Eco-conscious product suppliers and their prospective customers descended en masse this week on Phoenix for the annual Greenbuild convention. It is quite an event with over 1,800 exhibitors, several full days of educational conferences, and headline ‘bring on the crowd’ brand names offering inspiration and entertainment. To wit, last night’s marquee event was held at Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks and included a speech from Al Gore, and a concert by Sheryl Crow!

Beyond the headliners I was really impressed with the level of entrepreneurship on display at Greenbuild. I think a good way to measure entrepreneurship in a sector is by the amount of small sized booths at an event. Entrepreneurs typically can’t pay much, so they buy the smallest space available and go pitch their tent. The bottom line … lots of small booths at Greenbuild.

Among the areas where it seems Entrepreneurs are diving into the green space are:

1. Green Roofs, which are essentially a container of live plants and a drainage system that can be snapped together on a rooftop. Once installed, the systems dramatically reduce the heat absorption of the rooftop and thus reduce energy costs. There were at least 20 companies present at the show from various regions of the country marketing differentiated products and business models in this category.
2. Energy Efficiency Analysis and Improvement Service Providers offer a relatively low-cost capital efficient way for entrepreneurs to enter the green space. Residential and commercial energy efficiency plans employ a myriad of techniques from lighting and HVAC system improvement to insulation and window improvement to reduce energy expense in a structure. Given the multiple tools available, it’s not surprising that entrepreneurs have rushed to develop services and business models to help building owner get the most energy efficiency improvement per dollar spent … and prove the savings through software and reporting tools.
3. Geothermal Heat Pumps rely on temperature differential between ground and below ground levels. Certainly more capital intense than the first two items, this category represents an area where entrepreneurs with a mechanical focus are probing.

I believe next year’s show will be in Chicago, and if it’s anything like this year’s, it won’t be one to miss.

Tags: Entrepreneurship, Green Tech, greenbuild conference

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 9:15 am and is filed under Entrepreneurship, Green Tech, Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.