Companies that are evaluating their environmental impact and are doing something about it started to emerge. These eco-capitalist pioneers started using recycled materials in their packaging, even if at a higher cost than buying new packaging.
So, I believe the top eco & sustainability idea is finding new/creative ways to re-use already manufactured items. I have included links to a company that operates on this model, and audios of the company’s founder during a presentation.

There are plenty of interesting and unique “green”, “clean”,”eco friendly”, “environment friendly”  ,’ and ‘sustainability’ ideas, technologies and businesses. However, if I were looking for an idea to start a business with, I’d first look at places where the entrepreneur’s background meshes with the field. For example, if you have little experience in the energy generation space, then it might not me a good point to start there unless you have some partners who bring that talent and knowledge to the team.
That said, without knowing where your expertise/interest lies, if I am looking to start a business in the renewable energy and sustainability space, I would go into energy-efficiency finance space. Here’s the general business idea:
– Find a building or a company that wants to save money and "go green."
– Identify the opportunities to make the building more energy efficient, such as adding energy efficient lighting, motion-sensors for lighting in common areas and offices, advances HVAC systems, solar panels, efficient water toilets, etc.
– Figure out how much it would cost up front to put in all/some of these efficiency systems.
– Figure out how much savings the building/business would get from using these efficiency systems.
– Create a financial model to see how to fund this in a debt-like transaction, where you get a loan to install the energy efficiency system, install everything and then you receive a portion of the savings (say 50%) every month, and you pay 25% of that savings to the bank as interest.
– Find a financial institution that is willing to finance your business. Obviously, this piece is a challenge in the current economic environment, but I think it could work if the right partners were put together and the right investor or financial backer was found with unemployed capital.
That is a huge opportunity looking for the right player to come into the marketplace and make it happen. But it would require the right combination of a person with sales (to sell to the buildings) and finance (to get a financial institution to provide the capital for the projects).
What are tour ideas? I think there are some unique opportunities in this environment, both here and abroad.

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