Did you find any new Alaskan entrepreneurs this January? Entrepreneurs that are worth your precious time, management expertise and investment capital? I found some exciting opportunities and I have to thank my colleague Erik Nielsen in Alaska Pacific University's environmental science department for opening my eyes wide, very wide.
Erik invited me to team-teach a class at APU that he calls "Ecological Economics." I'm neither an economist nor an ecologist, but I agreed anyway, as long as he would allow me to call the class "Ecological Entrepreneurship."
Whatever we call it, it was a great idea.
We all know that complementary skill sets are critical to an entrepreneurial management and support team, like when you combine good environmental scientists with business managers.
One of the books that we used was "Natural Capitalism" by Paul Hawken, and Amory and Hunter Lovins. The book is available at www.natcap.org.
According to the authors, "The next business frontier is rethinking everything we consume: what it does, where it comes from, where it goes and how we can keep on getting its service from a net flow of very nearly nothing at all - but ideas."
The book was published in 1999, but you can match the vision of the book's accuracy by looking at what some larger companies are now doing in the area of ecological "intrapreneurship" by looking at the Dow Jones Sustainability Guide Index, which was launched the same year that "Natural Capitalism" was published. Take a look at www.sustainability-index.com.
The DJSGI is a valuable measure of a company's commitment to innovative technology, the efficient use of natural and social resources, and positive stakeholder relations.
Again, from the book, "Those who worry about climate can see the threats to it ameliorated. Those who don't can still make money."
What's going on internationally?
In this month's Inc. Magazine, in the article "It's 2006! Whattchagonna do about it?" you'll read that in China, President Hu Jintao announced that by 2020, his nation will double its reliance on renewable energy to 15 percent of all energy used.
Alaska wants to remake its image a bit after the punch-ups from 2005. I think being one of the poster children for where money, the environment and entrepreneurial (and intrapreneurial) economics meet is a perfect fit.
To help prime your entrepreneurial pump in 2006, the IRS offers tax breaks related to the following: hybrid cars, energy-saving home improvements, solar energy for individuals and for business, solar heating, energy-efficient homebuilding, energy saving in improvements to commercial real estate, and tax-free transit passes.
Are you familiar with energy service companies? I wasn't either until one of my students submitted a business plan for her company in December's Alaska Business Plan Competition. These are companies that make money by being paid from the energy savings that they can generate for your company, as well as from consumers and from government organizations.
How come the business opportunities related to radical resource efficiency have not caught on faster in Alaska and elsewhere? Organizational inertia is probably one reason; sales skills and the need for persistence is another. Columbia University saw an internal plan on how it could save more than $1 million on its energy bill. Administrators did not commit to the plan until they were shown that their indecision was costing the school $3,000 per day.
Two years ago, students in Erik Nielsen's ecological economics class presented a plan to APU administrators on how the Anchorage university could save $100,000 per year.
Two years and one MBA entrepreneurship/venture funding class later, one of those students started her own company and is beginning to get started with APU.
According to "Natural Capitalism," eight Nobel Laureates and 2,700 fellow economists declared that "market oriented policies to protect the climate by saving energy can raise American living standards and even benefit the economy."
Let's see what we can do in Alaska in 2006 to prove them right.
Business plan competition
In case you missed the two-day 2005 Alaska Business Plan Competition last month at the University of Alaska Anchorage/Alaska Pacific University Consortium Library, please join me in giving a Wealthbuilders salute to our university entrepreneurs here in Anchorage.
John Matthews and Jake Williams won first prize in the APU competition with a plan for their company, JR Trailers, which takes advantage of an innovative design that maximizes functionality while minimizing cost.
Also in the APU division, Brian Hickey and his plan for Power Delivery Maintenance Management won the second place prize; Matt Warner and his Sojourn China eco-tourism business won third place.
In the UAA division, congratulations to Kevin Meyer for winning first place with his plan for Meyer Lawn Services. The second-place winner was Elena Kothrova with her plan for The Venetian Merchant, and in third place was Alain Charles with his plan for Precision View LLC.
Rick Wolk is an entrepreneur and instructor of management and entrepreneurship at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage.
