Can Environmentalism and CleanTech Be Lucrative?

Roger Priddle writes in response to my request for suggestions for new business models and strategies:

Thanks to you and all the others who refuse to let the discussion (on environmentalism) die.

I find I can get a positive reaction when I talk to “middle school” students. They’ve heard a lot of the comments, and are young enough to be idealistic, to think that they can make a difference.

So I volunteer to talk to elementary school classes and assemblies. Can’t make a living doing it, and I find the teachers burn out on the subject after just a few years so I’m constantly looking for new ways in, but I’ve heard from a number of high school students how a talk I gave years ago stuck with them and that, for a while at least, they modified their behaviors.

I’m old enough to remember how the “apostles” of the human rights and women’s rights issues were just “voices in the wilderness” but they persisted, and now things are better. I believe that the same approach (visible, persistent) will work for all “green” issues, even though you and I may not see a conclusion.

So, since I read your post as essentially “job hunting”, and I wish you and all the other “apostles” well, I suspect we’ll all have to be content with the emotional/ethical satisfaction of knowing we did the best we could, that we didn’t give up even in the face of massive apathy and that, in the end, we made some small contribution. We just didn’t make any money doing it.

I respond:

I think you are spot on here. As one of my true heroes, legendary ecologist Paul Hawken (pictured above) says, “Environmentalism isn’t a way to GET rich; it’s a way to BE rich.”

Having said that, I’ve always believed that, generally, we are rewarded financially to the degree that we solve problems; in fact, when we solve a significant problem, it’s impossible to get out of the way of the flood of money that comes pouring in.  Then realize that, in terms of problems, the destruction of our environment is the grand-daddy of them all.  I have to think that huge fortunes will be generated by people whose products and services come to dominate new and existing markets as the world goes green.