Top 10 Green Industries

by Lisa Smith (Contact Author | Biography)

If you are looking for ways to put a little green in your wallet by putting some green in your portfolio, you might be surprised at the wide range of offerings available for your consideration. Let’s take a look at 10 interesting areas, which are highlighted below.

Wind

Windmill farms are sprouting up around the world. Australia, Europe and the United States are all investing in wind as a leading source of renewable energy. The business of wind not only includes the generation and sale of power, but also the design and construction of wind turbines. Few countries rely on wind for more than a tiny fraction of their power generation needs, but many countries are interested in the possibility. If this is of interest to you, look for wind farm companies that sell wind-generated energy or companies that produce the windmill technology. There are few pure play stocks that deal in wind in the U.S., which will likely change over time, but companies like General Electric (NYSE:GE) have a presence in this market.

Water

One of the most important natural resources we have is water as it is a necessity in our survival. However, there has been a lot of fear that we are running out of clean water sources as the global population continues to grow. To investors this has created a clear opportunity to invest in companies that collect, clean and distribute water. The largest water utility company in the U.S. is Aqua America (NYSE:WTR), which supplies water to nearly 3 million people. Another company in the industry, on the purification side, is ITT Industries (NYSE:ITT), which produces water purification systems that help to make drinkable water.To see the power of water, one needs look no further than China’s massive Three Gorges Dam project. While this $25 billion structure on the Yangtze River will be the largest hydroelectric power station in the world, it’s sure not the only one. Hydropower involves a lot of technology, a lot of infrastructure and a lot of power-hungry customers. Every one of those areas holds potential opportunities for investors. On the power side, two publically traded producers include PG&E Corp. (NYSE:PCG), which has one of the largest hydro operations and Idacorp (NYSE:IDA), which has 17 hydro projects. (For related reading, see Water: The Ultimate Commodity.)

Solar Energy

Solar energy is powering homes, buildings and a variety of other items from lights to radios. As the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise and their availability continues to decline, the future looks bright for solar energy. If you think the sun is just starting to rise on this industry the companies to look at are those that produce solar energy panels, which will benefit if homeowners and businesses adopt solar technology. Two of the leading producers of solar panals are Evergreen Solar (Nasdaq:ESLR) and Sunpower Corp. (Nasdaq:SPWR), which both develop, manufacture and sell panels and components and will directly benefit from the increased adoption of solar power.

Fuel Cells

On a smaller scale, researchers are working with fuel cell technology to develop an alternative method of powering automobiles. The U.S. government hopes that hydrogen powered cars will be commonplace by 2020. If this technology works, there are millions of cars – and millions of consumers – waiting for it. If you think this is the type of energy is the wave of the future there are a few companies that operate in the space and and develop fuel cell technology. For example, some of the largest producers include Ballard Power Systems (Nasdaq:BLDP), which produces cells that can be used in from cars to power plants, and Fuel Cell Energy (Nasdaq:FCEL), which focuses on providing power options to commercial and industrial facilities.  (For related reading, check out Getting A Grip On The Cost Of Gas.)

Efficiency

Just about every aspect of efficiency is good for the environment. Energy efficient construction and appliances reduce home energy use and energy efficient cars reduce our dependence on oil. From efficient lighting to creating the paperless office, innovative companies are developing innovative products that maximize the benefit that we get from the resources that we use. Efficiency is the watchword of the day and a developing field that will create the technologies that we will use tomorrow. (For more insight, see For Companies, Green Is The New Black.) This area is a little more difficult to invest in as there are no real pure play companies dealing strictly in efficiency. However, there are some companies that have done a great job at leveraging efficiency such as General Electric with its Ecomagination business unit.

Pollution Controls

Reduction is the key term here. From reducing green house gas emissions on industrial power plants to minimizing the emissions that come out of the tailpipe of your car, the pollution control industry is on the rise. Every time legislation mandates an improvement in the amount of some harmful chemical that can be released into the environment, the pollution control industry responds. If this is something you are concerned about, look for companies that develop pollution control technologies such as Fuel-Tech (Nasdaq:FTEK) and Versar (AMEX:VSR).

Waste Reduction

Recycling has become a standard practice for many people in recent decades. The stuff that was formerly thrown away and trucked off to the landfill is now turned into useful products. Most people are aware that household products such as paper, metal and glass are reprocessed and reused, but they never stop to consider the business behind these endeavors. Of course, these aren’t the only items that are reused; waste oil, vegetable oil, batteries, cell phones, computers and even parts from cars can have a second life. Recycling these items involves a business enterprise humming along in the background. (To learn more, see Less Trash For More Cash.) In terms of your portfolio, waste management companies with a large base of recycling facilities may be of interest including companies such as Allied Waste Industries (NYSE:AW) and Waste Management (NYSE:WMI).

Organics

Organic farms eschew the use of pesticides, engage in sustainable farming practices and sell products that are often healthier to eat than the stuff composed of three-syllable words that you can’t pronounce and a shelf-life measured in decades. They also engage in animal management practices that avoid the use of hormones and antibiotics, keeping those chemicals out of the food chain and out of the ground and water surrounding the farms. It’s good food – and good business. With U.S. organic food sales reaching $17 billion in 2006, there is a huge market for organic food producers and grocery stores. Some of the biggest organic food companies include Whole Foods Markets (Nasdaq:WFMI), United Natural Foods (Nasdaq:UNFI) and NBTY (NYSE:NTY) among others.

Best In Class

For many companies, the urge to go green is a relatively recent phenomenon. Like change everywhere, some firms adapt and some don’t. Investment managers in the “green” space have begun to categorize firms by the place they hold along the “green” spectrum. Take oil companies for example. One would be hard pressed to think of these firms as green, and for the most part, they aren’t. But if you take a closer look at their business models, it is easy to see that some are greener than others. Choosing the firms with the best environmental records and practices is another way of looking at “green”. (To learn more, read Can Business Evolve In A Green World? and Change The World One Investment At A Time.)

How to Grow a Green Portfolio

If a “green” investment catches your eye, there are plenty of ways to find a place for it in your portfolio. Mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, stocks, bonds and even money market funds that focus on the environment are all available.

Editor’s Note: Please note that the companies mentioned in this article are examples to help you begin your research, not investment recommendations.

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Make a Good Living in the Emerging Green Economy

Green Careers For Dummies – Book Tour Central





The green economy is just beginning to unfold. The transition from business-as-usual to a new sustainable economy is opening up a wide range of opportunities that are likely to continue for years to come as new clean technologies, policies, and standards are adopted. Making sense of this new economy can be tricky, but if you’re committed to finding a career that will have a positive impact on the planet, this friendly guide gives you everything you need to land the job of your dreams.

Discovering the green frontier – learn how to navigate the world of green careers and get the inside scoop on the green economy

Finding your green focus – set your sights on the green career that matches your interests, highlights your strengths, and leverages your experience and education

Exploring careers in green industries – get a handle on the immense variety of job titles in the more than 50 industries that make up the green economy

Using job search 2.0 techniques – harness the Web to grow your green network, advance your green education, and claim your competitive advantage

Activating your green job search – discover how to target the eco-friendly companies, find openings for your talents, and take your green career to the next level

Rave Reviews about the Book
“Americans are bombarded with forecasts of glowing opportunities in the sustainable green economy, but, finding useful and reliable specifics in one place has been a challenge. That changes with the recent publication of Green Careers For Dummies, a definitive new guide by Carol McClelland, Ph.D. Without question, her Green Careers For Dummies ranks in the top tier of career books, a keeper that you’ll return to again and again. I know I will.”
—Joyce Lain Kennedy, syndicated columnist, “Careers Now”
“Carol McClelland does a wonderful job with this exciting new book, giving her readers the industry-centered information and resources they need to help begin the discovery of their very own green career niche. Highly recommended.”
—Jim Cassio, Author of the Green Careers Resource Guide and co-author of Green Careers: Choosing Work for a Sustainable Future

Book Launch Party!

Come celebrate with us at our Book Launch Party:
Carol will give a short talk about the book and then we’ll celebrate with conversation, refreshments, and the signing of books! If you are planning to attend, please RSVP so that we have enough books and refreshments on hand.  If you won’t know until the day, that’s okay. Drop ins are welcome!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
2 pm – 4 pm
Kepler’s Bookstore
Menlo Park, California
(Right across the street from the Menlo Park Caltrain station)

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What One Thing Can You Do Today

to Move Toward Your Green Career?

Any time you commit to making a career change you are faced with a seemingly endless list of tasks to handle. There are so many additional tasks to include in your daily life, you may feel a bit overwhelmed with how to get it all done.

A number of years ago, I made the decision to leave my corporate job and build my own business. At the time I had a full time job that had a way of extending into my personal time on a regular basis. I traveled for work at least once a month, if not more. And, on top of all that, I was recovering from a health challenge that had me very fatigued. Needless to say, it was a lot to handle.

With a vision of what I wanted, I became highly motivated to create my new work and life. Sixteen months after I created my goal, I walked out of my corporate job with everything I needed to start my business in place.

The first few months after I made the decision, I struggled with how to balance my current job and my quest to create my business. Finally, after some trial and error and frustration, I develop several strategies that allowed me to accomplish my goals bit by bit.

Strategies You Can Use to Manage Your Transition into a Green Career

Take a look at how you can implement these strategies in your own life.

•    Build an overall plan of what you need to accomplish to reach your green career goal. By clarifying the steps you need to take you can focus on one or two steps at a time rather than thinking you need to get everything done at once. Take a look at the left navigation bar of the Green Career Central site for an outline of the steps people generally take to change careers.

There are several benefits to having a step by step plan spelled out:•    You know what to do now and what you need to do next.

•    You keep a focus that allows you to track your progress.

•    You can better manage your time.

As soon as you lay out your steps, your next task is to estimate how much time you are going to need to accomplish each step, given what’s going on in your work and personal life. I found it was helpful to assign a step to a particular month. For example, you might say that for the month of November you are going to focus on Step 3, identifying your green niche. Then in December you can focus on Step 4, exploring and researching each of your target industries. If your schedule and responsibilities allow it, you may be able to assign a step to a one or two week time period rather than a month.

Extra Benefit: When an opportunity comes up – a networking meeting, a potential course you could take, or people you could talk to – you can discern whether that task helps you accomplish your planned goal or is a time-consuming distraction. By making this decision consciously you are staying true to your ultimate goal, rather than being lured from one potentially exciting opportunity to the next without any rhyme or reason to your actions.

•    Create or watch for free time that’s truly yours to design. Finding time in a busy schedule is a challenge. The busier you are with responsibilities for children, care taking, or your job, the harder it is. Look at your typical week (I know, even that can be a challenge… what’s typical?), but bear with me. Think of your week days — early morning, morning, midday, lunch, afternoon, early evening, late evening — and your weekends. Where in your schedule could you carve out some time for YOU? Is it before the kids wake up in the morning or after you put them to bed at night? Is it during your lunch hour at work? Or a block of time on the weekends?

Think of each potential block as a time oasis – a quiet time in the midst of your busy schedule where you can decide for yourself how you want to use your time. To actually make this happen, you may need to come up with a new way to set boundaries at work (actually taking a lunch hour out of the office) or with your family (having your kids understand that you have homework too.) Although you may not be able to live by this schedule 100 percent of the time, seeing windows of time will help you find ways to utilize them to your best advantage.

•    Each morning when you wake up, ask yourself, “What one thing can I do today to take me closer to my goal?” Although this question seems obvious and simplistic, creating a focus/intention/goal for your day will enable you to get results when it comes to reaching your green career goal.

Rather than wasting precious time trying to figure out what you should do next each time you have an open block of time, use your plan to show you exactly what to focus on.

•    If you don’t know your green niche, your first step is to identify your green focus. Pinpointing the areas of the green economy that interest you most is THE most effective ways to use your time wisely and get results. To identify your green niche, you can focus on the following tasks.

•    Start a list of green topics you know you are passionate about.

•    Surf the web or scan a green magazine to identify topics that intrigue you and add those to your list.

•    Think back to earlier times in your life to identify green themes in your reading choices, volunteer activities, or classes you took.

•    If you are a Green Career Central member, download the What’s Your Green Niche ebook.

•    Focus on the next exercise in the What’s Your Green Niche ebook.

•    If you’ve narrowed down your green niche to 2-3 possible target industries, turn your attention toward the following tasks.

•    Identify a professional association that matches your interests.

•    Find a local networking meeting to attend to learn more about your target industry.

•    Search LinkedIn for contacts who share your interests.

•    Locate a short course you could take to confirm your interests.

•    Research to find out what training is required to enter each of your target industries.

These bullets are just examples of the kinds of tasks you can accomplish in a day or a couple of days. The clearer you are in creating these doable tasks for yourself, the more efficient you’ll be in making progress.

If you have a collection of possible tasks listed, you can scan the list to find a task that is appropriate for the time you have available and where you are when you have the time. For example, if you are stuck in a doctor’s office waiting for an appointment, you might be able to do some brainstorming but you might not be able to do an Internet search. If you’ve had a long week, you might not be interested in a heavy duty research project, but you could do some quick searches online. Match your tasks to your energy, the time you have available, and the resources that are available to you at the moment.

With your step by step plan laid out and tied to your calendar, you can quickly identify individual tasks that will help you make progress toward the current step you are working on.The plan may feel too structured at first, but you’ll soon see you are able to make far more progress when you know where you are going and what tasks it takes to get there.

Copyright © 2009 Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc.

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An Employers Market

Irrespective of the current economic situation when it’s you that’s looking for a new position either because you want to, or have to, it’s good to have support. A friend once quipped, “yeah I know it’s hard out there…layoff’s, downsizing and everything – but I’m just looking for one job! One for me.” Good perspective…great attitude!

In today’s job market we’ve got to have it all working for us. A winning attitude, a record of performance, the ability to understand your potential employer’s problems – provide solutions to them and even more importantly… how to get yourself in the front of the hiring manager in the first place! Today’s career finding skills have become more complicated and simplified at the same time! Complicated by the magnitude of information, processes and assessments many employers utilize, and simplified by the speed at which information can be received.

We are now in an employer’s market…fewer  jobs in total with more people available. Within the solar industry this will shift as more capital comes into the market, but for now the edge goes to the employer who is more discerning as to the decisions their making.