Ride the Green Business Wave — How to Capitalize on Mother Earth, online
Business 2.0’s cover story for January/February is “Go Green. Get Rich.” The magazine takes a look at businesses tackling issues such as global warming, oil depedency, overfishing, drug-resistant infections, and so on. The oil price bubble combined with the (possibly) over-exagerated threat of global warming has spiked government intervention, investment, and subsidies. Even the so-called “blood for oil”, “big business” Republican administration is riding the wave.
All of this makes investing in the green revolution a pretty safe bet. Or, at the very least, it makes it a safe bet for those who know what they are doing.
As a web site publisher you can’t build the next electric car and selling gas mileage booster pills probably will be an open invitation to the FCC — so what can you do?
The interest in hybrid cars may have peaked — but certainly ad spending for them has not. As long as big mega-corporations pour billions of dollars into producing a product or enlarging mindshare through mass advertising — you can make money!
Here is a list of a few ideas you can try out:
-Hybrid cars. Try targeting a specific unreleased model or even concept car to avoid oversaturated competition. The ex-hippy, middle-aged, and middle-class demographic that you will attract may be very valuable.
-Solar Panels. I hear a whole lot of different companies are trying to cash in on this business. Its time to cash in on them.
-Energy Reduction E-books. Yes, there are people who will pay you $40 for you to tell them putting a brick in their toilet will cut their water bill by half a penny next month.
-Earth Friendly Investing. Blog about publicly traded companies who are in love with Gaia.
-Home Wind Power. If someone has $13,000 to drop on a big ugly metal Skystream 3.7 windmill, they are the type of person who would post obsessively on a message board about them.
What do you need to get started? How about a free copy of Wordpress or a 1 year vBulletin lease for $85.
Oh definitely. Whether global warming is real or not (personally I believe that manbearpig isn’t responsible for everything people say he is), you cannot deny that people are growing more and more interested in living green. I’ve been moving a lot of my stocks into some green companies lately, and this past summer I bought a lot of green technology related domains. To give a good example of a green site check out One Billion Bulbs run by a member of my forum. An original idea, easily marketed, and if he can get some big brand name advertisers he’ll get a nice cash windfall.
On a side note, I didn’t know there were personal home turbines for wind power. Would be perfect for my castle.
Comment by Chris Beasley — January 27, 2007 @ 8:19 am
Chris, when I was living in the UK a few years ago, I saw more than a few home wind turbines in suburbs of London which would probably be considered the same as an urban environment here in the US.
Andrew,
There is no bubble in oil! We just reached $50 a barrel lows because of the mild winter. China’s economy grew at the fastest pace in 10 years in 2006. They also decided to double their strategic reserves because the price was so low. India’s GDP growth continues to accelerate towards a Chinese level. Winter has come. You won’t see prices this low again until there is a big slow down or crash in Asian economies. Oil is only going up. Coal is going up. Alt fuels are getting to be more competative than fossils. The next few years will see cost inversions in energy markets across the board where alternative fuels become more economically viable than some traditional sources. I’m a believer in green based on pure economics without even taking into account the future costs of fouling our own nest with traditional fuels. Now turn off CNBC and FOX News, go read some climate journals and you will find overwhelming opininion that climate change is human induced. BTW, SEO Blackhat is the last place I would go for climate information. Try RealClimate if you want to find the experts.
Comment by Marc — January 28, 2007 @ 4:34 am
Just went through SEO Blackhat’s article. I could refute it point by point, but I don’t respect the guy enough to bother gracing his blog with my comment. In sum, it’s a parade of specious interpretation of facts from a layman in disagreement with the vast majority of experts. I would also refer him to RealClimate if he’s looking to tangle with the pros in a venue that is accessible to the general public.
Comment by Marc — January 28, 2007 @ 4:56 am
Well I’m hardly qualified to debate the environment. I’m certainly convinced that human pollution needs to be reined in, global warming or not.
There has definately been a bit of a bubble in commodities, across the board in the past 5 years — gold, silver, oil, and so on. Its not simply strong demand from the developing world but several other factors have played an big role. Cheap credit has created a big building boom, driving up these prices, along with speculators and investors running away from a mediocre US stock market.
On a side note, it appears that the Saudi’s really want to keep oil low for the short-term to put the pressure on Iran.
The high price of oil has resulted in an increase of investment into the industry. This means within several years we may actually see supply increase. The thing that is going to push alternative fuels is the government rather than the free market.
There is a huge push for this, the left was on board a decades ago, farmers are coming aboard because of ethanol (damn, are the fundamentals starting to look good on that one), and the business and entrepreneurial communities are being sold hard right now. I wrote this post because of a Business 2.0 article, the next day I got a new issue of The Economist, the cover story is “The Greening of America.”
For the lower class this sucks. The cost of transportation will continue to rise (if the price of oil stagnates, its going to see some nice taxes.) The cost of food should rise too due to ethanol production (less production of other crops.)
We’ll see what happens. The next decade is going to be interesting. I just wanted to give my readers a heads up for ideas.
Comment by Andrew — January 28, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
Good points Andrew. The stock market will come back from the rise in rates as investors rotate out of real estate in the next couple of years. Glad to hear you read the economist, uncommon in the web biz. I’m also glad you do care about the environment as well, it agrees well capitalism in general. Here’s my mythbuster: there is no such thing as a free market. All markets are bounded. Just depends on what side of the fence you are on.
Comment by Marc — January 28, 2007 @ 5:48 pm
Yeah, I just started subscribing to the Economist last month. Its nice to be able to read a magazine weekly that isn’t filled with the usual over-hyped US-centric stories.
Comment by Andrew — January 29, 2007 @ 1:32 am