By Margaret Zokowski, Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship
New York is poised to emerge as a national, and perhaps international, center for renewable energy and energy efficiency innovation. And business schools like the Lally School of Management & Technology are training tomorrow’s business leaders who will manage and commercialize these emerging technologies.
Rafe Pomerance, president of Clean Air – Cool Planet (CA – CP) and a former deputy assistant secretary of state for environment and development, along with Bob Sheppard, corporate program manager for CA – CP, spoke at an expanded session of the Severino Interest Group (SIG) breakfast meeting December 10, 2008. The SIG is a university-community business and technology collaborative sponsored by the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship, located in the Lally School of Management & Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “Clean Air – Cool Planet introduced Capital Region businesses to a cost-effective corporate program that can green their bottom line, and to a little known initiative that could galvanize New York’s clean-tech industry,” noted Jean Howard, director of the Severino Center.
CA – CP is in the business of solving the global warming problem and a leader in climate policy initiatives. The Portsmouth, NH-based organization develops economically efficient and innovative climate policies, and motivates civic engagement to implement practical climate solutions. Sheppard outlined cost-cutting carbon emission reduction strategies that New York businesses can implement immediately while “keeping their doors open,” as well as other initiatives to stay ahead of the regulatory curve. More than four dozen corporations from Maine to Pennsylvania participate in Clean Air – Cool Planet’s corporate partnership program, including three New York companies—Harbec Plastics, Harney & Sons Fine Teas, and Mohawk Paper Company. The program offers businesses guidance and cost-efficient solutions from emission inventories and energy audits to supply chain management and alternative fuels, as well as stakeholder messaging and disclosure. CA – CP’s corporate partners annually reduce regional CO2 emissions by more than 1 million tons.
With the incoming Obama Administration, global warming and climate policy are sure to move "front and center" January 20, 2009. And the creation of green jobs is considered a key part to any stimulus package the President-elect might endorse. Focusing on high-risk and high payoff energy R&D is also likely to be a critical component in the new Administration’s overall energy policy strategy.
Establishing and empowering ARPA-E is one of 25 recommendations CA – CP calls for in its recently released bi-partisan report, Building a Foundation for Success: Recommendations for Early Action on Climate Change. The comprehensive plan offers specific recommendations for action in the first 150 days after election. ARPA-E’s “birth” coincides at a time when some of the country’s leading minds and opinion-makers (university presidents, economists, entrepreneurs, and businesses) are publicly calling for the U.S. government to double or even triple energy R&D expenditures, in order for the U.S. to enhance its economic and energy security. While Congress established ARPA-E in August 2007, the agency currently remains unfunded. Clean Air – Cool Planet is currently focused on defining the management structure of ARPA-E,
developing a transition strategy for ARPA-E and new approaches to energy, and ensuring the new Administration has a roadmap for the administrative, fiscal and organizational steps necessary to create ARPA-E.
Modeled after the Defense ARPA, which produced the Internet, GPS and other wireless technologies, ARPA-E is intended to fast track transformational energy technologies and bridge the gap between lab and market. Envisioned is a national consortia comprised of industry, academia, national laboratories and others engaged in performing high-risk and high payoff energy R&D with funding from ARPA-E.
Once major technical barriers are overcome, these new energy technologies will be handed off to industry to create and commercialize products. According to Lois Peters, associate professor of management at the Lally School, “this will require tomorrow's business leaders to rethink how they integrate management of operational excellence with the uncertainties surrounding the introduction of new products and services based on emerging technologies.” In today’s environment, commercialization and entrepreneurship must go beyond new product development, new firm formation and even the marketing of high tech products. According to Peters, in order to build sustainable socially responsible businesses, Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship(TC&E) must also encompass solving “big societal issues” such as climate change, clean air, energy independence and the like. TC&E is not only about invention or creative business ideas, it is also about the processes required to create social value through addressing complex problems.
The MBA program at the Lally School of Management & Technology does just that by helping students take an integrated approach to solving business problems. It also introduces concepts related to national innovation systems, industry dynamics, and unintended consequences, and ethical dilemmas associated with emerging technologies. Focused on innovation, Lally instills a mindset in its students to think strategically about broader emerging technology consequences, as well as to understand the specific challenges related to business creation and marketing high-tech products. And in September 2009, Lally will offer a new master's program in Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship that will specifically address technology transfer and bringing technologies from the laboratory to market. Both programs build on Lally’s research programs on entrepreneurship and technology-enabled business creation.
Renewable energy and energy efficiency industries could create nearly 40 million jobs and generate up to $4.5 trillion in revenue in the United States by 2030, as estimated in a 2007 report released by the American Solar Energy Society. According to E2TAC, New York has “one of the most vibrant networks for clean energy-related research in the United States.” (New York’s Energy Technology Clusters, E2TAC, December 2007). And our state ranks 4th nationally in both renewable energy capacity and net generation (American Council On Renewable Energy – December 2008).
So what does ARPA-E mean for New York? Lending early and concerted support to the ARPA-E initiative, New York’s clean-tech industry, and its associated suppliers, state agencies and research universities, could find itself well-positioned within the Agency’s funding pipeline. ARPA-E funding would help to significantly accelerate the overall development of two key areas recommended in the first report by the state Renewable Energy Task Force. Specifically, New York’s research and development efforts in renewable energy, and enhancing and expanding collaborative clean-tech initiatives. In addition to NYSERDA and other state funding initiatives, ARPA-E will help New York keep pace with global technology development in the energy sector.
While in the Capital Region area, Pomerance met with Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson, Chief of Staff Laban Coblentz, Acting Vice President of Research Wolf von Maltzahn,
and Dean of the Lally School David Gautschi, to discuss ARPA-E and possible next steps. Jenn Andrews, CA - CP's campus program manager met with Rensselaer's Student Sustainability Task Force to strategize on how to green the Institute's campus. The initial meeting identified several action items for follow-up with Clean Air - Cool Planet.
To learn more about the Lally School MBA and Master’s programs, please call 518.276.6565, email us at lallymba@rpi.edu, or visit our website at lallyschool.rpi.edu.
To learn more about the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship contact Jean Howard at howarj6@rpi.edu or 518.276.6587.
To participate in Clean Air – Cool Program’s Corporate Program contact Bob Sheppard at 603.422.6464 or visit www.cleanair-coolplanet.org.
The SIG monthly breakfast meetings take place at 7:30 AM with a networking session, followed by breakfast and program from 8:00-9:00 AM. For more information or to register please call Kelly Reardon at 518.276.2650.
The Future of New York Business Series
in partnership with The Business Council of New York 