This is it! The final week of the b5media Apprentice Challenge, and from over 30 blogs on the b5 Business Channel there are just four left: Bookkeeping Solver, Home Biz Notes, Successful Blog and Greener Assets! You get a say in the final decision, vote for your favorite final Apprentice Challenge post from these four blogs by leaving a comment! Your comment is a vote for that blog!

The final challenge is: Why do you blog? In my mind, the challenge question and answer are one in the same:

What Can One Person Do?

To be honest, I used to think that blogs were for lonely people looking for dates. I’m not kidding. Then I discovered that bloggers were using the internet for positive change. Like TreeHugger, where you can learn something sustainable every day. And Zen Habits, where one man shares his journey of transformation and invites you to join him. Or Sphere, where threatened natural and national treasures find an recommend. I found a thriving discourse in the blogosphere where my ideals were gaining momentum through the global connection of the internet.

“the honour and distinction of the individual consist in this, that he among all the world’s multitudes should become a source of social good” - From the Baha’i Faith

So in order to find a platform where I could be heard I turned to b5media and asked, What does bubble gum have to do with birds? What does your new deck have to do with people in Bolivia? What do spiders have to do with Kevlar? The answers to these questions and more have become my voice in the on the internet environmental movement.

I’ve learned that carelessly discarded bubble gum is fatal to birds, it’s a simple fact that I want people to know. I’ve seen, first hand, how products made from responsibly harvested wood protect tropical forests and want people to know that their consumer choices really do make a difference. I understand that if we use biomimicry principles we could produce a material stronger than Kevlar without generating pollution, just like spiders do every day, and my hope is that by bringing the subject to forum someone will be inspired to find a solution.

When a company finds a new way to harness the wind for electricity I want to tell people. When an individual has made a difference I think that sharing their story can inspire others and lift the cloud of environmental ‘doom and gloom’, even if just for a moment. I believe that if my responses and posts about what I see and learn about the environment have an impact on even just one person than my time here in the blogosphere is well spent. And I’m not alone.

Since I started with b5media, first at Daily Tomorrow and then here at Greener Assets, I witnessed and took part in the first Blog Action Day where the founders asked What Can One Person Do? The answer was a tremendous roar of blogging heard around the world on October 15, 2007, when more than 20,000 individual bloggers across the globe united and said that the environment matters to them.

By uniting the world’s blogging community we can raise awareness of the environment, get people thinking and trigger a global debate. - United Nations Environment Programme

Blog Action Day reached millions of people worldwide, and that was just one day. As an environmental blogger for Daily Tomorrow, Greener Assets, Inhabitat and Green Redux, each day is Blog Action Day for me. What keeps me writing is the knowledge that the world is one large interconnected system that includes everything from ecology to economics to the web, and I dig that.

So why do I blog? I blog because it’s what one person can do.

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Happy New Year!

The new year has arrived and promises to be exciting here at b5media. Looking back, 2007 was definitely a newsworthy year for businesses and the b5media Business Channel had it covered. Some businesses experienced record profits, some businesses spiraled into bankruptcy and some just kept getting greener.

Here as promised, in one convenient package, are the top business stories of 2007 from across the b5media Business Channel:

If you read Behind the Buzz even a little, you knew that Barbie Girl would make the list of the top posts in 2007. Find out what else did.

Brandcurve offers a review of branding and marketing for 2007 along with a look back at what people were speaking about this year. Paris Hilton? Red Cross? Disney? It’s all there.

Sure, the hookers got all of the attention but what else did you miss this year on Buzz Networker? Social networking goes under the microscope: what was hot and what wasn’t this year?

Copyblogger doesn’t just offer us a “best of” list - it’s a play by play of what makes Copyblogger a top blog (pick a list, any list).

Doing Biz Abroad reminded us about the pitfalls of assumptions and cultural challenges that you may face in the international business world.

Franchise Pick exposes 10 Terrifying Tales of Fraud, Failure & Franchising.

Here at Greener Assets it’s the Green Biz year in review. Is green the new black?

Home Biz Notes rounds out the year with five popular posts including Mary Emma’s winning country grocer entry and mistakes for the home business owner to avoid.

In a move that stunned many, Alberto Gonzales resigned his post as the top lawyer in the US. Interview Chatter highlights other career and hiring stories of 2007.

For those of you playing along at home, Just Make Money On the internet focuses on the very ideal posts tackling making money on the web for 2007.

Leadership Turn made 2007 about thinking outside of the box when it comes to leading and managing. She offers her top six posts here: Are ethical values set or fluid?, The quandary of ethics, The effects of CEO map, The number one world beating best motivator, More-on-comfort-zones, What leaders should do to have the perfect attitude

Pimp Your Work reminds us of the ideal ways to deal with your boss. Yeah, sucking up made the list.

Project Management 411 wraps up a short year with ten top stories from 2007. Innovation appears to be a common thread.

Small Business Boomers wishes you perspective and humor for 2008 with commentary on why looking back is important.

Start Up Spark gets our attention with the top three start-up stories for 2007 and the site’s most popular posts. They aren’t necessarily the same.

Successful Blog doesn’t make this a year end event. On the site, there’s a whole page of the best posts year round.

Taxgirl offers the top ten taxgirl headlines of 2007. Jail, pregnancy and college football - we had it all this year.

The Golden Pencil confirms her most popular post of 2007. Stats don’t lie.

With the end on its way out, the economy is still reeling from the subprime mortgage fiasco and government bail-outs. Yielding Wealth reflects on the biggest stories that affected personal finance.

We wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year! And don’t forget to cease by and check out all of the business goodness here at the b5media business channel in 2008. We can’t give you the details but changes are afoot. And we promise, it’s going to be a very good year!

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Happy New Year!

The new year has arrived and promises to be exciting here at b5media. Looking back, 2007 was definitely a newsworthy year for businesses and the b5media Business Channel had it covered. Some businesses experienced record profits, some businesses spiraled into bankruptcy and some just kept getting greener.

Here as promised, in one convenient package, are the top business stories of 2007 from across the b5media Business Channel:

If you read Behind the Buzz even a little, you knew that Barbie Girl would make the list of the top posts in 2007. Find out what else did.

Brandcurve offers a review of branding and marketing for 2007 along with a look back at what people were talking about this year. Paris Hilton? Red Cross? Disney? It’s all there.

Sure, the hookers got all of the attention but what else did you miss this year on Buzz Networker? Social networking goes under the microscope: what was hot and what wasn’t this year?

Copyblogger doesn’t just offer us a “best of” list - it’s a play by play of what makes Copyblogger a top blog (pick a list, any list).

Doing Biz Abroad reminded us about the pitfalls of assumptions and cultural challenges that you may face in the international business world.

Franchise Pick exposes 10 Terrifying Tales of Fraud, Failure & Franchising.

Here at Greener Assets it’s the Green Biz year in review. Is green the new black?

Home Biz Notes rounds out the year with five popular posts including Mary Emma’s winning country grocer entry and mistakes for the home business owner to avoid.

In a move that stunned many, Alberto Gonzales resigned his post as the top lawyer in the US. Interview Chatter highlights other career and hiring stories of 2007.

For those of you playing along at home, Just Make Money Online focuses on the very ideal posts tackling making money on the web for 2007.

Leadership Turn made 2007 about thinking outside of the box when it comes to leading and managing. She offers her top six posts here: Are ethical values set or fluid?, The quandary of ethics, The effects of CEO map, The number one world beating best motivator, More-on-comfort-zones, What leaders should do to have the perfect attitude

Pimp Your Work reminds us of the ideal ways to deal with your boss. Yeah, sucking up made the list.

Project Management 411 wraps up a short year with ten top stories from 2007. Innovation appears to be a common thread.

Small Business Boomers wishes you perspective and humor for 2008 with commentary on why looking back is important.

Begin Up Spark gets our attention with the top three start-up stories for 2007 and the site’s most popular posts. They aren’t necessarily the same.

Successful Blog doesn’t make this a year end event. On the site, there’s a whole page of the best posts year round.

Taxgirl offers the top ten taxgirl headlines of 2007. Jail, pregnancy and college football - we’d it all this year.

The Golden Pencil confirms her most popular post of 2007. Stats don’t lie.

With the end on its way out, the economy is still reeling from the subprime mortgage fiasco and government bail-outs. Yielding Wealth reflects on the biggest stories that affected personal finance.

We wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year! And don’t forget to cease by and check out all of the business goodness here at the b5media business channel in 2008. We can’t give you the details but changes are afoot. And we promise, it’s going to be a very good year!

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Getting biofuel from algae isn’t a new idea but it is getting some new attention from Royal Dutch Shell. The company has just announced plans to begin a marine algae pilot facility in Hawaii.

The move is one of many commercially focused research initiatives aimed at tapping into biofuel sources that are less apt to cause land-use, deforestation and food price issues, like those associated with palm oil, corn and other crops.

Algae as a source of biofuel has been on the radar since the 1970s. The U.S. Department of Energy funded the ‘Aquatic Species Program’ study that ran from 1978-1996 through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The research focused on high-oil algae cultivation for biodiesel. At the time the program was canceled, algae was competing against low oil prices. Surging oil prices and advances in biotech over the past decade have refueled the algae biocrude race.

Shell’s plan is also driven by upcoming changes in “government mandates in the United Says and Europe that will require a small percentage of road fuels to be derived from renewable sources in coming years.” Algae just might prove to be the most lucrative biofuel choice. The crop has the potential to outproduce other biofuel crops by 10-200% per acre. Although Shell has a disastrous environmental record, the move towards algae-based biofuel has a lot of positive factors to take into account.

My biggest concern is why Hawaii? Algae grows anywhere and in any type of water, fresh, salt, brackish or wastewater so picking a fragile archipelago ecosystem to conduct this research in doesn’t make sense to me. Thoughts anyone?

Check out Algae Biocrude by LiveFuels, a national algae cultivation research initiative from the US DOE.

Via ENN

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Financial institutions are starting to see the “top-line”, money-making reality of delivering sustainability to corporate and retail clients…

says a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme Financial Initiative (UNEP FI). Recently released the report details green financial services and products and emphasizes the environmental, social and economic benefits of ‘green’ banking. The report highlighted that North American institutions aligned with green investing are poised to find a return that is both financially rewarding as well as a value fulfilling endeavor.

The report, Green Financial Products and Services: Current Say of Play and Future Opportunities in North America” (PDF), was presented at UNEP FI’s summit in Melbourne Australia earlier this year. Asset management, corporate and investment banking, insurance, project finance and retail were all included in the research. Products like energy efficient mortgages (EEMs), alternative energy venture capital and eco-savings deposits were points of consideration.

‘Tangible benefits’ to institutions could include: improved market share, increased profits, customer acquisition and loyalty, higher employee satisfaction and retention (uh huh), and positive media attention.

Social Funds reported that the UNEP FI report found “financial institutions in the US and Canada have much to learn about green banking products and services, the report notes. They are behind European financial institutions that are blazing the green path.” But noted, “consumers can expect lots of new green financial products to come out in the market over the next six months.”

Some of the green finance products on the hot list include:

• green or energy efficient mortgages (EEMs)
• green home equity loans
• green commercial building loans
• green automobile loans
• green credit and debit cards
• green fiscal funds

Even though the financial institutions might be dragging on green moves, the market is there. According to a recent Yale pole, 75% of Americans acknowledge that their behavior can help reduce global warming, and 81% feel it is their responsibility to take action against this environmental challenge. Among top consumer choices are opting for renewable energy and considering an substitute vehicle.

*UNEP FI is a global partnership between UNEP and the financial sector. Over 160 institutions, including banks, insurers and fund managers, work with UNEP to understand the impacts of environmental and social considerations on financial performance.

Via Social Funds

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Getting biofuel from algae isn’t a new idea but it is getting some new attention from Royal Dutch Shell. The company has just announced plans to start a marine algae pilot facility in Hawaii.

The move is one of many commercially focused research initiatives aimed at tapping into biofuel sources that are less apt to cause land-use, deforestation and food price issues, like those associated with palm oil, corn and other crops.

Algae as a source of biofuel has been on the radar since the 1970s. The U.S. Department of Energy funded the ‘Aquatic Species Program’ study that ran from 1978-1996 through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The research focused on high-oil algae cultivation for biodiesel. At the time the program was canceled, algae was competing against low oil prices. Surging oil prices and advances in biotech over the past decade have refueled the algae biocrude race.

Shell’s plan is also driven by upcoming changes in “government mandates in the United States and Europe that will require a small percentage of road fuels to be derived from renewable sources in coming years.” Algae just might prove to be the most lucrative biofuel choice. The crop has the potential to outproduce other biofuel crops by 10-200% per acre. Even though Shell has a disastrous environmental record, the move towards algae-based biofuel has a lot of positive factors to take into account.

My biggest concern is why Hawaii? Algae grows anywhere and in any type of water, fresh, salt, brackish or wastewater so picking a fragile archipelago ecosystem to conduct this research in doesn’t make sense to me. Thoughts anyone?

Check out Algae Biocrude by LiveFuels, a national algae cultivation research initiative from the US DOE.

Via ENN

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San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric Co. will be the first U.S. utility to purchase electricity generated by wave power. PG&E’s new contract will use electricity in its new contract would come from a wave project planned by Canada’s Finavera Renewables Inc. for the waters off the coast of Northern California’s Humboldt County, according to the LA Times.

The PG&E Corp. subsidiary said power from the 15-year deal would be delivered beginning in 2010 and would provide a relatively meager boost to the grid — just 2 megawatts, or enough to power about 1,500 homes. But the company stated the power deal was a significant milestone for a promising technology that could be a major source of renewable energy for the say. - LA Times

The move by PG&E to embrace this emerging technology shows that the market is there for innovative renewables. In California, new laws require utilities to obtain 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010. Wave power has the potential to capture more energy in less space than wind and solar power systems.

Finavera’s “wave park” would include eight bobbing buoys set up roughly 2 1/2 miles off shore from Eureka, Calif. The up-and-down motion of the Pacific Ocean would power a pump that creates electricity, which would be delivered to a PG&E substation via an underwater transmission cable. - LA Times

There are still concerns about the impact of this technology on the region’s fishing industry, wildlife and outdoor recreation but Finavera has been conducting tests off the coast of Oregon and is involved with wave energy projects in Portugal, Canada, the United Says and South Africa.

You can check the launch of Finavera’s Aquabouy 2.0 Wave Power Generator over at Inhabitat.

See how it works (Finavera Renewables video)…

Via LA Times

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Financial institutions are starting to see the “top-line”, money-making reality of delivering sustainability to corporate and retail clients…

states a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme Financial Initiative (UNEP FI). Recently released the report details green financial services and products and emphasizes the environmental, social and economic benefits of ‘green’ banking. The report highlighted that North American institutions aligned with green investing are poised to find a return that’s both financially rewarding as well as a value fulfilling endeavor.

The report, Green Financial Products and Services: Current Say of Play and Future Opportunities in North America” (PDF), was presented at UNEP FI’s summit in Melbourne Australia earlier this year. Asset management, corporate and investment banking, insurance, project finance and retail were all included in the research. Products like energy efficient mortgages (EEMs), alternative energy venture capital and eco-savings deposits were points of consideration.

‘Tangible benefits’ to institutions could include: improved market share, increased profits, customer acquisition and loyalty, higher employee satisfaction and retention (uh huh), and positive media attention.

Social Funds reported that the UNEP FI report found “financial institutions in the US and Canada have much to learn about green banking products and services, the report notes. They’re behind European financial institutions that are blazing the green path.” But noted, “consumers can anticipate lots of new green financial products to come out in the market over the next six months.”

Some of the green finance products on the hot list include:

• green or energy efficient mortgages (EEMs)
• green home equity loans
• green commercial building loans
• green automobile loans
• green credit and debit cards
• green fiscal funds

Although the financial institutions might be dragging on green moves, the market is there. According to a recent Yale pole, 75% of Americans acknowledge that their behavior can help reduce global warming, and 81% feel it is their responsibility to take action against this environmental challenge. Among top consumer choices are opting for renewable energy and considering an substitute car.

*UNEP FI is a global partnership between UNEP and the financial sector. Over 160 institutions, including banks, insurers and fund managers, work with UNEP to comprehend the impacts of environmental and social considerations on financial performance.

Via Social Funds

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San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric Co. will be the first U.S. utility to purchase electricity generated by wave power. PG&E’s new contract will use electricity in its new contract would come from a wave project planned by Canada’s Finavera Renewables Inc. for the waters off the coast of Northern California’s Humboldt County, according to the LA Times.

The PG&E Corp. subsidiary stated power from the 15-year deal would be delivered beginning in 2010 and would provide a relatively meager boost to the grid — just 2 megawatts, or enough to power about 1,500 homes. But the company stated the power deal was a significant milestone for a promising technology that could be a major source of renewable energy for the say. - LA Times

The move by PG&E to embrace this emerging technology shows that the market is there for innovative renewables. In California, new laws require utilities to obtain 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010. Wave power has the potential to capture more energy in less space than wind and solar power systems.

Finavera’s “wave park” would include eight bobbing buoys set up roughly 2 1/2 miles off shore from Eureka, Calif. The up-and-down motion of the Pacific Ocean would power a pump that creates electricity, which would be delivered to a PG&E substation via an underwater transmission cable. - LA Times

There are still concerns about the impact of this technology on the region’s fishing industry, wildlife and outdoor recreation but Finavera has been conducting tests off the coast of Oregon and is involved with wave energy projects in Portugal, Canada, the United Says and South Africa.

You can check the launch of Finavera’s Aquabouy 2.0 Wave Power Generator over at Inhabitat.

See how it works (Finavera Renewables video)…

Via LA Times

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Think the green market is dominated by youth? Think again. A survey from AARP and Focalyst has found that forty million boomers are thinking about the environment when it comes to brand selection:

The green thing is not just for kids… a new report out from AARP Services and Focalyst on boomers and how social consciousness is alive and kicking when it comes to how they spend their money. According to the survey results 40-million boomers vote with their wallets and buy environmentally safe brands. Referred to as “Green Boomers,” this big segment is often more demanding of quality in the products and services they buy, more attuned to advertising, both positively and negatively, and exhibit higher brand loyalty than other boomers. - Jill Greenburg, AARP

Boomers have a significant impact on today’s ever-greening economy with consumer behaviors that include buying organic foods, locally produced goods, using energy-efficient fixtures, investing in renewable energy and contributing to community efforts for the environment. And it’s not just wealthy boomers…

What’s driving the trend? It’s likely a combination of factors but one thing is certain, the trend is growing. And with more than half of the 79 million boomers on board with environmentally responsible spending they represent a huge part of the green economy. Perhaps it’s just true that with age comes wisdom and going green just makes sense.

More:

• Boomers Discover That It’s Easy Being Green at USA This day

Via EL

*In another study, Focalyst found that more than 80 percent of baby boomers are online…New Study Shows Baby Boomers are On the web (PDF)

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