Small Businesses Highlight “Green Gazelles”

  • Piles of GreenCel are dumped outside KTM Industries in Lansing, Mich. It looks like garbage, but the biodegradable material will dissolve and wash away with the next rain. KTM is one of a number of new environmentally-conscious small businesses called "Green Gazelles." (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

Most environmental issues pit environmentalists against business interests. But now, people on both sides say working together might be the only way to help the nation’s economy, and preserve natural resources. So they’re teaming up to promote a group of fast-growing, environmentally-friendly small businesses called “Green Gazelles.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Most environmental issues pit environmentalists against business interests. But now,
people on both sides say working together might be the only way to help the nation’s
economy, and preserve natural resources. So they’re teaming up to promote a group of fast-
growing, environmentally-friendly small businesses called “Green Gazelles.” The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


People who love video games are scrambling to get their hands on the latest gadget in the
gaming world. It’s a new hard drive for Sony’s PlayStation2. The drive comes loaded with
a new version of the game Final Fantasy. And it comes packaged in a new kind of
environmentally-friendly foam, called GreenCel.


(sound of manufacturing facility)


“It’s gonna be a little loud out here.”


“What’s the smell?”


“It’s cornstarch, that’s exactly what you’re smelling.
We’re taking cornstarch and we’re doing something that nobody else in the world does.
We’re melting it, and then we’re foaming it into huge sheets.”


A company called KTM Industries makes “GreenCel.” It’s an organic packing material –
made from cornstarch, vegetable oil and water. Companies like Sony are using it instead of
products made with petroleum, like Styrofoam. Those products don’t break down naturally.


KTM also makes an arts and crafts product for kids called “Magic Nuudles.” The Nuudles
are made out of cornstarch, too. They look like those candy circus peanuts, but they’re in all
different colors. Kids can glue Nuudles to paper to make pictures. Or they can build things
with them.


Both GreenCel and Magic Nuudles dissolve in water.


Tim Colonnese is KTM’s president. He says business is so good right now
because people are getting smarter about how they spend their money.


“You’ve got a better educated population out there that recognizes that we can’t
continue to do business as usual. Our landfills are getting fuller, our air is getting
dirtier, our water is getting dirtier. And we’ve got to take those steps right now, as
our population increases and business increases, to start cleaning up our act.”


KTM is one of a new group of small businesses throughout the country, called “green
gazelles.” Green — meaning they make environmentally-friendly products using newer,
cleaner methods. And “Gazelles” — because they’re fast-moving companies able to quickly
apply new technology.


Colonnese started his company seven years ago. He says it was awhile before
KTM’s products became profitable. But now, Colonnese says his company and other green
gazelles could be the future of the American economy.


“So as big business takes its job elsewhere, where are those new jobs going to be
created? And it’s going to be created with small business, with innovators that come up
with new products and new processes that are completely different from what the big boys
are doing. And hopefully, if a few of us are successful, we will become the next large
company.”


And the numbers show that’s already happening. Mark Clevey is with the Small Business
Association of Michigan. He says green gazelles are creating new jobs in the
US. But Clevey says they’re doing so without a lot of financial help.


“These companies, although they’re fast-growing companies, one of the reasons they
grow fast is because their competitive advantage is based on some technological
advantage and, in order to get that technological advantage, they have to invest
several million dollars, at a minimum, in research and development. Banks don’t fund
that, venture capitalists don’t fund that, universities don’t fund it, nobody funds that
kind of technology.”


Except, Clevey says, the government to some extent. He says the US Department of Energy
offers grants to small businesses for research.


Clevey says most state governments offer tax credits and incentives for basic small
business development. But he argues it would be better in the long run if states would start
investing more in research and technology – even if it’s risky.


That’s something people in Rust Belt states are already talking about.


Steve Chester is director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.


“I think there are some things that we can do environmentally, for instance, we do
have a lot of grants and loans that we provide. And to the extent that we might be
able to prioritize green technologies, I think that’s something we should try to do.”


Supporters of green gazelles are hoping to persuade Congress that helping green companies
is the best way to help the environment. During upcoming Congressional hearings, they’ll
ask lawmakers for more financial support and tax incentives for green gazelles.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Tapping Nature’s Cupboard for Pollution Cleanup

Often our first impulse to clean up a mess is to reach for a chemical cleaner. It’s the same kind of approach in environmental clean-ups. Often the experts first turn to chemicals to clean up badly polluted areas. A new approach to cleaning up pollution has been evolving in recent years. Instead of creating new chemicals to clean up contaminated areas, researchers are trying to use what Mother Nature already provides. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has more:

Transcript

Often our first impulse to clean up a problem is to reach for a chemical cleaner. It’s the same kind
of approach in environmental clean-ups. Often the experts first turn to chemicals to clean up
badly polluted areas. A new approach to cleaning up pollution has been evolving in recent years.
Instead of creating new chemicals to clean up contaminated areas, researchers are trying to use
what Mother Nature already provides. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has
more:


Nathalie Ross is standing in front of a big water tank divided into three sections. She’s a scientist
at Canada’s National Water Research Institute. She’s working on a different kind of approach
towards environmental cleanup. She explains she’s letting Mother Nature clean up different
aspects of pollution in each section of the tank.


“The first one is what we call natural attenuation, which is based on the natural process to
degrade contaminants, so that’s what we can call our control.”


In the second section, nutrients are added to the water to feed the existing bacteria to see if they
can be stimulated to clean up the water that’s polluted with chlorinated products.


“The third tank, in addition to the nutrients, we add bacteria. And those bacteria were shown to
degrade the chlorinated products, so we are hoping that it would speed up and also complete the
process to the end where we are hoping to see no contaminant at all.”


What Ross is demonstrating is “Green Chemistry.” Also known as Green Technology, the
concept is simple – instead of creating brand new chemicals, it’s becoming increasingly possible
to use the chemicals and processes already available in nature. The thought is that naturally
occurring compounds will be less harmful than the ones that we invent in the lab.


There are two streams of green chemistry – one is using environmentally conscious principles in
the production of new products and processes – water based paints and fuel produced from corn
are a couple of examples. Nathalie Ross is demonstrating the other stream – using naturally
occurring substances and biological agents such as bacteria to clean up the pollution we’ve already
created.


Jim Nicell is doing similar work. He’s an associate professor in the Department of Civil
Engineering at McGill University in Montreal. He’s working with enzymes that will clean up
toxic waste. He’s found a surprisingly ordinary source of the enzymes – a piece of horseradish
root.


“You can take your horseradish, put it in a blender, get the horseradish sauce if you want and
have it for supper. But before you do that, squeeze out the juice which is pretty awful, raw,
smelly stuff, which actually has a high concentration of this enzyme. I literally took that juice
and added some hydrogen peroxide and into a solution that contained some pretty toxic materials
and they just precipitate out. And so with a very small quantity of this enzyme we can actually
have a major impact on reducing the toxicity of that waste.”


The simplicity of Green Chemistry has been gradually attracting the attention of scientists and industry over
the past fifteen years. In terms of scientific developments, it’s still pretty young. But it’s a
concept that makes a lot of sense to Nicell.


“Nature is a whole lot smarter than we are. It’s had a lot more time than we’ve had to optimize
the way things are carried out. Now, we have a whole bunch of industrial catalysts that we have
made in the past but we don’t have nearly the time or, I guess, the capability, the experimental
setup that nature has had to produce the optimal catalysts.”


It might seem like an ideal solution, but critics say we need to be careful. One of the concerns
which has been raised is ecological balance – whenever large quantities of any substance are
released, even natural ones, there is often a risk that we’ll change the environment in ways we
don’t want to.


Brian McCarry is a scientist with the Department of Chemistry at McMaster University in
Hamilton, Ontario. He says, despite that concern, we shouldn’t be overly worried.


“They’re natural organisms, they’re not pathogenic. I don’t think they’re going to disrupt the
balance of nature. They’re not like putting in some really vigorous organism that takes over.
These are also not mutant, genetically engineered organisms so I don’t think anybody should be
terribly worried about having all sorts of strange genetic material floating around that are now
going to get into the ecosystem and run amok.”


There’s one other big concern about Green Chemistry: the cost. Both Nathalie Ross’s water
project and Jim Nicell’s horseradish experiments are still in the early stages. It’s not clear yet
whether it will be cost effective for large-scale industrial applications. But given the benefits of
green chemistry, advocates hope that the value of using the simple answers nature offers will also
be considered, not just the cost.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.

Related Links

Green Technology Can Defeat Terrorism

Small-scale on-site power generation technologies help protect the environment. Will they also help to protect us against terrorism? Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Byron Kennard argues that they can:

Transcript

Small-scale on-site power generation technologies help protect the environment. Will they also help to protect us against terrorism? Our commentator Byron Kennard argues that they do.


Like every American, I am mourning the tragic losses that terrorists have inflicted on our nation. But I mourn too because I fear that in the aftermath of these attacks, environmental protection efforts will be sacrificed to the awful necessities of war. I am reminded of a remark Tolstoy once made to a young friend, “You may not be interested in war,” Tolstoy warned,” but war is interested in you.” War’s interest in the young is fully matched by its interest in the environment.


Apart from what the US does to go after bin Laden, we must also pursue peaceful solutions to this challenge. The best of these options is to vastly increase economic opportunity for the world’s poor. After all, it’s their desperation that provides the breeding grounds for fanaticism. As Jessica Stern, author of The Ultimate Terrorists, observes: “Force is not nearly enough. We need to drain the swamps where these young men thrive. We need to devote a much higher priority to health, education, and economic development or new Osamas will continue to arise.”


Economic development will be hard to achieve and will take much time. But in it environmentalists can find some solace. There are environmental ways to develop economies and often these make the most sense for the world’s poor. For example, two billion people in the world have no access to electricity. Providing them electricity for lighting, clean water, refrigeration and health care, and radio and television is perhaps the best single way “to drain the swamps.” The best way to make electricity available to the world’s poor is through on-site generating technologies that are the environment friendly.


These “micro power” devices generate electric power on a small scale close to where it is actually used. They include fuel cells, photovoltaics, micro generators, small wind turbines, and modular biomass systems. For instance, a micro generator the size of a refrigerator can generate 25 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power a village in the developing world.


The environmental approach toward energy sufficiency in developing nations has been to utilize micro credit. That means providing poor people with affordable mini-loans to purchase on-site energy generators, or micro generation. Currently the US leads the world in exporting solar electric, small wind, fuel cells, and modular biomass systems to the developing world. Such exports of energy generation have become a $5 billion per year market, so this environmentally benign strategy is also economically productive. In short, electrifying the poor regions of the world will benefit our people, our planet and the cause of peace.