The ‘Governator’ Pushes Green Jobs

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a strong proponent of green business. And yesterday, he appeared at a Palm Springs, Calif. “presser”—with whirling wind turbines as a backdrop—to push his plan to bring green business and green jobs to the Golden State.

From the Palm Springs Desert Sun:

The California Jobs Initiative includes $500 million of incentives going to companies for green job training and hiring new employees, plus a sales tax exemption for businesses purchasing green manufacturing equipment.

“It will send a clear message to every CEO and entrepreneur and innovator that if you invest in the green future of California, then California also will invest in you,” Schwarzenegger said, during a morning news conference at wind company Wintec Energy’s Carver Field off Dillon Road and Valley View Drive.

Schwarzenegger is pushing his green jobs initiative because, unlike most other sectors that are in decline, greentech is growing (albeit at a modest pace).

The ‘Governator’ also mentioned another factor. California is one of only three states in the country that has not passed a sales tax exemption for green tech and other manufacturing equipment. Schwarzenegger believes the tax incentive is critical to enticing green tech companies in Germany and other countries to set up shop in the Golden State.

More on the story here.

photo h/t: Jay Calderon of The Desert Sun

The Green Business Executive Résumé

Excerpted from the upcoming book, “Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Career in the New Green Economy” © 2010, Dan Smolen.

We know that hiring managers are most-predisposed to the best green-trained and educated executive talent. Understanding that a busy hiring manager may have an inches thick stack of résumés (to triage), he or she may give any of those documents a spare 25-second look-over.

There is no denying that good résumés elicit more-immediate and positive response while not-so-good résumés often get tossed in the circular file.

This document can open doors to a new job; understanding that it includes valuable real estate will help you make it a more-effective job-landing asset. Since your core objective is to get noticed by a green executive hiring-manager, you need to use that real estate well to communicate your express green business executive career objectives, key green accomplishments, green or sustainability-related training and education, the greenness of your work assignments, and metrics – lots of metrics.

A truly outstanding résumé will quantify your professional career accomplishments and help the hiring manager answer questions such as these:

• How much new business was the executive personally-responsible for generating in the previous year or year-to-date?
• How large is the executive’s current operating budget? How much has it grown in the past three years?
• How large is the executive’s head count? How much has the executive’s head count increased over the past three years?
• How much of the operating budget has the executive recouped? How much of the savings are attributable to the executive’s energy and resource conservation efforts?

But, how should you organize the information on your résumé? Should you present your information chronologically or according to function? Susan Ireland speaks to this issue. She is one of the U.S.’s foremost authorities on résumé-writing and the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Résumé (5th Edition) and Ready-Made Résumés software. She is a frequent blogger, a well-respected leader, and her website – SusanIreland.com – is an important destination for anyone needing sound résumé-writing advice.

Ireland says that “since the 1980s, résumés have gone through an evolution.” Back then, use of the chronological résumé as presentation-of-choice began to wane as MBA-earning business executives opted for the unorthodox functional résumé format. Where an old-school chronological résumé may have dryly answered - Where did the executive work and when did he or she work (there)? – the new format provided the executive the means to project uniqueness by detailing core-competencies, special or unusual skills, career goals, and motivations.

She recalls that by the 1990s, “it seemed as if the functional résumé was working, especially if the executive had work-history problems.” That is because the functional résumé could enable a business executive to shine while downplaying the absence of any key skills, a pattern of short (2 years or less) job assignments, or the presence of not-easily-explained timeline cavities. Yet, many hiring managers and executive recruiters grew suspicious of candidates relying on this type of presentation.

Now, Ireland says, most business executives favor a combination résumé format which provides chronological details but also showcases the executive’s skills, accreditations, and accomplishments.

When crafting your résumé, be mindful of the real estate agent’s mantra – the three most important considerations are LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION – for the details you need to communicate most, and most-effectively, should appear prominently on the first page.

Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Career in the New Green Economy will be available online, and on booksellers’ shelves this spring.

‘Green Office Challenge’ Expands to Several U.S. Communities

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Earlier this week, we reported about Green Spaces, a New York City-based facility that encourages ecopreneurs to “co-office” in its sustainable work environment.

Now, Arlington County, Virginia – already a nationally-recognized model for resource sustainability and urban renewal – joins Nashville, San Diego, and Charleston, South Carolina in a green office challenge pilot program sponsored by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability.

ICLEI selected Arlington County based on its large commercial business base and a record of success in encouraging businesses to use renewable energy and conserve resources.

In the City of Big Shoulders, the Chicago Green Office Challenge – a program started by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley to encourage that city’s commercial property owners and office tenants to participate in friendly competition, to improve the environmental performance of their business operations – has already met with great success.

From the program’s website:

“More environmentally efficient office buildings are critical to helping Chicago reduce its impact on the planet’s changing climate. As a strategy of the Chicago Climate Action Plan, the Green Office Challenge helps to reduce the amount of global warming pollution that Chicagoans produce.

The City of Chicago is looking to downtown commercial property managers and office tenants to demonstrate leadership in environmental performance. Participating in the Green Office Challenge allows your business — and Chicago — to get a head start on meeting these critical targets.”

Commercial office buildings account for nearly 40 percent of Chicago’s greenhouse gas emissions. And it is with great hope that the Green Office Challenge will help greatly reduce CO2 output in Chicago and the other participating U.S. communities.

As The Green Suits, we must encourage every city and community throughout the U.S. to adopt the Green Office Challenge.

Photo h/t Chicago Green Office Challenge.

‘Green Suits’ Book Cover Revealed

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Who likes waiting (for anything good)?

Many of you – excited about the impending release of Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Career in the New Green Economy – have (emailed me/called me/sent me smoke signals/channeled me/social media messaged me) asking when the book would finally be available for purchase online and on booksellers’ shelves.

Unfortunately, I still do not have a definitive answer to that question. Schedules often take a backseat to quality assurance (as they should). And the production of this book has taken a bit longer than originally planned.

However, we are working aggressively to stay on track for a late March 2010 release. And, I think we will make it.

Meantime, is anybody game for a little show and share?

(Me! Me! Me! PICK ME!)

It is with great pride and excitement that at last we are able to reveal the book’s cover design. Check it out:

I would be remiss if I did not recognize the love of my life, my wife Marsha, for her extensive involvement in the cover design project. We think that the final result looks great and hope that you like it, too.

So the final countdown to book release begins. And now I ask:

Are you ready to tailor your Green Suit?

Book cover ©2010, Dan Smolen.

‘Green Spaces’ Enticing NY’s Ecopreneurs

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Earlier, we reported on how vacant retail sites and other dwellings were being re-purposed as truly sustainable work spaces.

Now, a facility in the hip TriBeCa section of New York City is taking the green office movement one step farther; it is enticing ecopreneurs with a highly-engaging way to “co-office.”

Green Spaces takes the 1990s-era shared office work-space model, merges it with sustainable office best-practices, then fosters broad-scale ideation and collaboration by catering exclusively to Manhattan’s emerging class of green business leaders.

Founded by former Merrill Lynch Private Banking Group executive Jennie Neven, Green Spaces provides its members a visually-pleasing office environment, a variety of work space options and start-up business packages that include these top-drawer amenities:

• Business Plan Creation and Consultation from industry leaders
• Fiscal Planning Consult from former Merrill Lynch advisor
• Investor Introductions
• Marketing / Advertising Focus Groups
• Legal Council
• Website / Logo / Branding Services
• Accounting / Quickbooks Set-Up
• Sustainability Consulting

Collaborative work is a well-known trait of the Millennial Generation. Given the fact that so many Millennials are now entering the workplace – and green business executive careers – Neven’s office concept is sure to be an unqualified success.

Are Green MBAs Ready for Green Business?

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

For several years, I have written about the critical importance of green business training and education.

The C-Level’s demand for well-trained and properly educated green business executives is urgent. More companies are seeking talent that can ably manage the triple-bottom-line (people, planet, profits).

But are the institutions awarding so-called Green MBAs yielding such well-prepared talent? Ford Motor Company’s manager of social sustainability, David Berdish, is not convinced that they are.

In his post for GreenBiz.com, Berdish writes that:

Business schools are very good at asking students the hard questions – for example, how would marketing, IT, and operational functions work together to reduce a company’s energy consumption.

Additionally, (we are) not so good at asking students what the questions should be, in the first place, or how the systems within or outside a business support or conflict with a company’s mission and goals.

In other words, according to Berdish, business schools are highly capable at posing theoretical questions. Hoever, they are not as well-equipped at exploring the dynamic real-world complexities of sustainability, and more troubling, are not immune to “greenwashing.”

Berdish believes that business schools need to toss the “business as usual” mindset and adopt a style of instruction that more-fully prepares students for the complex set of challenges they will face when balancing the triple-bottom-line.

Clorox Goes for Transparency, Lists “Ingredients Inside”

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

The Clorox Company, long a proponent of green business best-practices, has extended its commitment to product manufacturing transparency by listing its products’ ingredients on-line.

Clorox’s corporate website now includes a new Ingredients Inside page which provides easy click-throughs to each of the company’s products, ingredients, and Material Safety Data Sheets.

We are encouraged that this formidable consumer packaged goods marketer has taken such big steps for the sake of transparency. Yet another reason why discriminating green business executives – The Green Suits – will favor career opportunities with The Clorox Company and other committed green businesses over non-compliant companies.

Great Doritos Spot! But Will It Actually Sell…Doritos?

Have you previewed the ads for this year’s Super Bowl? The “House Rules” spot for Doritos may be the-most LOL funny entry in years. Question is, will it create the intended ROI and sell a whole lot of…Doritos?

High-Level Execs Urge President, Congress to Pass Energy, Climate Legislation

Cross-posted on The Green Suits:

We Can Lead, a business advocacy group led by senior executives from some of the U.S.’s most-recognizable brands, has called on President Obama and the 111th Congress to act swiftly on comprehensive energy and climate change legislation. The group believes such legislation when passed will bolster national security by making the U.S. more energy-independent, boost economic output, and create 1.7 million new jobs. From its January 21, 2010 Letter to the President:

“We need strong policies and clear market signals that support the transition to a low-carbon economy and reward companies that innovate. With certainty, clear rules of the road, and a level playing field, U.S. businesses will deploy capital, plan, build, innovate and compete successfully in the global marketplace.”

The group, whose membership includes Dow Corning, eBay, HP, Virgin America, and Stonyfield Farm, believes that the U.S. has fallen behind “in the global race to lead the new energy economy” and that the President and Congress need to act quicky to turn the tide.

Last last year, one We Can Lead group member – energy producer Exelon – famously surrendered its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has been, to say it mildly, highly critical of President Obama’s energy agenda.

Forget Politics: Green Business is Here to Stay

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Yesterday, I received a comment to an earlier post. The commenter, Kwame, referenced the special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s seat in the U.S. Senate. He wondered what affect Republican candidate Scott Brown’s surprise special election win would have on the state of green business. I thought Kwame’s question was an interesting and timely one, worthy of inclusion in a separate post.

From a political standpoint, Tuesday’s special election struck national Democrats like cloud-to-ground lightning. And as a result, Democrats in the U.S. Senate have lost their filibuster-proof super majority of 60 seats.

Massachusetts special-election voters may not have been thinking about green business when they cast their ballots. But with the Bay State’s decision to elect a conservative Republican to the U.S. Senate, the goals that President Obama and Democrats in Congress set out to achieve – including renewable energy projects, green tech, clean tech, and so-called “green jobs” – would appear to be at-risk.

From a political standpoint, time will tell how well green business issues resonate with members of Congress.

But from business standpoint, I don’t think that green business will be severely impacted. From Fortune 100 brands like IBM to Wal-Mart to the smallest of enterprises, many well-respected companies have embraced – or are about to embrace – energy efficiency, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility.

We know that American companies of all sizes are going green because doing so makes good business sense. What we don’t know is how long will it take before the new green economy takes hold.

I have high hopes for 2010. And, in the months ahead, I believe we are going to make a lot of progress on the green business front. Hopefully soon, lots of high-paying green business executive jobs will materialize.

Maybe now, as a result of this stunning Republican win in normally Democratic Massachusetts, green energy and green jobs will be less about politics – less about avoiding filibusters in the U.S. Senate – and more about getting people back to work, quickly.

To paraphrase President Obama, Green business should not be a Democratic Party or Republican Party priority. It should be an American priority.

So to Kwame and the rest of The Green Suits out there, I say forget politics. Green Business is here to stay.

And those green business executive jobs of your dreams? Get ready! They are on the way!