 years and a recent vegan, Cherl is passionate about animal rights and issues. She enjoys writing about simple ways to lessen the impact on the Earth.
Cherl recently moved to Denver, Colorado from Bellingham, Washington. She enjoys hiking and hanging out with her puppy.
Marie Oser is a best-selling author, columnist, and host/producer of VEG TV. A vegan lifestyle expert, and environmental advocate with a focus on nutrition and its role in disease prevention, Oser specializes in creating original gourmet recipes with a solid nutritional bottom line.
Many prominent medical and nutrition professionals endorse her work, including Dr. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University and principal researcher of the groundbreaking CHINA STUDY, and Neal Barnard, M.D. founder and president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC.
Marie is president of VEGTV, Inc., a video production company producing content for TV and new media. VEGTV streams hundreds of lifestyle videos to more than 1,000 sites globally. In her role as Director of Product Development at Smart Planet Kitchen, she has created, Marie Oser’s Lean & Green, a new line of vegan and Fair Trade Certified products. Marie has appeared on CNN, ABC, National Public Radio, QVC, WUSA, WNBC, KCAL, KOVR, Home & Garden Television (HGTV), FINE LIVING, TECH TV, and Discovery Channel.
Vegetarian since 1971; vegan since 1990, Marie left a career in TV advertising to pursue her interest in food, health, and nutrition. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, she studied psychology at St. Joseph’s University. Marie is a gourmet cook and organic gardener living in California, writing her 5th book and hiking every day with Travis, her Yellow Lab companion.
Loretta White is a writer, educator and scholar who gained huge diversity of experience within varied industries; energy, government, high tech and more. The last fifteen years she brokered deals with the top multinational companies globally, her Rainmaker skills are unsurpassed and she remains an authority on BD, BI, sustainability and the Global Marketplace.
Frugality was the voice of her elders who endured wars, rationing and Depression, raised to respect, love and to co-exist with nature through sustainability, self reliance, need and RRR practices. Loretta’s juxtaposition of ideas, deep love for the planet and her Yankee sensibilities are the foundation of a lifestyle that is in partnership with nature. Loretta indulges her passions for renewable energy, organics and being green on her 17.5 acre farm in central Massachusetts.
Recently Ms. White has lead an Assoc. of Caregivers providing support to those caring for parents, disabled, and others.
Loretta is invested in the community of our species and our planet and her diverse background in technology and green living gives her a unique perspective on how to live with nature and with our own gifts of technology.
Ms. White’s work has been published by Corporations, magazines, readers digest and many others.
Tracy is the CEO and Founding Partner of Technical Green - a green industry career site focused on clean tech and green research and development.
Tracy's professional experience are in the recruitment advertising and non-profit sectors and she has for many years maintained a sustainable lifestyle.
Heather O'Neill is the founder of Eco to the People, a green living blog.
Before founding Eco to the People, Heather O’Neill wore so many hats in the field of journalism that even the Queen Mother would envy her collection. She has worked as the managing editor of a beauty trade magazine; as a copy editor for an online tech magazine; as the associate editor of a city magazine and as a newspaper reporter and columnist, and as the senior editor at the popular online newsletter ecofabulous.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including Parenting, Alternative Medicine, Natural Solutions, Marin Magazine, Greenwich Magazine and HOME.
Heather earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco.
It was earnings season last week, and a look at some of the results posted by some of the leading clean energy companies provides a fairly accurate picture of how this crucial industry is fairing in the midst of this punishing recession.
Take First Solar, the Tempe Ariz.,-based maker of solar panels, which tripled revenues during the first quarter 2009, announcing net income last week of $164.6 million on revenues of $418.2 million. The company brought in $46.6 million in net income last year on revenues of $196.9 million.
First Solar clearly did well but was quick to warn that despite its stellar numbers, it expected the market to stagnate, at least over the coming year, pummeled by the economic crisis. But on the upside, the company added that the Obama stimulus and the $100 billion allocated for clean energy would, in the long-term, help make the U.S. an attractive and growing market. …read more of Clean Energy Can Bring Profits here
During last year’s Earth Day the business community was just coming to grasp with the economic slowdown; there was a growing understanding of climate change issues and the need for clean energy solutions and responding to that growing interest, investors over the past year had opened the money valves to record levels. Global investments in clean energy reached $155 billion for the whole of 2008.
How things have changed. Months into a deep, global economic crisis, this year’s Earth Day is being celebrated amidst an investment drought — venture capital funds, which were early supporters of the clean energy sector — have all but pulled out of the sector. Banks are also not lending, despite unprecedented government support.
One report, released earlier this month, compiled by research firm New Energy Finance, showed that global investments in the clean energy sector plummeted to $13.3 billion in the first quarter of 2009, a 44% drop from the fourth quarter of 2008 and a 53% drop from the same time last year. …read more of Clean Energy Investments Key to Economic Recovery here
Green energy companies are reeling from the deep and ongoing economic crisis.
Yes, while the recently passed stimulus should assure strong — and unprecedented — government backing, the Treasury Department is still drafting rules on how to distribute this money. In the meantime, clean energy companies are left waiting and reeling.
Last month utility scale solar power developer, OptiSolar said that it will shut down its two manufacturing plants and lay off most of its workers, because it was unable to tap funding to secure its long-term growth.
Royal Dutch Shell is the latest oil company that has opted to back away from green energy investments to instead focus on its traditional oil and gas business.
Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer made the announcement a couple of weeks ago at an investor conference in London, arguing that investment returns in the wind or solar business were too small.
Linda Cook, Shell’s executive director of gas and power also added: “If there aren’t investment opportunities which compete with other projects we won’t put money into it. We are businessmen and women. If there were renewable [which made money] we would put money into it.”
2008 has turned out to be a banner year for clean energy investments by venture capital, which increased 22% from $2.7 billion in 2007 to $3.3 billion in 2008, according to data published by market research firm Clean Edge.
As a percent of total venture capital investments, energy tech grew nearly 30% , from 9.1% of all investments in 2007 to 11.8% in 2008. That’s quite a jump when considering that in 2000, energy tech represented just a half a percent of all venture capital investments.
But given the economic slowdown, investment levels this year are likely to drop.“To a large extent, the clean-energy industry has been a good-news story — what other industry has sustained annual growth rates exceeding 30% for the past decade? But the clean-energy industry is not immune to the forces impacting the overall economy. …read more of Clean Energy Investment Up 22% in 2008 here
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