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HOME >> COLUMNS >> GREEN ING I NDUSTRY AN D GRE EN INDUSTRIES IN MISSISSIPPI
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GREENING INDUSTRY AND GREEN INDUSTRIES IN
MISSISSIPPI
Posted on April 8. 2012 by admin
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By Eric Thomas Weber
For quite some time, people have associated environmentally focused efforts
with the Democratic Party, and hence with partisan disagreements.
Fortunately today people are coming to see that environmental friendliness
generally saves money and is a cause motivating big business development.
Mississippi could benefit from greater understanding of environmentally
friendly developments. There are many opportunities for industry to save
money through greening efforts and also for businesses to expand in the
areas that service demand for green technologies and energy saving
investments.
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President Carter put up solar panels on the Whitehouse , which were soon
after removed in Reagan's administration. Then, Vice President AI Gore
came to be well known for his advocacy on environmental issues, to the point
that he has been a key spokesman for related movements. Opposition to
environmentally beneficial technologies were often motivated by a desire to
keep industry free from excess government imposition. Plus, religious
motivations were at times raised, with the explanation that the Earth was
created for mankind's use. Human beings have dominion over the Earth, so
why not make use of it as we please?
In the last few years, a number of factors have refocused discussions about
the environment. First, rising gas prices have called into question for many
the wisdom of driving Hummers, for instance. I suspect that they might be
incredibly fun to drive in obstacle courses, but regular travel would be hugely
expensive in one, compared with the great, fuel efficient cars that are taking
over the market. In a Toyota Prius, for example, my family and I can drive to
Atlanta, 6 hours away from Oxford, MS, on slightly less than 10 gallons of
gas. With regular driving in the last few years, the fuel efficient car has been
fantastic for us. Whether one feels for environmental considerations or not,
people can understand the savings.
It helps, I think, to note the differences between people's experiences of
environmental forces. For example, having lived near New York City, then in
Atlanta and Nashville, I saw recycling efforts everywhere I have lived. There
are prices associated with landfills. The farther away are the landfills, the
more fuel is spent bringing trash to dumps. Plus, the slower one fills a
dump, the cheaper it is - the more delayed further costs are. So, recycling in
my experience has always had a clear and substantial impact economically on
large population centers I have known. Now that I live in Mississippi, by
contrast, land is quite cheap and the motivation for recycling is far weaker
here. Add that to the history of associating the practice with the minority
political party in the state and it becomes easier to understand why the
recycling movement has only lately caught on in small towns in the state.
Two developments, one at the national level and the other at the state level,
have inspired some changes as well. Historically strong critics of people like
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4/13/2012
Greening Industry and Green Industries in Mississippi | ProBizMS
Al Gore, such as Rupert Murdoch, who owns News Corp and thus Fox News
and the Wall Street Journal, have come to see the powerful forces of
environmental change. Murdoch saw the spreading wildfires in his native
Australia and understood quickly that climates have changed, leading to
dangerous conditions for a number of parts of the world. He wrote a letter
called “Duty to the Future,” published on the National Review Online,
explaining why his companies were going green. Beyond Murdoch, Pat
Robertson has helped reshape the religious message on the Right about the
environment, to recognize the idea that dominion over the Earth is consistent
with the demands of stewardship of such a great gift from the Divine. He
made a fun commercial with Reverend Al Sharpton for the sake of seeking
common ground about the environment.
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Thornton Honored by the American
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The second development is that Mississippians recently experienced
significant environmental problems. People all around were saddened by the
photos of wildlife affected by the B.P. oil spill. Mississippi’s shrimping and
coastal tourism industries were deeply affected for some time. Beyond that,
many people who have been quiet about the environment, but who have
loved it all along have begun speaking up. In particular, I am thinking of
hunters, who love the outdoors, the beauty of creatures and the connection to
the world that capturing your own food can motivate. In fact, people often
forget that the environmental philosopher Aldo Leopold was a hunter.
A bright conservative student of mine at the University of Mississippi, Elliott
Warren, had a number of these connections click. His love of hunting and the
outdoors motivated action and leadership for green initiatives on campus. He
was so driven and successful that he won a Sustainability Leadership Award
the next year at the University of Mississippi. He is centrally responsible for
the great program of game-day recycling for football games at the university,
which has kept literally tons of waste from going into the ground. Instead,
the new program provides the city of Oxford with materials that it can sell to
companies seeking cost-saving recyclables.
With all of these developments in the background, there are nevertheless
those who are skeptical of “green” initiatives, like the one the University of
Mississippi signed a few years ago. However particular people feel about
this initiative, there are great examples of substantial savings already at work
on campus, and ones that can be emulated in various ways by businesses
around the state.
I work in Odom Hall, which is one of the wings of the building called the
Trent Lott Leadership Institute. I have learned from campus sources that
our building in peak hours uses 65 to 70 Kilowatts per hour for its power.
Nearby, the newly built Center for Manufacturing Excellence, a larger
building, had solar panels installed on its roof. The panels do not provide all
the power for that building, to be sure, since it is a very large building. But,
they do provide more in peak hours than my building uses in its peak hours.
Those panels produce 80 to 90 Kilowatts per hour in their peak hours. They
generate 8 megawatts per month on average, according to Professor James
Vaughn, Director of the Center for Manufacturing Excellence at the
university.
Investments in technologies like the panels atop the Center for
Manufacturing Excellence may not yet be feasible for widespread use in
homes or in smaller businesses around the state, of course. But, technologies
like these are getting cheaper and cheaper to make. Plus, there are
countless efforts that are low in cost to adopt. A student of mine years ago
gave a speech in one of my courses and convinced me to change to compact
fluorescent bulbs around the house. The next month, I saw a drop in my
electricity bill from the previous month and in comparison with the year
before. The initial investment was about $150 for all new bulbs. Many
people are using low water usage toilets and shower heads now, for similar
reasons. Better insulation can make a big difference in the summer heat as
well, of course, and all of these efforts are small and accessible ways that
business can shave costs.
Those larger institutions that have to do maintenance with some regularity,
furthermore, such as the university, which has projects and updates to
complete each year, can budget for the long-term benefits of doing things in
the smartest way with regard to energy. Many of these ideas involve small
changes, but can make a difference to the bottom line. Plus, when one makes
http://probizms.com/columns/greening-industry-and-green-industries-in-mississippi/
4/13/2012
Greening Industry and Green Industries in Mississippi | ProBizMS
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an effort in this way, we can brag about it to those who will be attracted by
the idea. My favorite Oxford dry cleaner, Rainbow Cleaners, for example,
posts notices about the new methods it uses to cut down on waste products
and energy use. Plus, companies that profit from doing what is less
responsible, morally speaking, sometimes get hit hard in lawsuits, when the
results really hurt people, or in public image at least, which is itself a very
expensive thing to clean up once tarnished.
Beyond the process of making industry “greener,” there is also exciting
growth taking place in Mississippi in “green” industries. Both of these terms,
“greening” industry and “green” industries, are worth encouraging.
“Greening industry” is the process of making industries and institutions
more energy efficient, which makes for savings in money and from unwanted
environmental effects. It can include cutting costs on public schools and
other government buildings as well as in introducing cost saving measures in
the private sector. Next, “green industries” are generally associated with
things like electric windmills, fuel efficient cars, and solar panels, but they
refer equally, in my view, to the sale of products and services that somehow
take advantage of more energy efficient means of production or usage, or of
products made from materials that cost less environmentally speaking.
Green products can be quite simple, not always technical in nature. When
shopping at Walmart, if you have not tried out their great “Reusable Bags,”
you have no idea what you are missing. They cost 50 cents each. I use these
bags everyday for all sorts of reasons, including for carrying my lunch to
work or groceries home from the store. Granted, you have to pay for these
once, but they are much more comfortable to carry than everyday plastic
bags – given their thick handles – and they hold much more and more
robustly, all while being light to carry. Plus, they are strong, have many uses,
and also are made of reusable plastic that would otherwise eventually cost us
money to throw in landfills.
The more sophisticated forms of “green industries” are growing also, and in
Mississippi. Among these are Twin Creaks, Stion, and Soladigm, to name a
few. A former student of mine landed a job right after graduation in 2011
with one of these companies and had only exciting things to report about his
experience.
There are other countries and other states fighting to be at the forefront of
business development in green industries. There are also other states doing
more with tax incentives than we do in Mississippi to empower individuals
and institutions to green their workplaces. At the same time, Mississippi has
advantages for attracting business and can build on these, including low
taxes. We can also work to take advantage of the recent developments
through which people have come to see that “green” is not a partisan issue.
It is at times a matter of cost savings and at others of potential new markets.
We should welcome our new opportunities and think about how we can build
on them for cost savings and profit. Here at the University of Mississippi,
where tuition is around $6,000 per year, we can envision energy savings
translating into the language of scholarships made possible per month, for
example. When buildings cost thousands of dollars per month to power, the
value of alternate energy sources that can offset big institutional costs
become easier to imagine and understand.
If you are thinking of moving in the direction of energy cost savings only,
there are do-it-yourself options available at places like Home Depot, which
has a great guide online about all manner of products that can save money
and energy in the long-run. There are many more of these as public
awareness continues to grow.
We can all see that gas prices at best will only rise more slowly even if new
sources are found. It makes a lot of sense for business people to think of
long-term investments. We can save money, and make more too, by thinking
about industries that until recently seemed only to be of interest to small
numbers of Mississippians. Today, minds have changed and a culture has set
in that recognizes the need and opportunity for growth in green industries
and in greening industry.
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http://probizms.com/columns/greening-industry-and-green-industries-in-mississippi/
4/13/2012