Category Archives: clean businesses

Urban Renewal: Resurrecting Vegas

Bankrolled by Hsieh, The Downtown Project plans to invest $350 million in up to 200 small businesses, dozens of tech start-ups, and a diverse mix of other public resources and amenities. The ultimate goal: To create the sort of dense, walkable, mixed-used Shangri-La championed by the urban theorist Jane Jacobs in her 1961 classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 

Put another way, Hsieh would like to make downtown Las Vegas a more compelling social network, a feature-rich platform that encourages frequent chance encounters, fruitful knowledge exchange, and over the long term, greater innovation and productivity. Where abandoned liquor stores now fester, yoga studios shall one day bloom. : Continue reading :

Raising Money for Permaculture

What would you recommend giving as rewards?

There are two kinds of campaigns. The first is one that is aiming to produce something that may be useful to potential contributors – such as Charlie Jones’ Permaculture Ukulele Musical Project.

These kinds of campaigns are aiming to raise funds from the actual consumers of their products, and I would highly recommend that they give that product as a reward, at or below the retail value. It is these types of campaigns that sometimes achieve hundreds of contributions, and potentially go way over their stated goal!

The second kind of campaign is one that provides or benefits the community, or the person posting the campaign, such as raising money for tuition. The primary motivation for people giving to these campaigns is not to for a reward, but to help make the campaign successful. For these, it makes more sense to give something of symbolic value, as a way of thanking a person for their contribution. (Source)

Crowdfunding the Regenerative Home

Let’s create the Regenerative Home. With this proposal, we are raising funds to showcase technologies for homes that are ecological, affordable, and appropriate for these times. We will build the second prototype this summer in Colorado (earlier version shown in the intro video). Throughout the construction we will document in film and photography. The building plans will be available this year online for $10. Plus, in a subsequent fundraising effort next year, we will assemble an online documentary film about the process so others can learn from and recreate these ideas.

The movie above shows you what the Hiperadobe (a type of Earthbag) earthen wall system looks like in action. The Regenerative Home design uses the hiperadobe system for the walls, and an ancient Nubian adobe vault method to enclose the space. This was used by humanitarian architect Hassan Fathy. It is still popular today in many countries because it minimizes the use of wood by replacing it with earth, and is very durable. Similar adobe vaults that are thousands of years old still stand today. The Regenerative Home uses this age-old roofing technique with additional reinforcement to ensure safety and longevity. (Fund here)

The East African Solar Entrepreneurs

A couple hours drive on a dusty road outside of the southern town of Masaka, Uganda, you’ll find Musubiro Village. Miles from the closest electricity grid, there is little hope of government power coming this way anytime soon.

In Musubiro, like so many other villages across Africa, the main source of light is kerosene- which is not only expensive, but has a myriad of negative health side affects, and the risk that always comes when you mix open flames and straw thatched roof dwellings. Typically, the day’s chores are done, children’s studying is over, and small shops are closed when the sun goes down at 7:30 p.m.

Not anymore.

Barefoot Power, a for-profit social enterprise operating across East Africa, has built a network of “Solar Entrepreneurs” who are responsible for bringing solar lighting to towns and villages like Musubiro all across Uganda. Their products, ranging from the extremely popular “Firefly Mobile”, a small 1.5 watt panel with 12 small LED lights and a phone charger, or their full “Village Kits” that can provide lighting to an entire house, are making solar power affordable and accessible to those at the base of the economic pyramid. The small solar panels are portable and once charged, act like a battery.

Barefoot Power currently has 160 Solar Entrepreneurs operating all over Uganda, and an extensive distribution network which makes its products available to customers across Kenya, Tanzania, India, and several other parts of the world. (Source)